Use This Process to Publish 20+ Articles a Month
It helped me publish over 100 articles in 5 months.
You’ve heard before that the only way to do well on an online platform is to write every day, I disagree. I mean, there's no point in doing something if you don’t enjoy it.
Try writing every day and turn up to your keyboard on day 10. You’d begin to dislike writing. It’s like Taco Tuesdays. It’s fun when you eat tacos on Tuesdays with your friends, but if every day were to be a taco day, you’d run away from tacos soon.
When I started writing long-form articles (750–2000 words) on an online platform in September 2020, I began by publishing 4 articles a month. That moved up to 10 and then 12. From March till today (mid-July), I’ve published over 100 articles in 5 months.
And no, I didn’t beat myself for it. Here’s how I did it, and you can too.
Things You May Already Know
And if you’re not a complete beginner, you probably do this. But let’s look over it, and I’ll keep it super short so you can move on to do things you may not yet know.
1. Writing 10 ideas a day
This works your creativity muscle. Not all ideas would be great, but at least 1–2 could be potential writing topics. The more you work your muscle, the stronger it’ll become.
2. Writing often
Writing 20 minutes a day 5 times a week is better than writing for 2 hours in one go. A little but frequent writing will lead to subtle improvements such as improving your tone, being aware of how you present research, and other nuances which shape your work.
3. Writing habit
No rocket science, but the above two will ultimately form a writing habit. When you write ideas you’ll be more compelled to write. And when you write every day, this groundbreaking thing happens — a habit is formed.
5 Tricks You Can Steal From Me
I spent my first few months reading heavily about being a better writer.
And after trying out others’ blueprint of success, I created my own. Here is what I do that helps me publish great volume each month without compromising on quality. I publish all my articles in premium publications to validate that.
And before we get into the quantity versus quality debate, let's accept algorithms favour quantity which is high quality.
1. Edit in the morning
In the beginning, you may be in a hurry to publish just to get your work out there. Maybe you’ll write in the morning and edit a few hours later. Take it from me — editing on a fresh morning brain helps. Your day has just begun, your mind is clear, and you’re more alert to catch onto the errors and flow of your first draft.
To do: Sleep on your draft and edit it the next morning.
2. Write with a timer
I’m currently typing this with a 40-minute timer. For the longest time, I wrote without a timer, which made me take longer than an hour to finish my first draft. This is because in the middle of writing, I’d look at research or hop onto YouTube or search for better cover pictures.
To do: Setting a timer will help you get focused and your article will finish quickly!
3. Switch off from writing
As a reader, it’s more intimate when an author mentions their vulnerabilities and personal experiences. Even as a writer, it’s easier to write when you mention deeply personal experiences. Fingers flow more easily on the keyboard when you’re familiar with what you’re writing.
To do: Live and experience more. Get off your keyboard more often and chase what fulfills your soul.
4. Don’t skip two days in a row
Unless you take two days off on weekend, which is perfectly fine. For me, writing was a side hustle next to my 9–5 which I only got rid of a few weeks ago. So Saturdays meant spending 2 hours working on my writing-related stuff.
To do: Skip the days you really don’t want to write, but get back to it the next day. If you don’t, it’ll get easier to skip than it is to write.
5. Don’t overthink and get attached
Will people like it? What will my high-school friends think? Why isn’t this article doing as well as I thought it will? Forget about it. Forget what will people think and how your article will perform, just write. Not all your articles will hit off. This month, my 3 articles have earned me more money than over 150 others.
To do: Focus on creating and putting it out in the world, and then create some more.
How Did These 5 Secrets Change Me?
There are 3 ways in which they’ve shaped me and improved my skill.
- Writing is fun: I don’t worry about writing because I’ve put myself into a habit of writing one article each weekday. It’s deeply embedded in my schedule that it doesn’t feel like ‘work’ anymore. I increased the quantity gradually instead of pressuring myself, so that helped too.
- High-performing articles: Since I’ve published so much and all in premium publications, a few of my articles have performed super well. It’s like the Pareto principle where 80% of the result comes from 20% of your output.
- Increase in income, decrease in effort: Writing often has made writing articles easier, more fun, and has improved my craft due to frequent practice. Win-win, isn’t it? Because of this, my skill, viewership, and bank balance are all growing with every passing month.
Superpowers I Don’t Yet Have
If I could master these two things, I’m sure I’d be a far better writer than I am right now. And in case you already practice any of the two, let me know in the comments how you do it.
1. Typing Speed
I’m yet to see anybody with a typing posture as bad as mine. My wrists stay high up in the air. I stare at my keyboard, and I only use two fingers at once. I’m only a tad bit better than somebody who hasn’t ever used a computer and uses one index finger to type.
If I typed better, I’d be more efficient with writing. Not to miss out that my hands and elbows would stop paining.
2. Impatience
I’m detached from my work. I want to write it and not worry about stats and other metrics, because I’d rather use that time to write another article. Detachment from work also means you find it easy to let it go and publish it anyway. Sometimes, I’m so done with editing a few times that I hit publish instead of coming back to it another day. Finding a balance between patience and detachment with your work will shape your articles better.
Lastly
If there’s just one takeaway you could go back with, I’d recommend — choose to make this journey fun.
Instead of stressing about your stats or other metrics, or worrying about the perfect writing process, just have fun. Because this journey can be as enjoyable and stressful as you make it to be, so choose fun.
And when you have fun, I promise it’ll be easier for things to fall in place and be okay even when they don’t.
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