10 Rules For Better Writing

By Charles Miller

Introduction
Typing out “10 Rules For Better Writing” feels strange because when I first wrote
these, I wrote 40 more. The full version of this sample has 50 total rules and 100
pages.

I tell you this because when you buy my course bundle, you get:

1. That book, filled with 40 more rules like these, and an accompanying
73-minute video.
2. My writing system that lets anyone write anything (explained in an
82-minute video with an accompanying document).
3. A 45-minute course on personal branding and social media marketing with
an accompanying 30-page PDF.
4. A 45-minute course on freelancing with an accompanying 30-page PDF.
5. Analysis of 25 pieces of copywriting.
6. Analysis of 130 viral social media posts.
7. A guaranteed positive ROI.

Of course, you can make it as an online writer without buying anything.

But getting a high-quality product like this from someone with proven results will
speed up the processes considerably. Click here to learn more.

Anyway, here are the rules…

Rule #1: You Don’t Matter

I recently had a conversation with someone who wants to be a writer. Within a

few minutes of chatting, I realized that she had a fatal flaw that would hold her
back, no matter how much she practiced. This flaw was shown to me by the
following phrase…

“I’m gonna write what I want to write, and if people don’t like it, they can f*ck off.”

A marketer would never say something like this, but she fancies herself an artist.
Perhaps she’s read too many biographies of famously stubborn and scathing
authors, perhaps she has a bit of an ego problem, or perhaps both. Regardless,
this mindset is absolutely toxic.

Writing is not a “single player game”, unless you make it one. If you want to, that’s
fine. Go get a notebook or a piece of software that mimics one, write exactly what
you want, and then don’t show it to anyone. Writing can be a form of therapy and
expression. There’s nothing wrong with that.

Of course, almost everybody who writes wants their work to be seen. Whether it’s
fiction, non-fiction, or simple text like work emails, they write to communicate
with others. In this situation, you are the performer and your reader is the
audience. You must perform for your audience, not antagonize them.

Imagine you go to a concert. It’s your favorite band. You want to hear their hits,
but instead of pleasing the crowd, they play only their least popular work. This
isn’t just a hypothetical. Bands really do this. Those bands don’t reach their full
potential because they aren’t serving their audience.

So, make sure you write for your readers. Yes, self-expression matters. Yes,
sometimes you want to push your readers outside of their comfort zone. No, you
don’t want to shamelessly pander to them by telling them every little thing they
want to hear. Still, you are there to serve, not to be served. To give, not take.

With this book, I’m not teaching you how to write like me, nor am I just giving a
lecture on what I care about most. Instead, I’m trying to give you the most value
possible. You want you to learn to write better. I’m here to help, not stroke my ego
by spending 50 pages telling you my life story.

When I write on social media (mostly on Twitter), I essentially just write out my
thoughts. That said, I don’t write all of my thoughts exactly as they come out. I
don’t write about my friends, the date I went on last Saturday, or my half-baked
political ideas. I don’t write about the poor experience I had at a local Chinese
restaurant. I don’t write about the sports game I’m watching. Nobody wants to
read that, so I don’t publish it

I described writing as a performance a few paragraphs ago, but in many ways, it’s
more of a dance. The writer takes the lead. The reader is their partner. A lead
doesn’t do whatever he wants, letting his partner trip and fall. Instead, he
gracefully takes that person through a piece of performative art.

This is the approach you should take to writing. Always think about how your
reader will feel with each word. For a work email, you want to be as clear as
possible. In a novel, emotionally moving. When writing advertisements, direct and
focused on persuasion.

Make sure you give your readers what they want. If that approach rubs you the
wrong way, go buy a diary so you can write for yourself in peace.

Rule #2: Well, Actually, You Do

Life is full of paradoxes. While your readers and what they’re feeling matter most,
you are the engine that delivers those feelings. Ideas have to come from
somewhere. They must be collected from the universe, compiled, and then
expressed through your words.

You don’t want to go to a concert and just hear music blaring out of big speakers.
You want performance. You want a person on the guitar, a person singing the
words, or at least a DJ mixing the songs up, reading the crowd, and choosing the
perfect vibe for the moment.

If every creator was the same, all content would be the same. Your writing is (or
will be) unique because you have a personal flare and style. You have experiences
that nobody else has. You have perspectives that few others can see. Your power
comes from being you.

The other side of this is noting how boring and generally unsuccessful copycats
are. You see this a lot in the content game, as the biggest names are endlessly
copied by thousands of smaller creators who will never see real success. You also
see it in advertising, where businesses will 100% copy another company’s strategy,
and again, the results are generally pretty bad.

This is a bit of a tangent, but I think we’re at a good spot for it. Let’s discuss how
you can walk the line between using established strategies and still being original.
If you try to build something brand new, your audience might not know that they
want it, and you’ll have to spend tons of money on educating them. If you create
something that isn’t new at all, your audience has no incentive to buy into your
brand instead of one that already exists. The sweet spot for 99% of writers and
entrepreneurs is finding something that works, then putting a unique spin on it,
either with the product itself or how they market the product.
Here are some examples…

1. G Fuel - There are thousands of energy drinks out there. Most of the big
names (like Red Bull) market themselves to the general population. G Fuel
took this established product, then built an entire brand identity and
marketing strategy around the gaming industry. This helped them grow
quickly in a crowded space.
2. Manscaped - Body trimmers have been around for a long time. Manscaped
changed the game by making their trimming product “skin safe” (so men
didn’t have to worry about cutting their private areas) and marketing their
products with amusing and eye-catching campaigns. These two factors have
made their brand explode in the past few years.

The purpose of this tangent is showing you how to find the balance between
borrowing what works while also being original. Find an established product,
service, or style, then put your personal spin on it.

Alright, let’s get back on topic. Though writing is for the audience, you are a
crucial piece too. Like doing a dance, there is a lead and a partner. You’re there to
entertain that partner, but at the same time, you want to entertain yourself and
show off your uniqueness.

People often talk about how much competition there is in the game of online
attention. This is true, but you can rise above the pack by being yourself. All it
takes is combining legitimate skills with you or your brand’s unique identity.

Perhaps an even better way to put it is that your skill and personality will attract
the right audience or clientele for you. Rising above everyone else is what massive
businesses like Amazon, Facebook, and Google are trying to do. What matters
most for your small business is differentiating it from the pack and finding your
tribe. Leveraging your personality does that.

Rule #3: Write To One Person (The Former You?)

One of the first things you learn in marketing is that you shouldn’t try to sell to
everybody. In fact, an exercise that’s always recommended before starting a
business is coming up with a handful of “ideal buyers” (also called “buyer
personas”), or even only one. You should do the same with your writing.

Some quick examples before we get into it. I used to sell copywriting services to
just about anyone who would hire me. I would also write anything they wanted,
including emails, websites, Facebook ads, and more. While I did okay, my results
exploded when I zeroed in on one ideal customer.

That ended up being mid-sized nutritional supplement brands that needed help
with email marketing. Their products and market were perfect for sending an
email or two every week, I knew the niche well because I was passionate about
fitness, and I was able to tailor my pitch to exactly what my ideal clients wanted.

Another example is Etihad, a luxury airline. They don’t try to sell their plane tickets
to the whole world, and they definitely don’t appeal to bargain buyers. Instead,
they market themselves to wealthy people who want to fly in style. One customer,
one message.

As a writer, this is a useful and powerful philosophy. It doesn’t matter if you’re

creating content or writing sales copy. Think about who you want to appeal to.
Maybe that’s a few different people, but ultimately, you should never try to
appeal to everyone. If you do, you’ll end up appealing to almost none of them.
That one person could be anyone, but if you’re in the content game, and perhaps
other games too, why not make it yourself? You can also think of this as “writing
to the former/younger you”. You know your struggle and transformation better
than anyone else, so you’ve basically already done the research.

This is the approach I’ve taken with all of my content. I was an unsuccessful
freelancer, became a successful one, and then created a product to help other
people do the same. I also started off as an unsuccessful content creator, became
a successful one, and then created another product to help people do the same.

Both of those products, and the content I create on social media, are basically
“what I wish I had when I started”. I’m writing to thousands of people, but in a
way, I’m actually writing to the younger/former me. I’m writing to everyone who’s
struggling like I used to, and I’m helping them move forward faster.

Now, this doesn’t always apply, especially for copywriters. The power of a great
copywriter (that’s not me, by the way, as I’m a few levels below the true elite
talents) is understanding their customers from top to bottom and speaking to
them as if they could read minds.

If you want to do direct response marketing or write for a niche you don’t know
perfectly, you can recreate this effect with deep research and skill. You’re still
writing to one person, or maybe a couple, but that this person isn’t you. Instead,
it’s your ideal customer.

Narrow your focus. Don’t write for everyone, or even an entire niche. Instead,
choose a buyer persona and go all in on appealing to it. Tailor your marketing and
perhaps the product itself to just one audience, and when appropriate, make that
audience the former/younger you.
Rule #4: Find Content Ideas That Stick

Now, let’s talk about content ideas. This is a huge problem for many people
because their minds are not yet adjusted to becoming content machines. Luckily,
you can use a variety of methods to gain momentum. The first is similar to our
“writing to the younger you” concept. It’s looking into the past by asking…

● What did you once struggle with?

● Do you have a personal story that might resonate?
● Which problems did you run into over and over again?
● Which problems did you run into just a couple of times?
● Are there any books, podcasts, or videos that changed your life?

All of these are sources of content ideas. Let’s take my online writing and
marketing journey as an example…

● I used to struggle with writing

● I used to struggle with generating attention online
● I have a variety of personal stories that resonate with my readers
● My readers struggle with the same things I once did, along with a few
problems that I didn’t have trouble with
● I have about 5 books that really moved the needle for me, plus a variety of
podcasts and other types of content that did the same

Rather than try to pull ideas out of thin air, I go into the past, into my customers
minds, and into foundational pieces of content to find inspiration. If you’re not
writing to “the former you”, your process changes a bit. Instead of answering
those questions yourself, you answer them for your reader.

Here they are rewritten to illustrate this…

 ● What did your reader once struggle with?
● Can you find a case study that might resonate?
● Which problems do your readers very often run into?
● Which problems do your readers run into here and there?
● Are there any companies like yours that you can study and emulate?

And here’s that second list rewritten for a hypothetical weight loss brand…

● What about weight management is most painful for your customers?

● Do you have a case study of someone using your product successfully?
● Which weight-control issues do your customers have the most trouble with?
● Which issues do they have less trouble with but are still worth exploring?
● How do your competitors market similar products?

This isn’t just a theoretical idea. You can, and probably should, put all of this on
paper or in a text document. First, define your reader. Who are they? What do
they want? What is keeping them from getting it? Then, define your brand. Who
are you? What have you achieved? Which problems did you overcome?

You can then write out a long list of hot topics to keep touching on with your
content and marketing. Every one of these will have multiple dimensions to them,
and you can explain them in a thousand different ways. If you’re ever “out” of
material or ideas, refer back to this list.

With that said, my favorite way to generate content is simply living. When I write, I
do so mostly about money, mindset, and writing. I almost never run out of ideas
because these are the things I do every day and the things my mind is often on.

For example, I might do the following throughout one day…

● Write a message to my email list

 ● Write some content for social media
● Have a sales call with a potential client
● Have a consulting call with a current client
● Go to the gym, come home, and cook a good meal
● See a few friends and listen to various struggles they’re going through

This is what “living the content you create” looks like. As that day goes on, I’m
learning lessons, remembering old lessons learned, discovering new angles for my
hot topics, and collecting personal stories for them too.

I like to make little notes of the thoughts I’m having throughout the day. Maybe I
send a writing tip to my email list, then convert that into a tweet. Maybe I hit
some resistance on a sales call, so I mark it down as a topic to write about. Maybe
I listen to a friend at dinner talking about a problem he has, so I make a mental
note for later (not to write about him specifically, but a general mindset principle).

In a sentence, if you have a personal brand, you want to live the content you
create. Study yourself, your experiences, and your surroundings, then write about
it. Do this long enough, and you’ll be an idea-generation machine.

“Swipe files” can be extremely useful for writers. They are collections of writing
that you keep for inspiration. That writing can be quotes, landing pages,
advertisements, social media posts, or any other piece of text that you’d like to
refer back to later. You can store them anywhere that you store files. I like to also
include a list of pain points, topics, and advertising angles in mine. I recommend
you look this term (swipe file) up on your favorite search engine to learn more, as
this is a crucial topic that many people don’t know about.

Here’s a rough example for our hypothetical weight-loss supplement brand…

● Pain Points
○ Physical pain
○ Being insecure
○ Having low energy
○ Experiencing early death
○ Trying and failing in the past
○ Generally feeling bad/depressed
○ Being skeptical about supplement solutions
○ Having had a bad experience with another supplement in the past
● Topics For Content Creation
○ Nutrition
○ Cardio
○ Weightlifting
○ Discipline
○ Mindset
○ Routines
○ Time management
○ Customer success stories
○ The science behind our supplements
○ Discussion of the ingredients we use
○ Which eating philosophies work best
● Copywriting Angles
○ Celebrity/influencer endorsement
○ An ingredient that our competitors don’t use
○ Natural solution that Big Pharma doesn’t want you to know about
○ Scientific proof of effectiveness
○ Why our customer service is 10x better than anybody else’s
That’s an abbreviated list that I wrote off the top of my head. If I was creating one
for real, it would be longer and much more deeply researched. The point is that
unless you can effortlessly come up with ideas, putting all of this down on paper is
a smart strategy. Even if you are an “idea machine”, you should still probably do it.
There’s no harm in having a document ready to help you generate ideas and,
maybe someday, train a writer that you hire.

Above all else, the one thing that really moves the needle is writing about topics
that stick. When I say “stick”, I mean sticking in the mind of your reader. There has
to be an emotional response to the topic. Maybe it’s pleasure, like an inspiring
story. Maybe it’s pain, like an agitation of their top pain point. The only thing it
can’t be is boredom.

Intuition and research can help with finding what sticks, but the best method is
gauging the engagement of your readers. This is one of my favorite things about
social media. Rather than constantly trying to guess what works and what doesn’t,
I can make a few guesses, see what people respond to, then do more of that.

For example, I’ve created some content about politics before, and in general,
people don’t respond well to it. As a result, I only touch on that topic when I have
something really good that I’m almost 100% sure will resonate. In the majority of
cases, I stick to the topics that my audience likes the most.

My final note is that if you’re not writing about your personal experiences, you’ll
have to completely rely on research. This would be the case for someone who
works in eCommerce selling a product they don’t need. Still, you can pretend like
you are your ideal buyer, then get ideas from that mindset.

To summarize…
 ● Understand your reader completely
● Make a list of all their problems and desires
● Appeal to those problems and desires with your content
● If you’re writing to “the former you”, look into the past for ideas
● Try different topics and angles, use feedback from readers to see what
works, then double down on it
● If you’re writing about a topic you’re passionate about, live that passion,
pay attention to your experiences, and generate ideas from them

Rule #5: Make Them Feel Something

Unless you’re writing an instruction manual for a piece of furniture, your primary
goal is to make your reader feel something. That can be joy, hope, amusement,
anger, or fear. No matter what, you should have a clear idea of which feelings your
reader is actively looking for and which you want to target.

You can figure out what they want to feel by researching your niche. Tech people
generally want to feel like they’re making a cool, groundbreaking discovery. If you
were writing to them about a startup, you’d paint a picture of how their lives or
the world could change from the work of this company. Political people often
want to feel angry and like their actions could make their country better. If you
were writing to them about a political issue, you’d paint a picture of an unfair
system, but a system that they could perhaps change with enough support.

The second piece is deciding what you want your reader to feel. As we’ve
discussed, writing is a dance between author and audience. If you want your
brand to have authenticity and authority, you shouldn’t write exactly what your
target audience wants all the time. Instead, you should think about what your
overall goal is. For example, you might have a Twitter account with two kinds of
content. The first is short platitudes that resonate. The second kind is longer
threads that show your expertise and deliver real value. You incorporate both to
nurture your readers in the most effective way, and when you’re creating that
content, you write the two types a bit differently to inspire different emotions.

That’s all theory, though. The question we have to ask now is, how do you
generate emotion within a reader? This is a massive topic, but I’ll do my best to
distill it into 7 crucial points…

1. Tell Stories - This is the entire topic of rule #7, so I won’t explain it twice.
2. Be Unique - An old marketing adage is that it’s better to be different than
better. So, rather than try to build or market a product that is superior to
your competitors (which is often impossible), you should instead find a way
to make it unique. Let’s go to skin cream again for an example. If you’re
selling a moisturizer, there’s really no way you can make it better than your
thousands of competitors’. Instead, you would market it differently. Instead
of saying “Start Using Our Organic Skin Cream”, you might say, “Discover
The Secret Ingredient We Use To Treat Eczema Fast”. Uniqueness and
specification will take you farther than “better”.
3. Be Polarizing - The last thing you want is to bore your reader, and one of
the easiest ways to avoid this is writing polarizing opinions. You can see this
in politics, and especially in political media. People with nuanced opinions
barely get any reach. On the other hand, people who take polarizing stances
often rise to prominence quickly. I’ve seen one controversial piece of
content turn into 20,000 followers overnight. While this style isn’t for
everyone, if it appeals to you, you should use it.
4. Hit Pain Points - Again, the last thing you want your reader to feel is
boredom. Another way to avoid this is hitting them where it hurts. “Pain
 points” is a marketing term that refers to your customers’ most painful
problems. Using our running example, a sufferer of eczema might be most
unhappy about discomfort and appearance. So, you would hit these points
especially hard in your writing. This creates an emotional response and
draws them in to read more.
5. Use Us Vs Them - You might call this classic copywriting technique a subset
of being polarizing, but it has one distinct difference. That is, it calls for
creating an “us” group and a “them” group. Politics is again the easiest
place to see this. “Us Democrats” vs “them Republicans” really resonates,
and vice versa. It goes beyond politics too: “us vegetarians” vs “them meat
eaters”, “us PC gamers” vs “them console gamers”, etc. No matter which
niche you write for, there is likely an “us” and a “them” that you can use to
evoke emotion in your audience.
6. Show, Don’t Tell - The driest way to explain something is simply telling your
readers the facts. The more interesting way is showing them. For example,
you could tell your readers that a certain weight-loss product reduces
calorie intake and leads to weight loss. Or, instead, you could show them a
before and after photo of someone who successfully used the product. You
can also do this with just words, not visuals. Telling stories is a perfect
example. They show your product, service, or idea in action rather than
dryly explaining value propositions.
7. Do Your Research - Understanding these tactics is great, but knowing
exactly how to use them with your chosen audience is better. To do this,
start with deep research. Once you finish researching, you’ll know what
your audience’s pain points are, what their “us vs them” groups look like,
and more. You should never try to make random guesses. Instead, go to
where your audience hangs out online and listen to what they’re saying.
 This will cut down on time and money spent by making those guesses more
accurate.
8. Surprise Your Reader - Again, the last thing you want your content to be is
boring and generic. Your readers have seen thousands of pieces of writing,
and if yours looks exactly like those, they’ll lose interest. A pattern interrupt
can help you avoid this trap and draw them in. For example, a copywriter
might start their copywriting course sales page by saying that they’re
terrible at writing (but have made a ton of money anyway). You’d expect
them to talk about how good they are, but instead, they went the other
way, and now you want to keep reading to find out how they did it.

Rule #6: Write How You Talk

One of the funniest things I see beginners do is create a persona to write with. You
talk to them on the phone, and they’re a real person. Then, you read their writing,
and they’re robotic, or they’re trying too hard, or they adopt a style that they
think sounds good but really doesn’t.

Writing how you talk is the best way to avoid this trap. If you wouldn’t use a
certain word in real life, don’t write with it. If you wouldn’t put 24 words in a
sentence while talking with a friend, don’t do it when writing to your readers.
Basically, when you write anything that isn’t an academic paper or a technical
manual, you should imagine that you’re explaining it to someone in real life.

A classic marketing idea is that you want your sales pitch to sound like you’re
talking to an old friend. Rather than wording things like you would in a pamphlet
or sales pitch, you imagine yourself sitting with them around the house or at a bar
and telling them about a new product you found.
In addition to being more persuasive, this will also help you create connections
with your audience. Almost nobody wants to read dry, unclear, or jargon-filled
content. Instead, they want to connect with a human or a brand with some
personality. Writing how you talk gives them what they want.

So, leave out the uncommon words. If you wouldn’t say “furthermore” in real life,
don’t use it when you’re writing. Don’t go to the thesaurus to switch things up
when you should be prioritizing clarity. Don’t take on the persona of a writer. Just
be you, but in written form.

Here’s an excerpt from a Paul Graham blog post about this same idea…

“You don't need complex sentences to express complex ideas. When specialists in
some abstruse topic talk to one another about ideas in their field, they don't use
sentences any more complex than they do when talking about what to have for
lunch. They use different words, certainly. But even those they use no more than
necessary. And in my experience, the harder the subject, the more informally
experts speak. Partly, I think, because they have less to prove, and partly because
the harder the ideas you're talking about, the less you can afford to let language
get in the way.

Informal language is the athletic clothing of ideas.

I'm not saying spoken language always works best. Poetry is as much music as
text, so you can say things you wouldn't say in conversation. And there are a
handful of writers who can get away with using fancy language in prose. And then
of course there are cases where writers don't want to make it easy to understand
what they're saying—in corporate announcements of bad news, for example, or at
the more bogus end of the humanities. But for nearly everyone else, spoken
language is better.
It seems to be hard for most people to write in spoken language. So perhaps the
best solution is to write your first draft the way you usually would, then afterward
look at each sentence and ask "Is this the way I'd say this if I were talking to a
friend?" If it isn't, imagine what you would say, and use that instead. After a while
this filter will start to operate as you write. When you write something you
wouldn't say, you'll hear the clank as it hits the page. [...]

If you simply manage to write in spoken language, you'll be ahead of 95% of

writers. And it's so easy to do: just don't let a sentence through unless it's the way
you'd say it to a friend.”

I promise, people will respond better to this style than ones that are wordy,
complicated, or inauthentic. Use short sentences. Make jokes. Don’t stress about
word choice too much. Put “you” on paper, or perhaps the perfect “you” for your
top buyer persona, then give it to the world.

Rule #7: Tell Stories

Stories might be the single most powerful tool in your marketing kit. You better
learn how to tell them.

Here are the top elements of most good stories…

● Characters - The people in the story, which are usually a protagonist and an
antagonist. Sometimes a story will have auxiliary characters. No matter
what, the foundational structure is usually a hero fighting against some
opponent. Occasionally, the main character is a villain.
● Setting - Where the story takes place is very important when writing fiction.
In non-fiction, it often isn’t. You should decide whether you need to paint a
 picture of the surroundings based on the story you’re telling. My general
advice is to only write things that matter. If setting matters, use it.
● Plot - The plot tells your reader what is happening in the story. Usually, the
protagonist wants something. In fiction, that might be a football player
trying to win a state championship. In non-fiction and marketing, that might
be the reader trying to make a personal transformation.
● Conflict - Of course, no good story is just happy. Instead, there has to be a
conflict. In fiction, the conflict is usually a villain. Think Scar from The Lion
King or the witch from Snow White and The 7 Dwarfs. In marketing, the
conflict is often the biggest problem that your potential customers have.
● Resolution - Finally, we have the resolution. This is how the story ends, and
in the vast majority of cases, it ends in the hero triumphing over the villain
and transforming in some way. Simba goes from a cub to a lion when he
avenges his father in The Lion King. Customers go from having a problem to
solving it with the help of your product.

The first reason we tell stories is that explaining things in plain terms is boring.
Remember, no matter where you’re writing online, you’re competing against
dozens or millions of other people. That’s true whether you’re emailing a friend or
trying to carve out an audience on social media. The second reason is that it helps
with understanding. Not everyone knows your niche as well as you. Rather than
giving them jargon or technical explanations, telling a story can take your complex
topic and make it digestible for the average person.

In that same vein, you also want to use metaphors, similes, and analogies. These
writing devices act like tiny stories that take just a sentence or two to explain.
Their function is the same as stories, which is taking something that is perhaps
boring or complicated and turning it into an entertaining and easily digestible
piece of information. Let’s illustrate this by comparing two sentences.

The dry version…

Writing is an interaction between author and reader.

Now, the better one, which I’ve used throughout this book…

Writing is a dance between author and reader.

Do you see how using a metaphor makes this statement more interesting, more
entertaining, and easier to understand?

One more dry one…

Life is unpredictable.

And one more that’s better (from Forrest Gump)…

"Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get."

As you can see, using metaphors, similes, and analogies packs a stronger punch
than just explaining. They also make your writing more persuasive. Use them.

Rule #8: Be a Little Different

Let me take you into an amusing side of Twitter marketing. Basically, thousands of
people are trying to build their Twitter accounts and make a career out of it. They
buy some sort of course, and they read that replying to larger creators is a great
way to generate attention. That’s because it is. I recommend this tactic to
everyone with a small account. It works.
The funny part is scrolling through the replies of bigger accounts and seeing
generic tweet after generic tweet. 95% of them are platitudes, well-known quotes
(usually without attribution), and rewordings of the original tweet. I get at least 50
of these in my notifications every day. I usually don’t follow their authors back,
and if the reply is plagiarized, I block them for being a leech.

The point is, you’re never going to make it if your writing is 100% generic. If you
want to build a Twitter account, the best way to get follows from powerful
creators is having a personality. Whether you’re delivering insights or comedy,
being a real, unique person will help you succeed. Being a carbon copy of
someone else almost certainly won’t.

This applies to far more than just Twitter, though. Every business on the internet is
at risk of getting lost in the sea of content. The question you have to ask yourself
is, how can I present my brand/product/service as being a bit different?

When I was doing freelancing writing, I didn’t tell clients that I went to a top
college in the United States. One reason why is that it doesn’t actually matter.
Another is that it’s boring. Finally, I might be competing against someone who
went to Harvard, and now I’ve made my top value proposition irrelevant.

Instead, I made my tagline:

“I write stupid simple emails that massively increase your wellness brand’s profits.”

I’m sure that wording rubbed some clients the wrong way, but once I started using
it, I got a lot more attention when doing cold outreach. The reason is that I added
an edgy, uncommon word, and it turned me into someone worth checking out
instead of someone who looks just like everyone else.
In the last decade, MVMT Watches has risen quickly in the timepiece market. This
is despite the fact that their designs are unexceptional and their products are
overpriced. While they’re not actually different, they managed to market
themselves as if they were. They talked about “disrupting the watch industry” and
“cutting out the middleman”. Combine those largely empty slogans with smart
influencer marketing, and they built a massively successful business.

Copywriting legend Gary Halbert used to attach a little trinket to his sales letters.
One example was stapling a small plastic bag of dirt at the top and using it to sell
real estate. Another was stapling a dollar bill to the top to create attention and
incentivize reciprocity (we’ll talk more about this later). These worked mostly
because they made his letters different from everyone else's.

Death Wish Coffee doesn't market themselves with a long list of generic value
propositions (great taste, organic beans, fair trade sourcing, etc). Instead, they
advertise their product as “the world’s strongest coffee”. This doesn’t appeal to
every customer in their market, and that’s by design. They make a big claim,
separate themselves from the pack, and appeal to all the coffee drinkers out there
who want a strong kick more than anything else.

If you’re writing for yourself, being different isn’t too hard. It really comes down to
being comfortable with sharing online and fully showing your personality. If you’re
writing for a company, you should think about what the product or service’s
unique selling proposition (USP) could be. This takes a lot of practice to master,
but now that you know the goal is to be a little different, you have a much better
shot at making it happen.

Rule #9: Write Fast, Edit Slow

This is a rule that I learned early on in my copywriting career. At the time, I was
writing slowly and editing as I went along. Each section of a blog post or sales
page would take forever, and when I finished, I would come out with a choppy and
below average piece of content.

Writing fast unlocked the next level for me. I think the reason why is that writing is
more art than science. When you’re questioning every word as you go along, you
never enter a “flow state”. When you don’t get into flow, you can’t create magic.
So, perhaps counterintuitively, going fast leads to better results.

Here are the three steps you take when creating a piece of writing…

1. Planning - This is your research and outlining phase. It’s slow. Research
gives you insight on your audience, helps you come up with angles, and
shows you which emotional triggers to use. Outlining lets you control the
flow of the piece and helps you settle on the perfect pace.
2. Writing - Next is putting words on the page. Like a sprinter, we’re not going
to second guess ourselves while we run. We already prepared for this.
We’re ready. Now, it’s time to let the words flow. It’s time to perform.
3. Editing - Once you get done with the sprint, you’re going to be left with a
rough piece of writing. This is your “rough draft”. You shouldn’t publish
rough drafts. Instead, you need to edit them until they have “final draft”
quality. My favorite way to do this is reading it out loud. This helps with
catching mistakes and improving quality. I generally do these “out loud
edits” a few times a day for five days in a row. If I’m working on something
especially important, I might do this for a few weeks.

Think of yourself like an elite athlete. It doesn’t matter which sport. Prepare,
perform, analyze, then do it again.
Rule #10: Don’t Give Up

One of the hardest decisions we make in life is whether we want to give up or

keep going. I can’t tell you if writing is something you should pursue for life or
move on from, but I can help with the way you approach this decision.

Before you start any project, you should have a thesis. For example, if you decide
to start eating healthier, your thesis might be…

“If I eat healthier, I will be happier, more energetic, and more attractive. This will
vastly improve my life, so it is worth pursuing.”

That thesis is so solid that it will never be disproven. Nobody regrets going from
unhealthy to healthy. There is no debate here. Your writing goals are less black
and white, so your thesis becomes more important.

Here’s mine from when I started…

“I have a natural inclination towards writing. I also understand that most people
and companies are not good at it, so if I can sell my work effectively and stick with
it long enough, I will be successful.”

That thesis gets proven more and more each day.

I suggest you write out a thesis for why you want to get better at writing. Do it
right after you finish this book. Do you have a natural inclination? Do you have a
passion for it? Are you willing to work for years before becoming successful? What
exactly do you want, and why are you going to get it?

Once you have a clear thesis written down, don’t give up unless it gets disproven
or you find another opportunity that is legitimately better.
Conclusion
I hope you learned a lot from these 10 rules. The other 40 highlight different
valuable lessons for online writers. They’re also split up into different sections
(mindset shifts, before you write, while you’re writing, etc), which makes them
easier to learn and apply.

Click here to learn more about the book, my writing system, and the mini-courses I
offer. Combined, they’re the perfect package for people who want to earn online
with writing.

Thanks again for checking this out, and good luck.