Create If Writing

Is blogging dead? It seems this question keeps resurfacing. I know what I think about this, but in this interview I get to hear what Darren Rowse of Problogger and Digital Photography School thinks about that question. Like many he has had a winding journey to get where he is today. And by winding, I mean he has had 40 blogs. (Yes, that is the number I meant to write. Want proof? Listen to the interview!) Being a part of the blogging world as long as he has, Darren has some unique perspective about the ever-changing blogging landscape and how you can stay afloat with all the changes.

Find Darren on Twitter, Blab, Periscope, and Facebook. Find the show notes at Create If Writing and you can follow me on Twitter or join in the Create If Writing Facebook Group. 

Quotable: One of the best ways to stand out in a noisy room is to whisper in someone's ear.

I cannot TELL you how much this quote spoke to me. Love it. If you want to get a free 31-day series in your inbox all about going deeper with your peeps, JOIN ME. A few of the ideas came from this very interview! 

People are constantly saying this and Darren has heard this for the last ten years. People tend to say this whenever a new medium comes along or when someone large leaves blogging. (Read this great interview Darren did with Heather Armstrong of Dooce about this very thing!) The reality is that blogging is shifting and has always been shifting. As hard as this may be to believe, when blogs to having comments (because they didn't at first), many people thought blogging was dead. Keep evolving and be open to the new movements.

One thing Darren has been doing a lot of lately is Blab, so you should definitely follow him on Blab to get notifications when he goes live!

Reading Roundup: What's New in Blogging Lately
The Problogger Podcast
SuperNiching: The Dirty Little Secret of Bloggers Everywhere

When I heard Maritza Parra speak this summer on list-building at Podcast Movement, I knew I wanted to have her come on the show. You guys know how I feel about building email lists. (If you don't, you should read this or this or this.) Maritza shared in the session how she sold her first product to a list of 800 people and made $30,000. Now you're REALLY geared up for this interview aren't you?

Maritza hosts the Easy Online Marketing Podcast and you can find great value on her site. I would highly recommend signing up for her email list, where you can get a freebie with SO MANY ideas for freebies that are working right now to give away as incentives for email subscribers. SO helpful!!

Quotable
"The whole point of a list is building relationships."
Big Ideas

Give free content BEFORE asking people to op-in.
You want to move people toward taking action.
Maritza has subscriber appreciation days where she will have her readers sign up for a phone call or mini session with her so she can really connect.
Super targeted lists of very passionate people can be VERY successful. This allows you to be super specific in what you offer and lets you zero in on those pain points for your audience.
Consider doing real-life meet ups where you can connect with people in person. Have a Q&A and make notes of what things they want to know and learn.
Don't take unsubscribes personally!
When is the best time to send something to your list? When you have something important to say, THAT'S the time.
You teach people how to treat you, so if you hesitate or second guess who you are or your product, that lets other people know they don't have to take you seriously.
If you are giving great content, you should be able to offer paid products without feeling bad.
Add a story to what you are selling. Frame it well and as an experience.
Maritza said she has had more failures than successes, but those failures taught her more than the successes. When you fail, celebrate and try to see how you can push through.
Keep separate lists. Know why people signed up so you can speak to specific pain points.
Your freebie whole be a list-specific product, but doesn't have to be huge. A 1-2 page PDF would be great.

Do you suffer from list-building stage fright? Don't be afraid to email your list or sell to your list. If they signed up, there is something they want from YOU.
How to Involve Your Audience in Your Products

Involve them in the process. Ask what they want in a survey or give them two choices and have them hit reply to tell you.
Have a webinar or live training where you can say, "The results are in!" This lets them know that THEY were the driving factor.
Launching before you create your product allows you to know that you have an audience and a need for that product.

I loved this interview because it made me feel like I can do this. I can get over myself and my stage friend and email my list. I love the ways that Maritza connects with her people via phone calls and face to face. What is YOUR big takeaway from this? Let me know in the comments!

The post List-Building Secrets for Success with Maritza Parra appeared first on Create If Writing.

Whether you are a writer working to establish relationships with readers, a blogger wanting to create a community around your blog, or a business-owner wanting to connect with customers on a deeper level, Facebook groups are the way to go. (Until Facebook makes groups go the way of the dinosaur, but as Katie mentions in the interview, that's why you have an email list!) I loved getting to talk with Katie this morning and I hope you can come away with a renewed sense of how Facebook groups can work for you, no matter WHAT your purposes.

As for Katie, you can find her at the Biz Women Rock site, listen to the Biz Women Rock podcast on iTunes, or jump right into her Biz Women Rock Facebook group to see her live out what she talked about in this episode. (I'm in that group and she practices what she teaches!!)

ALSO! This is time sensitive so I want to throw it out here right now at the beginning. Katie is doing a free webinar this Friday, September 25 at 2pm EST about how to start, grow, and monetize your Facebook group. She will give an awesome free training (I did it last month!!) and offer you the last chance to buy the Facebook Groups Rock course before she has her baby girl in a few weeks! Sign up for the free training HERE.

Quotable
"Your group on Facebook, i.e. your tribe or your community, is only as good as the value you're providing them."
Big Ideas

Katie started an in-person community in Tampa and applied some of the principles that worked for an IRL group in an URL group.
Biz Women Rock started as a podcast and she was following the typical model of getting sponsors and growing the podcast audience.
The Facebook group came out of her desire to want to wrap her arms around her listeners. (I LOVE this description!)
Out of this group, her brand became a trusted resource and the central focus became NOT the podcast, but the community and brand as a whole as a business resource with the podcast just being ONE of these things.
Facebook may very well change up how groups work and they may not work well forever. This platform isn't YOURS. Get email addresses!
To collect those email addresses, Katie utilizes webinars and has also used the Facebook group as the freebie or opt-in for people who sign up on her website for her email list.

Facebook Group Tips for Moderators

The group needs to be engaged for it to work. Figure out what works for each group, but asking questions you think people WANT to answer is a good way to get people talking. People love to share about themselves!

Utilize different kinds of media: video, photo, text. Videos especially can bring people into your world and helps make you relatable and approachable as the leader of the group.

You need to have this engagement and relationship before you sell to your group. It won't BE salesy if you're doing it well.

As the owner, YOU set the tone. Don't be afraid to moderate and do what works for you, not just what other groups do.

I love a good story. And I love a good SCARY story. You don't have to be a scary story fan yourself to enjoy this episode where I interview Aaron Mahnke from Lore Podcast. (But you DEFINITELY want to be a scary story fan if you listen to Lore.) Aaron is a writer of scary stories himself. (Find his books HERE.) I love the story of how he came to create Lore. You can read it in his words on his blog, but the short of it is that he had been trying to created a freebie for his email list. In his words:

I believe people innately hunger for story. We enjoy a well-told, well-written tale. It allows us to escape for a moment and live in someone else’s world, a world where problems have solutions (most of the time) and  things make sense (again, mostly). Story is in our DNA and it’s our legacy. 

So much YES. A giant thanks to Marianne Tolosa from The Lipstick Campaign for recommending this podcast to me! Find Aaron on Twitter (as Lore and as himself Aaron), Instagram, the Lore Podcast website, or his author page. Buy his books HERE or subscribe to Lore HERE. 

My Favorite Quote: 

Aaron has been doing the self-publishing routes and Lore came out of Aaron creating a freebie for his email list.

Want to Start a Podcast?

We talked about the different kinds of production and planning for podcasts. Aaron writes out a script and then reads it in a way that is very natural and not forced. For my interviews (and in the intros and outtros) I tend to write a few outline-y notes and then go off-the-cuff so it sounds more natural.

Pat Flynn's Free Podcast Course

Relevant Links

Home Work - Aaron Mahnke's other podcast about working from home

Have you ever gotten stuck in your creative work? REALLY stuck?

Sometimes this comes in the form of writer's block. Or sometimes your process gets in your own way. You keep trying to move forward and instead keep hitting a wall. This week I took reader questions and got two that fit well together dealing with the writing process and writer's block. Let's dive into some reader questions from the Create If Writing Facebook group and Periscope!

Now, on to reader questions!

Penelope from @Foster2Forever asked about writing process on Periscope.

You can hear the full details on the podcast, but I always start with a vomit version. That's a really ugly, horrible draft where I get as many words on the page as possible to shape them into something good. Then: editing. Lots and lots of editing.

As far as WHAT I write, I don't write a lot of fiction now that my kids are little. For now, my brain on little kids (not unlike my brain on crack

Anita @blestbutstrest asked in the Facebook group about writing conferences.

I have been to a TON of conferences lately. Podcast Movement has been the best, but I've also been to AdventureCon (which I couldn't remember in the episode), Declare, Re:Write, Blog Elevated, and the Houston Baptist Writer's Conference. They are ALL good for different reasons! I'm a conference junkie, what can I say?

Thanks for listening this week and I would love to answer any questions you have about my new course or about the webinars! You can reach me at [email protected]

The post Kiki Talks Writing Process & Writer’s Block – 014 appeared first on Create If Writing.

"If everyone else is doing it, what's the point?"

This is the quote that stuck with me from this delightful, weird, rambly conversation with Marc Martel. Let me introduce you to Marc, in case you don't know him already.

Or, maybe I should have given you this one first: an imagining of how Pavarotti and Freddie Mercury would have done a duet.

Incredible, right? Marc and I have known one another for fifteen years, back when we were both graduating college. He was playing with the band Downhere, who had just been signed to a major Christian label. I was working in a church doing youth ministry. Now he is pulling double-duty with his first solo album, Impersonator (it's SO GOOD) and being the frontman for the Queen Extravaganza, which means he channels Freddie Mercury for half the year. Exciting life, right?

Marc has navigated the music industry in the new, digital age, which set the stage for changes in the book world as we have moved to digital there as well. I loved talking to him about promotion, his passion, and....the Backstreet Boys. No, really. We talk about the Backstreet Boys.

I hope you love this interview and feel inspired to find your weird way of embracing your passion. I think we all dream of making our passions a working reality, and that's just what Marc has done and is doing.

For more on Marc, please check out his site for tour dates, and you can also snag his album Impersonator from iTunes!

And if you LOVE the new music on the podcast as much as I do, you can check out more about her and her music on her site. 

The post Marc Martel on Finding Your Good Kind of Weird appeared first on Create If Writing.

Two and a half days. Twenty-five pages of notes. More knowledge than I can possibly share here. The Podcast Movement conference was honestly the best conference I have ever been to. Not simply because of the attention to detail and how smoothly everything went, but because of the incredible sessions and the connections with other podcasters and speakers. I can say now that Aisha Tyler, who is laugh-out-loud funny, also possesses the ability to make me cry.

Why so incredible? Podcasting is not new and yet it still has an aura of freshness. A palpable sense of excitement buzzed through the Omni in Fort Worth. Coming straight from a blogging conference, the difference in atmosphere was staggering. Everyone I talked to had an excitement about their podcast, whether they are on their 50th episodes or just gearing up to launch.

I met Taylor Bradford from Pink Heels Pink Truck and the Boss Girl Creative podcast. She and I had been friends online but never actually me, so it was great to have another person I could hang around with and share notes and observations.

Inspiration: I feel like this was a ten-way tie. Hearing Sarah Koenig from Serial was incredible. It was like EXPERIENCING an episode of Serial. I got to meet John Lee Dumas before his keynote and was so impressed with how kind and generous and real he was. I'm a huge fan of Pat Flynn, so getting to hear him talk (and beat box) put a giant smile on my face. He had some really neat stories (that I mention in this episode) and shared his vulnerabilities and fears with us.

What impressed me most about the speakers across the board was how incredibly willing they were to connect. They took time to talk to EVERYONE. They did not put on airs. Katie Kimitsos, who led a session on community, talked with me and Taylor at the end of the conference about some of the things she is working on and her goals.

I really loved getting to meet Cliff Ravenscraft, aka The Podcast Answerman. He had a meet up I attended before things officially started and I got to actually talk in person about my podcast. When I had a few questions after the conference, he dived into the comment thread to answer. THAT is the kind of connection I felt as a theme of the conference and was very much what Cliff talked about in his session. He had so many great things to say, many of which impacted this episode.

Can I tell you about this episode? It's a little weird. 

There's no music, first of all. Just me. While I LOVE the music that my friend Josh of Unbroken Light put together for me when I called in a favor when I started the podcast, I want to shift a few things and I think shifting the music is a must. When listening to a session on email newsletters, Maritza Parra challenged us to think about niche and to be even MORE niche than we already are. What could be more niche than a podcast for writers and creatives dealing with the passion and practice behind making good art?

PLENTY.

The more I thought about it, the more I saw this podcast as a place for the worn out. The burned out. The tapped out. The down and out. I feel like this podcast provides inspiration and tools for writers and other creatives who find themselves in that boat. The vision isn't wholly different than the one I came in with, but it is more specific and I think better helps me think about my goals.

Which brings me to my biggest two goals after Podcast Movement: 

1. Sound. (Thanks, Meron!!!)

2. Connection.

I want to connect better with my guests. To have amazing interviews, not just GOOD interviews.

Kevin Kaiser is hard to describe. People always say that behind every great man there is a great woman (which is a phrase I actually hate- a much longer discussion), but I think Kevin is proof that behind every great success, there are other hidden people and work that you may never see. Kevin is one of those people, a true creative and also marketing strategist who has been a ghostwriter and a person behind the people. He truly lives in that place where creativity and business intersect.

[podcast]

Some great posts from Kevin:
Get Low (about Wu Wei, which he talks about in the interview)
5 Things Star Wars Taught Me about Creativity and Life 
3 Essentials to Building Influence

You can find Kevin on Twitter, Facebook, or on his site.

"The artist's primary responsibility is to be the champion for the work." <- THIS. I feel like that quote sums up the whole of platform-building and some of the audience growth.

"Writer's block doesn't really exist. Writer's block is a story we tell ourselves when we are afraid." Mind=blown.

StorySellerU (will be opening again in the fall)
Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Advice for Starting Your Own Mastermind Group  from Cliff Ravenscraft of the Podcast Answerman
Transcending Fear in the Creative Process from Atlantic Monthly

One of the things Kevin said that I loved was that to aim really low. Aim to get 10 new followers this week, not 100. Be methodical and work for a slow build. Overnight successes don't last. True successes have done the hidden work that other people don't see.

Kevin and I talked about deadlines and stress. For some (like me), a deadline can make you totally freeze. For other people, that stress gives a hyper focused flow. How do YOU react to deadlines?

Special thanks to Josh Mills of Unbroken Light for the podcast music!

(Note: There is hybrid publishing in the sense that agencies or publishers are doing a sort of half-commercial, half-indie publishing, but I am using it here in the sense of doing BOTH traditional and indie publishing.)

You will NOT get an answer for that question in this episode with Ed Cyzewski. What you WILL get is an inside look at his experience as a hybrid author. Among others, he has commercially published Coffeehouse Theology and A Christian Survival Guide as well as Pray, Write, Grow and Creating Space independently. He has an active blog and shares great content (as well as humorous quips) on Twitter. Do join his email list, if for nothing other than his pet rabbit. (You'll see.) Go stalk him. Tell him I sent you. 

Some of My Favorite Posts from Ed: 

Are Independent Authors Just Control Freaks with Issues? 

Why You Should Join the Book Lovers Email List (<- MY title, not his)

When Commercial Christian Publishing Was Bad for My Soul

At a Glance

Writing about what you really care about helps you find readers who can get on the same page.

Quotable and My Big Takeaway: 

The post Ed Cyzewski on Hybrid Publishing – 010 appeared first on Create If Writing.

Are you selling out if you put ads on your site? How do you grow your platform without sacrificing your authenticity?

I'm answering fabulous questions from Jenna (at the Gleeful Gourmand) and Andi (at Andilit) this week! If you want to pose questions for me, join the Facebook group for more community & conversation.

EXCITING NEWS! I decided to go all-in and do two podcasts rather than just one. Because, after all, one IS the loneliest number. The other podcast I've been secretly recording is for Blogger2Business and is laser-focused on blogging. That podcast and the larger site is a FABULOUS resource for bloggers. Even if you consider yourself a writer who happens to blog, you should be proud of your blog and strive to have it represent you well. Head over to Blogger2Business to find great tips & tricks for growing, plus a very-familiar voice interviewing some blogging phenoms.

Now, let's talk Ads and Authenticity!

At a Glance: Ads

There are two main types of ads that you can have on your blog: ads from networks (like Google Adsense, Adthrive, or Burst) and sponsored slots where bloggers or companies pay a monthly fee for that slice of your sidebar real estate.

You can also choose to have sponsor spots that other bloggers or companies can pay for month by month.

You need to think about your goals when you decide whether or not to have ads or what kind of monetization to have on your blog.

If you consider your blog a business, you SHOULD have the goal of making money.

Chad Allen's interview on Platform

How to Grow Your Blog Authentically

Platform by Michael Hyatt