Productivity

I started this blog in 2011 and did nothing for a year except read all the books on creativity. It was research for a manifesto, but the more I read, the more fascinated I became with the subject. After another 5 years of freelancing, building digital products and working as a creative professional (my income comes from things I make …

I started this post years ago, but the topic came up again recently at a business conference in Saigon. The speaker, John Logan of Consulting Unleashed, said something like this: Why would you want to grind or hustle? Don’t force it if it’s not working. There was a lot of confusion in the room, because entrepreneurs are familiar with stories …

If you have a good idea for a business that provides value (by making something people want, need, like or enjoy), it’s easy to get sidetracked by details that don’t matter, and waste months playing around with websites and logos (by which time, you’ve probably had a totally new and better idea!) You need to test your ideas faster by …

Six years ago I wrote a personal post about the challenges of being a full-time digital nomad, “Starting over with nothing at 32.” Over the years it’s gotten more traction than I expected so I thought it was time for a reprieve. I recently turned 38 (during the winter solstice) and I still have just about nothing to show for …

We’ve been in Burg Rappottenstein for a few days and we love it. It’s an enormous 12th century fortress; it’s comfortable and we’re all getting a lot of writing done. We’ll make a video soon and will share it with the #nanowrimo community, but for now here are some pictures and an introduction to my guests.     Guestlist Jay …

First, let me catch you up to speed. I’ve been doing online business for about 10 years. I get pretty good, very specific traffic (people who want to publish a book) and get about 100 optins a day with no ads or promotion. The problem is, I’ve had trouble turning that traffic into real revenue. Most of my sites don’t …

  I just spoke to Kevin T Johns about writing fiction that sells and asked him for some tips on actually finishing a book – plenty of authors never finish and need more help – he delivered with this epic post! Writing a novel, especially a first novel, is a massive and complex project. The sheer amount of work involved can …

It’s already 2017. I didn’t do a “yearly wrapup” for 2016 like I do sometimes. The last month of 2016 flew by and I still feel overwhelmed with projects. I felt like 2016 was a lot of waiting and working, without seeing major results. My income went way down, as I spent most of the year avoiding client work (just taking …

I just learned something new from Ryan Deiss and I’m putting it here in case I forget it. It’s a simple rule to online business that rings true for me. “You don’t have a traffic problem.” What you really have is a problem with motivation and conversion. If you knew that you’d get $10 per visitor to your site, A) You’d …

This is a follow up post to an article I just wrote about hiring a VA or getting and author assistant. Getting a job as a virtual assistant seems like an easy, low level thing: you can do basic internet stuff, you can write well, some people are making money but are too busy, why not just help them out? …