How to Write One Article Every Day for The Rest of Your Life
You need to write one article every single day. This might be an article you post on your blog, submit to article sites, post on a forum, mail to your list, or add to a book. If you write just one article per day, you will be able to express yourself with crystal clarity and never run out of ideas or content.
If you have any piece of information that you can share, even if it's something off the wall like a new way to build a birdhouse or a type of bread you discovered at the grocery store, you should write an article about it. This trains your brain to shape your thoughts as articles, and if you adopt this practice, you can easily share information on these subjects in the future. Even if you forget and need to re-acquaint yourself with information or a specific procedure, you only need to read one of your own articles on the subject.
Many courses about creating products will give you their "systems" and their "secrets" for writing articles but the only thing you need to do is: sit down and start writing. If you stick to this daily writing schedule every single day, you'll have to STOP yourself from writing.
Just open up a web browser and type your article in the submission box. If you're submitting an article to Ezine Articles, type the article directly in the article submission form. If you're adding to a blog, type the article in the blog post box... the same for forums and so on.
I am very much against writing articles in a form that allows you to save and put up later, such as Notepad or Microsoft Word. When you put yourself on the spot, and force yourself to finish that article before you close the web browser, click on other links or even get up from the computer, you'll finish ALL the articles you start and clear those ideas out of your head... so you'll have room for new articles!
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- Just Watched A Video on Writing Articles | Your Marketing Matters | February 23, 2009
haha!
Absolutely great point, Robert. If you can put something off (by saving it), then there’s a very good chance that you will. Sometimes the search for ‘perfection’ is just an excuse to put things off.
Just Do It was a slogan that worked for Nike and I think it’s applicable to internet marketers too.
Besides, if you’ve written a killer article directly into the submission box you can always copy and paste it into Notepad, or whatever, so you have a local copy for later. Whether you ever do with that local copy later is a whole other question… 🙂
Amin
Interesting perspective. I always write in a text processor so that I don’t find myself “arguing” with MS Word about how I want my article formatted. But not sure I’m ready to write in the submission box.
I prefer the sleep on it editing perspective. Many times the best idea or the final piece of polish comes overnight. The next morning it’s much easier to edit the writing, because you’re now in editor mode rather than writer mode.
I think the thing to remember is to develop a style and rhythm that works for YOU – then use it daily. (I totally agree about writing about EVERYthing!)
Jeanette
The other side of this is that once you get a groove, writing an article takes less time. These days I can crank out an article in 5-10 minutes. Then you can start saying, “I need to get 5 articles written today”!
Great idea Robert to have the video sounding off when reading through pages of excellent content I got some good ideas from your blog … the way I tackle getting my old Grey matter to kick in is to think around this method that one of my teachers from way back once gave me the key to writing a post with this formula … Question! … Do you know how? … Answer? … What we do is!
All my best to you and your Q’s and A’s
Phillip Skinner
Dont put it off, just write something or comment like Robert says. Thats what I am doing straight into the box.
The point is for a lot of us is to just do do do.
Robert has picked a topic and has written about it.
How easy is that!
I have been slack and have never written as yet.
I will start, gee I have started…
I read a lot of blog post, and because of the frequency I find a lot of them no longer new to me. Not with this particular post. I learned something new from you: write everyday, on any subject, put yourself under pressure by writing directly on the browser.
Thanks for the new learning.
Hi Robert,
I was discussing yesterday with my daughter about article writing, in fact she is writing some for me.
I really think there is a huge difference between articles that are outsourced to people who need to research, and those written out of personal knowledge.
So many articles seem “thin”, “basic” and contrived when I read them.
I suggested that we both write 2 articles, we both get to chose a subject that we know about and the other would not.
IE: “Caring for a Cow” as against “Dating in The Naughties” 🙂
The idea is to see how they read, and how convincing they are with or without first hand knowledge.
On the point of not writing in text pad etc. How then do you get to use them for your books? Also once “out there” surely they will be copied and homogenized, and will not be so origional.
I have my own article directory, in a password protected folder, could I somehow serve my own articles to my sites?
Ta Shaz
Ta Shaz,
There are RSS feed plugins for WordPress. I believe Robert shows you how to make one in one of his products–WordPressCrusher.com?
Just publish them to your “Article Director Blog” and then have all the other blogs pull the RSS feed of the articles to publish.
David Burch
Ta David 🙂
I shall get my head around it.
I love to learn, but when I factor in my time to learn,
and create, I tend to buy “off the shelf”.
4 years and not one active blog set up 🙁
I shall buy some focus soon.
Shaz
(Ta is thanks in English/Aus slang )
Hi Robert,
excellent point. I tried it recently (i.e.,
to type my articles right into the
submission box at Ezinearticles.com),
and found that my article writing speed
easily doubled or sometimes even tripled
when I did that.
Pretty cool.
That doesn’t mean I always hit “submit”
right then and there. More often than not,
I hit “save” and sleep on it — especially
once I discovered a little twist I wasn’t
aware of before:
At Ezinearticles.com, anytime you take
an article out of circulation to make
changes and then resubmit it for re-approval,
it is no longer eligible for the “top 15
most viewed articles” listing!
I discovered that the hard way when I worked
really hard to get an article into the
top 15 by promoting it on Twitter etc., and
when it had the numbers and surpassed them,
it still didn’t appear. So I asked at EZA,
and — discovered that policy.
And since I never know which article becomes
a big hit, I prefer to make sure the article
is pretty much the way I want it (and the
resource box too) before I submit it for
publication.
Doesn’t change anything about the writing
speed though — or the number of articles
that are possible.
And when I write on my blog (or on forums),
I NEVER draft first. I just type them
right into the submission box and always have.
Just like right now…
My readers can probably tell 😉
Elisabeth
Nice idea. One thing I’d really like to see Robert is something on managing your time. How you organise your time to be able to come up with these reports?
I found that when I blog more often I get more traffic so I’ve decided to blog twice a day to see if I can hit a particular traffic target.
I think we have to find our own way forward. A daily article is a great target if you have trouble doing one article a week. When you can do one a week then go for one or two a day…
As for typing in the submission box or even blog editor – not for me. I’ve tried all kinds of text editors but I do best and fastest using MS Word.
I think you are spot on when you say that you train your brain to think in articles.
I can feel an article coming on Robert…gotta go!
🙂
Alex
That’s a great idea! Interesting, and never thought of that one. Thanks Robert.. This in conjunction with Jason’s 7 minute system is going to help me a whole lot. Good post.. And thanks too, Elisabeth, for the heads up about Ezinearticles. =)
How about using voice-recognition to dictate articles. I just listened to an mp3 from a guy who does this and says he is able to create articles much faster.
He use Dragon Naturally Speaking.
Vista has some voice recognition built-in. XP may have it also.
PC Magazine reviewed Dragon’s Naturally Speaking and gave it the nod over Vista’s built-in system.
Thanks for any feedback on this.
John
Very interesting concept. Funny, I find myself typing out long drawn out answers to individuals on the various maillist I’m on, but find it so hard to write and article. Guess coming up with a format or creating a good resource box for driving traffic to my site confuses me.
It’s like I over think the entire process so much that I burn myself out before I can even jot down one sentence. Any suggestions on how to conquer this type of problem?
Hey, just had a thought. Maybe I should try composing an article in Eudora Pro. Seems I do my best writing in there LOL.
Thanks for the tips guys.
Hi all –
For me the most important point Robert makes is just to get in the habit of writing an article a day and don’t overanalyze. Just do it.
Lowell
Interesting, but … as we are in the midst of information overload, do we really want promote 365 ‘articles’ per year for every blogger on the planet??
Maybe if it’s a diary blog or similar, but not in all cases surely?
Typing it into a browser has a significant downfall — for some reason, they seem to crash from time to time.
I HATE that.
I try to write things of any significance in a text file (I use textpad) and then upload them to the location of choice.
The only place where I haven’t really done that is where I’m using formatting — so, I haven’t done it in blog posts.
Live JoyFully!
Judy Kettenhofen, Profit Strategist/Copywriter
NextDay Copy
Ah, information overload! Or rather (in most cases) third rate information overload…
One of the most depressing things to me about the whole internet marketing/selling scene is the complete lack of emphasis on value. Anything goes, any kind of crap as long as it drags in a few poor bastards to click on my adsense or gets me (I hope) some link love to boost my site in the search engines. And don’t get me started on RSS feeds as a substitute for work or using your brain!
I realize that most people involved in online marketing are simply interested in making money with the least amount of industry possible, and that’s understandable, but I can’t help getting the feeling that just as we’re busy trashing the physical environment we’re doing a similar thing to the online world.
Yeah, I know, who cares as long as we can make some money. Let’s try and exploit every available avenue – like social networking sites, blogs, whatever – even if we spoil it for everyone else. Really, isn’t this kind of attitude perilously near spamming? Nothing like human greed for inventing excuses to justify essentially antisocial behaviour.
Sorry about the rant, but it’s just that I get a little tired of wading through putrid lakes of barely literate filler, usually derivative, as I traverse the internet.
It seems to me that recommending people to vomit out their first thoughts onto the page, or rather, submission box, and send them out into the ether unpolished, unchecked and often, unthought (is that a word?) through is just a recipe for adding to the morass of second-rate, brain-clogging word-waste surrounding us.
Ah, now I feel better…
Tony Page
Great advice Robert which I intend to follow. I really need to set aside time daily(weekly) to type some articles. I write when the mood moves me so this is often not frequent enough. Any suggestions for motivating the thought process besides just do it?
Great advice on article writing. However I really suck at this but I guess I will have to persist. Some of the best long term links to my sites are from articles, so it’s a must. Thanks
Ummm… you may want to recommend gaining momentum rather than inertia if your point is to get moving.
The simple principle of taking action is sound and worthwhile Robert. Your practical suggestions however are ideosyncratic. They may work for you but would not work for many.
While your controversial or “out there” style works well for you and you do provide value in your content, I’m inclined to second the comments by Tony Page above.
Let’s think about raising the bar. Then we can take a leaf out of your book, so to speak, and DO it. There is altogether just far too much junk cluttering the web. Try not to encourage even more of it. Thanks.
Dear Robert,
i think you have hit the nail right on the target!
Between the Eyes with a hammer.
I have been doing Internet marketing for atleast 5 years
and making money, and my experience is that…
what you just said. Write it online.
I din’t know that myself earlier, that Iam doing that.
sometimes, i used to feel , i could have avoided many
mistakes or could have written better, but 99 times
out of 100, I think, I was more effective because
i could actually send the Mail or letter.
You said It !! ( Like – NIKE – Just Do it )
great words.. you know it.
jayant Hudar
Internet Business Coach
Peter,
All it takes is practice. If you write a lot eventually your writing will get better and your info won’t be “third rate” … some of the best comedians write hundreds of bad jokes to get to the good ones. You can’t write 100% good material.
And the worst possible thing you can do is sit and “wonder” … you’ll talk yourself out of writing anything in the first place.
Tony,
Not being a communist, I believe in the free market. Therefore if you write a bunch of crap, people won’t read it, people won’t click on the ads and you won’t get enough money to justify writing anymore.
But if you put a lot of articles out there, maybe 80% will be average and 20% will be really good. Then guess what, you’ve tested what people like and what they don’t… and you can devote your article writing time to coming up with more of those 20% topics.
The only way to know is to test. And what you might think is a crap article could be pure gold to someone else… it’s not about what info you THINK people want… it’s what they actually want.
If it’s not relevant, yes that does suck. I find it annoying when I get marketed to on my personal non-IM MySpace account. That kind of behavior comes close to “spoiling it.”
But with Twitter, Facebook, etc… stuff I do use for marketing purposes, there are groups to join for us internet marketers, there are people who add ME to find out what I’m about, and I’ve made a few JV connections using Twitter. Definitely non-spammy if you do it right and give a solution that provides value to your TARGET market, not just any market.
Hmm, the problem, Robert, is that many, many marketers do not care whether people actually read their article or not. The only reason they are writing it is to attract search engine position and traffic. In fact, the birth of adsense and similar advertising media has spawned a whole industry that focuses on attracting people to sites and getting them to click away via the ads without any commitment to providing value. The use of RSS feeds and the continual harping on automatic content creation is evidence of this.
As you say, the important thing is to give a solution that provides value to your target market; the unfortunate truth is that a large number of people are producing a vast amount of material online without any commitment to doing that at all. Whether or not they are successful in their commercial aims does not alter the fact that this third rate material is produced and continually swills around us whenever we use the search engines.
On balance, I think that adsense and affiliate marketing are beneficial, and have provided a valuable lifeline to many website owners who DO try to provide real value. But let’s face it, adsense is a two-edged sword: how many of us have spent long hours slotting in those 350×250 spots into our sites at the cost of readability, user satisfaction and aesthetics?
You’re absolutely right when you say that you have to write a lot of articles to come up with a few good ones. That’s why you should edit them aggressively, if you’re truly committed to providing something worthwhile for your readers.
Your time management techniques are familiar to me (although over the years I have consistently failed to put them into regular practice…)and are great, “take no prisoners” type advice. Sure, they’re not for everyone, but once you overcome your inertia by taking some action it’s a lot easier to build momentum and keep going.
My best hope for the future is that search engines continue to improve their algorithms so that the most egregious excesses of the marketing and SEO industries are rendered ineffective, resulting in their consequent commercial demise.
But we can all help by resisting the urge to churn out undigested, unedited link fodder and at least try to provide some real value to our readers.
Thank you for the opportunity to discuss some of these issues,
Tony
I think it is more of a habit rather than the software you are working on.
Whether you are in MS Word or notepad or submission box, you still would postpone the article if you do not force yourself to complete the article.
Remember! Submission boxes have options of draft.
It is more a matter of discipline and not get distracted by emails and other https
If you start to finish, you would do it irrespective of other factors.
Otherwise no amount of software can force you to finish your projects
I liked the idea very much. Besides improving writing skills, it helps know ourselves better.
Thanks for this great idea!