writing

traffic, tears and tenderness: lessons from 5 years of on-line hustling

Before I launched WhiteHotTruth.com, I was a partner in an on-line "lifestyle media company." I wrote about the soulful side of style. The stakes were high, we'd raised over half a million dollars to make it all fly. And thus, the site became...a content factory (insert sound of fizzling fire cracker.) I had 15 writers working for me. More writers = more content = better search engine ranking = more eyeballs = potentially more ad clicks-thrus = money...or so one hopes. It was a creative nightmare that I let happen. I got ousted left that lil' empire. The company folded and the site was auctioned off as a remaining asset. The new owners started running articles on cellulite cream and pregnant brides. End of story.

I learned a lot. Grateful for all of it. And when I went renegade about two years ago, I took my SEO smarts, vetted it through my artistic soul, et voila! WhiteHotTruth and more learnings...happier kind of learnings. Here are a few:

17 lessons from five years of on-line hustling, in no particular order:

1. Stories are effectual.
When I wrote about my meeting with the Dalai Lama, I thought it would be a flop. Same for my First Spiritual Heartbreak. Yet those articles elicited some of the most heart-felt responses I've ever received. This is a repeating lesson for me: TELL your story, tell YOUR story, tell your STORY. And when you tell your story...

2. Talk about how you feel.
Some people told me they pre-bought The Fire Starter Sessions just because of the admission I offered before blast-off: "launching in a few hours. hope it doesn't suck." The posts in which I'm most emotionally transparent or vulnerable have ended up being some of my most valued material.

If you're doing more the publishing data or facts, then the "real" story behind what you're teaching is how you feel about what you're teaching. The feelings are the magnetism...the white hot truth. Yep -- SOUL SELLS. Transparency is all too rare and we're all craving to relate.

3. There's nothing Tweeters like to tweet about more than Twitter.
Write about the Twitter itself and it WILL get re-tweeted.
Case in point: 3 Keys To Un-Branding and Why I Changed My Twitter Name

4. Some people have way too much time on their hands.
I've received three paragraph explanations as to the etymology of a particular word. READ: an email about a typo. If you're alerting me to a typo because you care and don't want me to look like a dork, thank you! It's energy well spent! If your alertng me to a typoh becuase your just plumm anoyed ... than like, reelly?

5. Overly sensitive types need not apply.
If you're going public with your opinions, and especially if you want to wear your heart on your sleeve on a big stage, you better: a) know what's driving you and be convicted in that; b) be just slightly arrogant enough to think you deserve your place on that stage; c) be tough enough to not let the turkeys get you down. The internet is a massive landscape, and the turkeys have email access. You need to learn to chuckle when they squawk.

6. When you cry while writing an article...it only means something to you.
Just because you're have deeply cathartic experience crafting an article, doesn't mean it will be a transcendent piece for the reader....but it may be.

7. Know the metrics that matter most to you.
I recently did an interview with Pace Smith for the Engaging E-Course program she's co-creating. She asked me all these great questions about stats for The Fire Starter Sessions and my readership. Doh! I didn't have a lick of data for her, because, I don't really do much data. I went two months without checking my Google stats and just about fell off my chair when I found out how much my traffic had increased. Do I care? Hell yes! But I keep my eye on what matters most:

I care about email subscribers. Because I hope my stuff is sweetly useful and you'll give me the privilege of getting into you in-box just twice a week. I care about the quality of emails that I receive - the nature of gratitude and opinions. I care a lot about how my exposure relates to weekly sales of The Fire Starter Sessions.

8. Give yourself three to six months to find your voice.
When I started WHT, I created categories for "fashion + beauty," "wellness + healing", and "relationships + sex". I've written maybe five articles in total that fit those categories. Within a few months of launching it was clear to me that I was most passionate about "inspiration + spirituality," and "business + wealth", with "creativity" making an frequent appearance.

Your true interests will surface if authenticity is your priority.

9. Your blog could be your book. Just maybe.
Six months into WHT, I stood back and saw the outline of a book proposal. Which then morphed into TWO books. One of which is The Fire Starter Sessions, the other is my next book, tentatively called, DESIRE. Yay!

10. When you are always intending to be of service, you will never run out of ideas, or content.
I could break this post into a series. I'd rather pack it all in. There's always more where that came from.

11. Change.

Things I've tried here:
: Burning Questions Interviews. I featured some fabulous people.
: Comments (I'd like to take the opportunity to say here, since the debate of blog comments on or off is still in the air - I think that leaving comments on until you "get big," with the intention of shutting them off at such a time is...sleazy.)
: Posting daily. Well that just about killed me. I post about twice a week now.
: Hot Songs (I may resurrect the tunes...I kind of miss them.)
: Inspirational quotes. There are hundreds of them buried in this site. They started to feel like filler. Nixed.

12. Schedule or no schedule? Your call
One of the reasons I adore Chris Guillebeau is that he is so damn reliable. If he doesn't post every Monday or Thursday, you can rest assured he's been kidnapped. Me...I post when I'm pumped. And I know there are "ideal" times of the day and days of the week to post for readability, but...I publish when I publish.

13. People will use you and you'll use them.
This is life. Favours, climbing, sincere friendship and fanship. It's up to you to keep your intentions straight up and clean. Kissing ass to build traffic gets tired really fast. Genuine interest is much more sustainable.

14. Your best stuff may not be your most "viral" stuff. Write it anyway.

15. Generosity makes for a great party.
Every time.

16. You are having an effect on people, even if you don't know it.
People may write you months after an article went up, and tell you that your words are taped to the fridge for encouragement, or that they read your piece at a banquet to a round of applause.

One line - honesty delivered, might motivate someone to do what they've needed to do for years, or to be more audacious, or more gentle with themselves and the world around them.

17. Just write it.

. . . . . .

Check it: New Vancouver + NYC gigs.

New HOT SHOP! Shop it! xoxo

 

making space for creative credo

My palms are a bit sweaty. I'm taking deep breaths. I feel a bit misty, and, I'm smiling. This is a monumental decision for a bloggity being like me…here goes:

I'm putting the comment function on WhiteHotTruth out to pasture.
Comments are hereby closed.
Gulp. Sigh. Namaste.

I need to heed my own creative credo:
1. Keep it pointed to where you want it to go.
2. Pay close attention to your creative fantasies.
3. Keep it lean and keep it clean.
4. Art involves risk.
5. Form informs feeling.

1. Keep it pointed to where you want it to go.

If we've had a beer or walked the Sea Wall together (I know, only two of my friends are putting their hands up - I'm reclusive,) then you've heard me say, "All I want to do is write and speak. Write and speak. Write and speak." Pretty clear. For flavour, I've been adding in, "You know, I just wanna work like Hunter S. Thompson, but without all the bad drugs. Or guns. Or ex-wives. Or..." Okay, the point is, I neeeed to Write and Speak.

And live -- and living means making up stories with my six-year-old magic boy. And eating fresh food with friends. And interviewing Rabbis and Lamas and waiters about the nature of desire...So that I have more stuff to write and speak about.

When people start calling you a "power blogger" (I love the label, don't stop, seriously,) you're tempted to think that power = blogging. And it can. You just need to keep your eye on your real power source, or you get all fancy and you start wearing sunglasses when you sit down at the computer.

And here's the thing with being "in touch" with thousands of people everyday: it can fuck with your head, not in a Howard Hughes go-looney kind of way, but in a "there are a whole lotta of people in my living room, and my bed, and my car-kind of way." You see, I THINK about YOU a LOT. I want to be the best damn hostess on the Internet. I want everyone to know that I read every word that is sent my way. I want to be loved, darling, loved!

Which brings me to…

2. Pay close attention to your creative fantasies.

I've been romanticizing the old days of authorship. You bled on typewriter keys, couriered your six inch-high stack of manuscript papers to your editor; and your book came out four years later. If someone wanted to send you love letters or hate mail, they wrote to your publisher, and your publisher asked you if you wanted your mail forwarded to you that year.

That Jurassic and gruelling process is everything I work counter to. I take publishing into my own hands and ship my art ASAP. Howevah...this imagery (I can even smell the dusty dust of old paperbacks, and the ink of typewriter ribbon,) has been surfacing in my thoughts these past weeks and it's telling me to make the space I need to create more.

If I have more psychic space, I can write more, and write mo' better. And THAT's where I want my vocation to go. All good things (like affluence) will come from honouring that core desire. (Quicky clarity on that: affluence = fluid ideas + influencing positive happenings + cash flow.)

3. Keep it lean and keep it clean.

I was reading the Communicatrix's latest newsletter (Colleen Wainwright slams down the wisdom on a monthly basis and I take in every word.) "Everyone now knows that social-media creep is just as dangerous as TV-creep..." And she advises us to "review your landscape, trim your reel...so I we can be…100% available to the moment."

And then it hit me: Let go. More. Which is scary, but…

4. Art involves risk.

Seth doesn't have blog comments. Havi doesn't even do email. When Leo at Zen Habits asked some of his blog-migos what we thought about him closing comments on his site, I was like, "Dude, 'Zen' connotes comment–free, you need to let go and let it flow." But it's different when it comes your turn to "burn down the barn so you can see the moon" as the poet, Masahide put it.

You start fretting about people calling you a narcissist (wouldn't be the first time I've been misunderstood,) or your readership plummeting (which, uh, couldn't possibly happen because my material is just going to get HOTTER…promise,) and about being lonely (I still have those two friends to drink beer and walk the sea wall with.)

And…I worry that my new artistic format might come across as ungrateful. And that would suck hard, because I am so deeply, madly, appreciative of every heart that clicks my way and gives some extra meaning to all of this. The value of being recognized as useful cannot be overstated.

5. Form informs feeling.

I want to foster a quality of spaciousness here. Like sitting around a campfire, under a big sky. We need room in order to hear, to be with our thoughts. We banter and converse and show up enough "out there," don't we?

I pray that the new spaciousness is appreciated, even savored. Like a paperback book that you can hold close for a few minutes while you make your way through the world.

Ever true and always grateful,

 

innovate or die: purification + my work credo

PART 1: INNOVATION

The most erotic word in my vocabulary right now is innovate.

inn.o.vate.

It’s one of my core desired feelings – to feel, be, and live innovate.

I’m not talking about being innovative for the sake of it. (Innovation for the sake of innovation is masturbation.) I’m talking about being on my personal leading edge – where I have to deep bend to reach the fruit. Where the branches are so thin that I have to lighten my load and empty my pockets of ego, greed crumbs and the dirty pennies of mistrust – mistrust in how righteously loving and supportive the universe is.

To innovate, you need to lighten your load. Constantly.

Which brings me to my work credo. (It's up for global adoption. Go ahead. Take it.)

MY WORK (+ SOCIAL MEDIA) CREDO - in order of priority - is:

1. Be USEFUL. If your stuff is not 100% about utility, practicality, or wisdom*, then...
2. Be INSPIRING. If you’re not flush with inspiration, passion, motivation, then at least...
3. Be ENTERTAINING.

And if you can’t at least be amusing then keep to yourself. Otherwise, you’re wasting people’s time. And when you waste people’s time – you’re not only a delusional wanker, you’re disrespectful. Once you disrespect your audience, they’ll walk.

(**Wisdom is information / experience translated into something that is useful + inspiring.)

(You can stop reading here if you got your fill. I understand, the average visitor stays 2.4 minutes on a blog. But if you want to know about some creative/business refining I’m doing, read on.)

PART 2: PURIFICATION

My intention to be useful drives my personal innovation. So, there are going to be a few changes ‘round here - subtle perhaps, but meaningful. I’m announcing this because I think it’s … useful.

As any on-line writer or seller-of-stuff will tell you, “TRAFFIC” is one of the horniest words in the Internet lexicon. Some of us “bloggers” (I put it in quotes because I loath the term) are driven by the numbers. That means amassing more-more-more visitors, users, uniques, followers, “Friends” - idealistically for influence, practically, for cash. Nothing wrong with either motivation, nothing at all. I myself am uh, highly motivated.

Making wisdom products is my living. More traffic = sell more stuff. I'd love to tip 100,000 readers so that when I release my next book (this year! in digital AND print!) a very big bunch of those readers will buy my stuff. And then I can pay my kid’s tuition, help a few friends out, and wear French linen all summer long.

Do I want to be innovative (read: true to my artistic integrity, and reeeally happy) or do I want to make lotsa coinage? Of course, the answer is both, darling. As if I'm not going to have my cake and eat it - with a scoop of Vanilla. On a chaise. In French linen. With enough cake to share with the neighborhood.

In order to innovate, you need to eat right – a diet of integrity and courage. NO FILLER.

The game for traffic (more articles = more traffic) creates a lot of filler out in the blogosphere. Gotta post post post! As my friend Jonathon Mead just put it, "It's a churn, creating content for the sake of it, not due to a burning desire. Quotas = crap." Uh huh.

And sometimes, this is the winning, appropriate most pure strategy. Information aggregation and high-volume content generation can be magnificent when it’s done right. Think: Huffington Post, or Feministe. Even Seth Godin, who is known for not playing the social media popularity game, pubs seven days a week.

UPPING MY GAME BY NARROWING MY FOCUS

The downside of Internet-reality is that you can write a gorgeous piece and it gets buried fast in the flurry. I want each article I compose to feel like a nourishing meal, or at least a midnight snack that sends you to bed smiling. I don't want to just whip something up for hungry search engines.

I also want to give deeper love to the love of my (career) life: making books. Books that you can hold. Books that are compelling enough to spend some quality time with. Books that are useful, inspiring, and entertaining - and so philosophically sexy that they’ll spread like wild fire.

So, I’ve decided to post only twice week...maybe twice and half. That way, I can give each piece my whole heart. I may sprinkle in the odd truism - but only if I really feel that it's genius.

I'll be the sole generator of content on White Hot Truth – which means no more interviews (okay, maybe some.) I can hear some groans already. I know, I know, the Burning Questions Interviews are juicy. We've had some superstars and angels to this banquet. Good news is, I have some beauties lined up over the next few weeks. Obviously my policy of "no thanks, no guest posts" and zero solicited product reviews stays good n' staunch.

The quality vs. quantity model is nothing new. But it remains a rarity. Authenticity is demanding business.

 

mothering.com: new column for modern mamas

I've got a new column on Mothering.com, called: Very Big Love: For Seekers, Mamas, and Mavens

This week's article: Mindful Speech and Supreme Kid-Respect

It's such an honour to be involved in anything that Peggy O'Mara does - she an icon of conscious birth and natural families. And get this - Mothering.com has the #1 community forum on the entire world wide web. That's alotta mamas.

 

best article of 2009?

My pick: Bindu Wiles' Unexpected Broken Heart. A Buddhist in Brooklyn on opening your heart and minding your manners.

 

burning questions with the communicatrix: from the hip, to the heart

Without exaggeration I can report that some of the Communicatrix's writing has made me laugh so hard that I snortled - in front of people. Her poetry, which she publishes every Thursday, has made me cry multiple times. And she does these Full Monty Makeover ass-kicking assessments for websites, to which I'd like to send 77% of the world wide web - so many could use her high-sensibility whippin's.

Colleen Wainwright's approach to creativity and marketing is like Buddhist-meets-Ninja-meets-BareNaked Ladies, with a lil' Joni Mitchell thrown in. Just when you're all charmed by her sass, she'll throw out some cosmic truth that makes you go "yeah, true dat!" So lean in and listen up. The Communicatrix never fails to say precisely what she means and make you love her for it.

1. What's the dumbest thing that you used to believe?

You will laugh long and hard—and I will join you in this long, hard belly laugh, O Sister of Lessons Hard-Won—but I used to believe that if I was just a good girl and worked hard, everything would be fine.

I cannot tell you how many stupid, sorry years I wasted, not to mention how many opportunities I probably let slip through my fingers, by not Going For It and/or believing in the Limo Shortcut to Success. (more...)

 

the first questions of publishing pursuits

I get a lot of email and questions in my Fire Starters about the publishing scene. Here are a few hard facts and beautiful possibilities of realizing your dream in the printed book world.

In the immortal words of Johnny Cash, "I've been everywhere, man." In terms of the book industry, I've agented books, I've designed books, I've helped a dozen authors self-publish their own books ... and I've advised hundreds of others not to self publish. I've worked on publicity campaigns with major publishing houses, I've done grassroots and highbrow marketing. I've had my own book go to auction to earn a six figure book advance, get published and make it on to the Amazon bestseller list. I'm currently in the glorious, grueling process of writing my next book: The Fire Starter Sessions.

So, naturally, I'm jaded. Really jaded.

And yet! I remain ever devoted to the art of the book and the game of publishing. I'm a romantic. Just like Johnny.

Creating a book is an intimate experience. You give shape to your innermost feelings, you share them with critics and other lovers of ideas and story. And then you shop that baby until the cows come home. How you do it is a very personal decision.

To Self-Publish or to Sign with a Publishing House? It depends how you define success. It depends what your motivation is ... profit or creative gratification? It depends on how talented you are and how timely your material is. It depends if you're really crazy, or just a little bit crazy.

The Pro's and Cons and the In's and Outs of Self Publishing and Publishing Houses:

DISTRIBUTION
Let's start with the most important aspect of making a book. Forget content and design, forget marketing and PR...for a moment. Getting your product into the hands of booksellers and book buyers should be your A#1, paramount big daddy priority.

Self pub: If you choose to self publish, distribution will be your greatest hurdle. In the eyes of major book chain buyers, you're a nobody. The head buyer at CostCo or Borders has established relationships with sales reps from publishing houses. They have buy-meets at book shows and scheduled times where they order dozens of titles at a time for the upcoming season. They won't even take your call. You will have to hire an independent sales rep to pitch your title.

Or...you can go to local bookstores and pitch it yourself. It's hell - a hell possibly worth walking through, but put your armor on, wear your lip-gloss and best smile, and be prepared to schlep books in your car trunk for weeks, months even.

Pub house: distribution is done for you. That simple. This is the single most important reason to try to get your self a book deal. Publishing houses have tentacles that reach far into book shows and bookstores across the world.

THE DESIGN PROCESS
Self-pub: guess what? You're now a book designer, content and copy editor, color expert, typography and paper specialist ... and you thought you were just a guy with something important to say. Even if you hire out your book to a graphic designer (and you probably should, for anywhere from $500 to $20,000 in design fees depending on the type of book you're producing,) the aesthetics of the book rely on your approval. Do you know what cover will appeal to consumers next season? Do you have access to the recycled paper printer you want who can print in bulk? For better or for worse, you will have total creative control. Could be a beautiful thing.

Pub house: I know more than a few authors who didn't know what their book cover was going to look like until they saw it for the first time on Amazon -- tragic but true. You may have zero say in how your baby is dressed. Could be a disaster. Could be a beautiful thing.

TIME TO MARKET
Self-Pub: The turn around time with a self-published book can be as fast as you can drive the process. Once it's written and edited, you can have a book in your hands in as little as two months. Zoom.

Pub house: Prepare to go gray before you see your book in stores. Unless you're writing about a time-sensitive topic of major cultural relevance (like, a meteor drops to Earth and you happen to be working on a book about How To Survive A Meteor Crash,) then you're likely looking at eight months to two years from the time you sign your publishing contract to the day your book is in the Barnes & Noble window. It's a long time.

Traditional publishing is a lot like the fashion industry. There are a lot of players involved and they each need lead time to do their job: the editing department, the foreign rights department, the designer, the offshore printer, the marketing team who is selling to stores a two seasons in advance, the publicity team pitching to magazines three to six months in advance, and the warehouse who needs time to ship to stores.

THE MONEY
Self pub: If you do it right, you can be earning as much as $10 bucks a book, perhaps more. Yipee! Hopefully that'll be enough to re-coup the capital you put in to fund the book ... graphic design, perhaps an indexer, various registration costs, marketing, a hefty Fed-Ex bill... It could all add up to thousands of dollars -- easy.

Pub house: A book advance is an incredibly civilized concept. You get paid in advance to write your book. Wow. You typically get a third of the advance money when you sign your contract, a third when you deliver your final manuscript, and a third when the book is off the printing press.

Most authors never see a dime after their book advance ... simply because they need to sell enough copies to "earn out" their advance. After you've sold the amount of your advance in books (essentially paying the publisher back for their investment) then you start to realize a royalty on books sold after that ... which is usually in the low range of a whopping $2 per book.

PUBLICITY
Self-pub: Got contacts? You better have. Facebook friends may not get you on the bestseller list. You need editors' emails and TV ops. It's timing consuming and critical. Not your thing? You're looking at a minimum of $5000 to hire a publicist to run a decent campaign for you.

Pub house: They've got contacts ... oodles of them. Media editors and producers are used to being pitched by publishing house staffers. But don't think for a minute that your publisher will take your book to the mount and flog it. It's a rare exception that any book is nurtured beyond a very concentrated, one-time push to the media that lasts about three weeks if you're lucky.

Whether you self publish or land a book deal ... publicity and marketing will ultimately be fueled by your stamina.

It takes a village to raise a book. But it takes your creative genius to make it, guide it, and carry it to the world ... whether that's with a prime-time media interview or small book signings where only two people show up ... and one of them is your mom.

Johnny Cash lasted so long in the music business not just because he was a pure talent, but because he was a remarkable combination of tough-as-nails and romantic. Either direction you take -- self publishing or landing a book deal -- you will need to be steely, you will need to embody passion, you will need to take your show on the road...everywhere, man.

May applause follow wherever you go.

 

letting go of cleverness makes room for true art

{This lovely little animation of The Golden Mean / Rule of Thirds is breathtaking and descriptive. I felt like my heart rate slowed down while I watched it inner-fold. Click here to view it's movement.}

The best writing advice I ever received was this: "Sometimes you have to let go of the jewels."

You have to cut out the best part.
You have to detach from your brilliance.
You have to trust that the whole piece is better the individual shiny parts that make you seem clever or wise.

So that sexy slogan ... That rapier wit one-liner ... That fancy feature or added customer service ... if those gems are throwing the whole package or project or intention off kilter, then they probably need to be slashed.

Final works of art find harmony. In even vulgar, dramatic, and absurd works of art there can be a high degree of cohesion and that's what accounts for it's impact. That's where skill comes in. You can be as wildly inspired and as daring as you want, but if you don't know the rule of thirds, or a bit of colour theory, or how to help the members of your jazz trio be heard in fusion, then you run the risk of tampering with the objective, which is to create art that conveys.

It's easy to get attached to our inspired moments and what they produce. Those a-ha's are a rush. And the rush is goood, it's essential in fact. Let it move you forward instead of rooting you to one place, or one ray of light. Let your clever bits and genius fuel your courage rather than your ego. Diamonds shine only after they've been cut.

 

Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott

precious writing + life advice, one of my favs

 

lessons from my favourite geeks

Geeks are wise. I’ve been at the mercy of many of them. I’ve pleaded for and demanded more white space, redundancy, and speed. I am a better woman because of the push back and expertise of the web designers and code writers who have served me so well.

The finest geeks give you the straight goods on succeeding in a digital world. I bring you their insights and orders:

1. Do what everyone is else doing. Yeah, it’s cool to be an early adopter. But when it comes to the best technology, just copy the cool kids. This site is built in WordPress because it’s the most popular ... and therefore most user-friendly, blogging platform. Tried and tested. I send my emails out in Feedburner because my favourite, most popular bloggers use it. I use the tagging system at the end of this blog post because that’s what Seth Godin uses, and he’s like, totally cool.

2. For God’s sake, KEEP IT SIMPLE. < insert pleading sounds > Don’t have two pages when you could put it into one. Flash is evil, splash pages are annoying, no one likes to click more than four times to register for anything.

3. Automate late. Don’t add bells and whistles and functionality until you have to, until your people are begging for it, until your system will bust if you don’t throw some development dollars at it.

4. If you really need it, you can likely get it for free. In all the sites I’ve stood up, I’ve rarely had to pay to have a special piece of code written. Simple usually isn’t “special.” {What is special on the other hand are IT folks who embrace simplicity.}

5. You get what you pay for. Experienced geeks get paid what they’re worth.

6. Deadlines make all the difference. If you don’t have an audience clamoring for your brilliant new site or software, then you may feel like you have all the time to finesse and edit and tweak your virtual masterpiece. But you won’t really know how great your work is until you launch it. So...

7. Just launch!

BTW, my favourite geek to date is Paul Jarvis of twothirty. He built this site and plays a mean guitar.