3 Mistakes I See New Writers Make (It’s Not What You Think)

From earning $3.74 to two six-figure blogs sold.

I’ll never forget the feeling when I first made money writing on the internet.

It was January 2016, I posted an article about a breathing technique on Reddit, and a few thousand people came to read it. 

The next day, my AdSense read $3.74. Something I’d written had made money.

Holy baloney. 

Since then, I’ve published over 1,000,000 words online and have been a full-time digital writer since 2017. 

And in that time, I’ve seen countless new writers make these same three mistakes.

1. Giving up too early

I made that three bucks after one month of writing. 

In the next six months, I’d make another $5…

At the end of my first year, I’d made a whopping $100. But I wasn’t giving up.

By the end of year two, I’d made $25,000, and things were getting interesting.

Now, I’ve been at this for nine years and have sold two six-figure writing businesses. 

If I’d given up after that first year, I might have gotten stuck working at the shoe shop where I was a sales assistant.

All the good things that can come from your writing will happen later. It takes longer than you think, longer than you want, and sometimes longer than you think you can bear. But if you keep at it for the long haul, you can achieve great things. 

Start, and don’t ever stop.

Not learning how to focus

There is a meta-skill that all successful writers have but never talk about. 

They can focus.

Yes, you need good headlines, hooks, and the ability to tell a good story. But before all of that, you have to be able to sit down and write for two hours without distraction.

Learn to give up distractions and write with unwavering focus, and you can 10X the amount you can create in a week. 

• You learn to sit with the discomfort of the blank page for longer.
• You learn to sit with your ideas for longer
• You learn to write for longer. 

My process to regaining my focus was this:

1. Turn off all phone notifications and delete all social media apps.
2. Set up a website blocker so I can’t autopilot to my inbox
3. Set a 30-minute timer and write until the timer goes off
4. If I manage every day for a week. Increase time

Then, you can achieve quality through quantity. Once you learn to focus, you can churn out articles like a printing press and begin to get better and better with each try. 

Building up that skill will lift everything else to heights you didn’t think were possible.

Not learning from those who came before you

There are so many great examples for writers you can emulate waiting. Consuming what you create is the secret hack to improving. You learn by osmosis as you expose yourself to how the best people can write. 

Check out Noah Kagan’s blog for examples of great headline writing. 

Then head to jamesclear.com and see how the habit daddy writes his articles. 

Look at Mr Money Mustache to learn how an individual voice can ring out from your writing.

By exposing yourself to the best of the best, you begin to understand just how good you can be. You don’t do it to copy their style or steal their ideas. You do it to see how good you can be if you stick with it for the long haul. 

TLDR

1. Don’t give up too early
2. Learn how to focus
3. Learn from those who came before you

Keep up the great work. Stick with it for the long haul and strap in for the journey of a lifetime. 

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