How to Make Money Writing

It's the difference between describing a warm bath, and stepping into one

I discovered something recently that dramatically changed how much I earn from my writing. My words make money when they follow one simple rule: People pay for transformation, not information.

I’ve been helping people refocus their writing to be transformative. It’s made a significant difference in the level of reader satisfaction, better word of mouth advertising, and significantly increased sales and profitability.

Information is knowledge. It helps me think, understand, explain, and know. Know-how. Know-what. Know-when. Know-who. Know-why. More than 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created every single day. It’s been estimated that 1.7MB of information will be created every second for every person on earth. It’s why Google, Edge, Wikipedia, Baidu, and others exist.

“The world is awash in information. The problem is there is very little transformation”

Transformative communication helps me change from A to B, accomplish a task, fix something, build a thing, move an object, and perform a job. Transformation programs lead to change. Programs that really help you evolve. Here are some examples:

• How can I lose weight and keep it off?
• How can I find a new job in a different industry?
• How do I make money trading options?
• How can I set up a passive income stream?
• How can I provide better protection for my computer?

If this list sounds familiar all these “How can I …” questions all have profitable transformative books, ebooks, courses, and coaching selling like hotcakes.

And if you think it’s no big deal here’s a recent look at the ebook market alone by Statista

“Revenue in the eBooks segment is projected to reach US$15,635M in 2021.

Revenue is expected to show an annual growth rate (CAGR 2021–2025) of 3.2%, resulting in a projected market volume of US$17,723M by 2025.

User penetration will be 13.6% in 2021 and is expected to hit 14.9% by 2025.

The average revenue per user (ARPU) is expected to amount to US$15.34.

In global comparison, most revenue will be generated in the United States (US$6,071m in 2021).”

The 10 Rules to Follow

If you want to be a successful ($$$) writer, here are 10 specific rules to follow to turn information into transformation:

1. Start with ? and not !. Start with the way you will solve a question, a problem, or a challenge. Use "How ...".
2. Think and write in the active voice not the passive. Uses verbs instead of nouns.
3. Always be performance-oriented. Write to clearly help me do something.
4. Write clearly and straightforward. Gets to the point and stay there.
5. Allow for more time and effort. New ways of doing anything often mean practice, failure, and more practice. Follow-up is essential.
6. Be process and procedural-based. There are always steps to follow to transform from A to B.
7. Be repetitive and consistent. Learning how to do something new requires constant review. Repeat yourself creatively.
8. Open up and be personal and particular. People come from a variety of backgrounds and circumstances. They need to identify with your human journey to success.
9. Includes lots of handholding and support. Learning to do something new requires help overcoming fears and insecurities.
10. While mastering a new task is inherently rewarding, adding a bit of praise for learning to do something new is always the icing on a newly baked cake. Even if it’s just an applauding emoticon.

Most writers that promise to help you do something tell you how hard it is to do something, and then offer to provide you with help — at a price — so you can actually do it. Also known as the upsell, they only provide information about what needs to be done and not any real transformative communication about how to do it.

If they were transformative, they would leave you with the ability to do what you have come to learn how to do. They would be enabling change instead of simply providing information about the change.

If you want to be successful writing, provide transformation and not information. Help people really learn how to do something new or better. Write to enable their transformation. Next time you write, remember the one simple general rule: People pay for transformation, not information.

Help people step into the warm bath, don't just describe the water.