This Is How You Become a Writer

By Stefanie Flaxman

practical tips for practicing your writing

Stop. I see you, mid-eye-roll. I know you’re aware that you need to write regularly if you want to become a writer.

You might aim to write something every day, even if you don’t publish it anywhere. There’s no substitute for that type of practice. It’s that valuable.

But what do you write about if you don’t have any thoughts to express?

Some of you may now be talking out loud to your web browser to offer a rebuttal to that question, so I’m going to stop you again.

It was a trick question. If you’re a writer, there is always something …read more      

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The Best of The Writer Files: Volume One

By Kelton Reid

wf-best-writer-files-1

Before kicking off the next season of the show, we wanted to share with you some highlights from our previous seasons.

I don’t want to shortchange the most recent interviews with inspiring guests including Jay McInerney (’80s defining author of Bright Lights, Big City), Stephanie Danler (the bestselling author of Sweetbitter), the co-founder of Wired magazine Kevin Kelly, or How Neuroscientist Michael Grybko Defined Writer’s Block for us.

But I do want to dig into the archives with you and pull out a few of my favorites from a handful of the other 40 …read more      

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Marinate in the Problem Space, with Chris Lema

By Jon Nastor

he-chris-lema-2

My guest today is a daily blogger, public speaker, and product strategist.

Over the last twenty-five years, he has been leading teams of people, mostly through telling stories and motivating companies to bring products to market.

He’s been the founder, CTO, and advisor to numerous companies, and he loves to marinate in what he refers to as the problem space.

Now, let’s hack …

Chris Lema.

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The post Marinate in the Problem Space, with Chris Lema appeared first on Copyblogger.

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Feed the Content Monster with the Help of a Closed-Circle Content Loop

By John Jantsch

keep your content in circulation

If there is one thing search engines love more than anything, it is fresh content — and algorithms continue to get better at finding and ranking it by the minute.

But what content marketer has enough time to dedicate to feeding the content monster all day, every day?

To keep up with search engines and still preserve your time, you have to create a closed-circle content loop for your content marketing strategy. Let’s look at how to do that.

What is a closed-circle content loop?

A closed-circle content loop is an inbound content system that focuses on both the atomization of …read more      

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How to Handle Demographic and Psychographic Segmentation (without Looking Like an Idiot)

By Sonia Simone

cbfm-demographic-segmentation

A common newbie marketing mistake is trying to talk to everyone. There are all kinds of buzzwords around speaking to a specific audience — segmentation, demographics, psychographics, generational marketing. Today Sonia talks about a few pitfalls and best practices.

Last week the New York Times ran a funny little piece about the Baby Boomers being The Next Hot Market to sell to. It sparked some thoughts on how (and why) we divide our markets into segments, the perils of trying to speak to everyone with the same message, and some of the dangerous curves on the road to segmentation.

In …read more      

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