WWN45 : The Truth about CONTENT

Today we are talking CONTENT.

i.e. all the stuff you get on Twitter, Instagram, email, etc.

Now, CONTENT gets a bad rap in some circles. And I can see why, but really, those people are missing the point.

Most so called “CONTENT Creators” are missing the point too.

And that’s because they create CONTENT without

…even knowing what CONTENT is!

Now.

Lots of people will define content in different ways, but given that most of them are wrong, we need our own definition.

So here is the Write Way Approved Definition of CONTENT as it applies to this discussion:

In other words, CONTENT is when you write something in order to get something out of it, not just to create the thing you wrote.

Thus ghostwriting and copywriting are generally branches of CONTENTwriting. Fiction and poetry are generally not (or shouldn't be).

Much modern message fiction - Marvel et. al., Disney Star Wars, the Snow Shite remake etc. is CONTENT. It exists, not for the sake of the story or the love of the art, but to push a message, to print money (L. O. L. Nice try.), to massage egos and so on.

Whereas you look back at golden-age Disney, the great comicbooks of the past, Lord of the Rings etc. and you see something more than CONTENT.

These people were creating something that they wanted to read and watch, they were exploring the form, they were enjoying themselves. And you can tell.

Now, none of this means there’s anything wrong with CONTENT. Perhaps, my examples so far are leading you to think there might be.

This email is CONTENT.

It exists for a number of reasons:

• To teach you about writing

• To nurture our relationship

• To sell you on my expertise

Etc.

It does not exist to push the boundaries of newsletter writing as an art-form. Sorry if that’s why you thought I was here, but really it’s all about driving my business forward (in a way that also mutually benefits you, because that’s how business works).

And that means I approach it differently to my poetry and my fiction.

Which, as a slight aside, is why I chuckle when I see people complain about “low-effort content”.

I think they forget that…

That’s the whole point in CONTENT!

CONTENT should be low-effort. Not crappy. Crappy is a whole different thing. Copy-paste is crappy. Constant conflict is crappy.

But to be brutally honest, CONTENT is all about ROI.

Good CONTENT is not writing that is objectively amazing. Good CONTENT is writing that gets the job done with the least amount of effort required. And that’s because it has a job to do.

So this is the equation for good content:

Benefit gained / Time spent creating = value of content.

Where benefit gained is whatever I want out of the content (education, sales, engagement etc.) and time spent creating is, well, time spend creating. Duh.

If I write a tweet that gets 100,000 likes, but it took me ten days - it's a bad tweet. Whereas one that took a minute but got 500 likes is good content.

(That’s if likes are my goal, which they shouldn't be, but it illustrates the point.)

If I write an email that makes two sales of Content Academy that took me ten minutes to write, that’s better than an email that made five sales of Content Academy that took me a week to write.

If I write a book for the purpose of selling my services, it’s a better book if I got it done in a month than if it took a year - so long as it still does the job of generating the right kind of leads for my service.

And so on ad nauseum.

So when we approach CONTENT writing we are not trying to create the best possible version of the content. We're looking to do the best we can right now in the next however long it should take.

And then we can reuse it and hone it as we go.

When I first wrote this email a couple years back, it took me 9 minutes. Start to finish. And I said back then that I wouldn’t edit or revise it until I restructure the whole Write Way Newsletter.

Why?

Because it wasn’t worth it in terms of increased benefit to me or you.

It was good enough.

Now, that doesn't mean you don't constantly seek to improve. A year before I wrote it, this email would have been half as good and taken me at least an hour to write. But I've worked hard at getting better.

Now that I am reusing it, I’ve taken a half hour to convert it into the right form for the Write Way Newsletter. I’ve added a bunch of extra material, examples, restructured the flow and made it a whole lot better.

I’ve developed as a writer and a CONTENT creator since then. But I’m still only spending an hour tops in creating this, which is what I aim for with these Write Way Newsletters (around 2-3 hours for a brand new piece, 1 if I’m repurposing or basing on something else.)

But I’m not obsessing over it like a line of poetry.

This morning I was working on a new hymn and I spent an hour just sitting with one single verse of it like I discussed in last week’s Write Way Newsletter. Because that is art. And like all art, it exists for a purpose (just like CONTENT) but part of that purpose is the beauty of the thing itself.

The lines are blurred, sometimes. But they are there.

The thing is, if you practice your art separate like I do then the skills will transfer across into better content anyway.

I write snappy X-Twitter posts because I wrote poetry for years, the concision comes naturally to me. I create compelling copy and newsletters because I spend hours writing fiction.

It all weaves together.

But disaster comes when you start losing sight of the important stuff and forget that the CONTENT you’re creating is not meant to be your great artistic endeavour, it’s only meant to serve a higher purpose.

Create it as best as your able, don’t stress, and get better at it for next time.

All of which serves as a lengthy introduction to the purpose of this piece (in part) which is to tell you that Content Academy is open for new students.

Behold, the obnoxiously large poster for the same:

Meanwhile, may your CONTENT create easily so you can spent more time with pipe and prose,

James Carran, Craftsman Writer

P.s. Get Content Academy through my affiliate link above, send me your receipt, and I'll also give you access to my CONTENT Creator Bonus Pack completely free.

Banishing Burnout ($50) - A twenty minute, no fluff video that breaks down how to avoid burnout as a writer, how to fix it when it happens, and how to plan for it so it doesn't destroy everything you've built.

Curing Deadline Disease ($99) - A forty-five minute, no fluff video that covers how to deal with the constant flow of deadlines that come along with the content creator life.

Speed Daemon Secrets ($121) - My flagship course on writing faster and better so you can create content without it taking over your life. Again, it's short and actionable so you can easily get through all these courses before Content Academy even starts. But they're yours forever including the major update to Speed Daemon Secrets coming soon.

All of which comes to a grand total of $270 retail value, yours for free when you sign up. A little nuts, I know, given the price of Content Academy is a bit less than that. But we're coming up for the deadline for the UK tax year so any income I bring forward could save me a good chunk given I'll be earning far more next year...

The first call is on Thursday at 4pm Eastern but I will keep this offer open until Midnight Eastern US time.

P.p.s. If you already own Speed Daemon Secrets or the other trainings, I will replace them with a free copy of Voice Box (launching at $363 soon) instead. My early customers always get the best deal.

P.p.p.s. I'm not putting the link here as well, this is a short postscript, scroll back up and get it, lazybones!