Category: Promotion
-
Choose someone else
In case you’ve been waiting to be chosen, there’s plenty of great advice on choosing yourself (or picking yourself). There seems to be much less advice about the natural next step: choosing someone else. These days, you and I and everyone else is a gatekeeper in some way. That means we also have the ability…
-
Brain Age
Nintendo has sold over 35 million copies of Brain Age. (All of these people also had to play the game on a console.) Brain Age was based on the bestselling books, No wo Kitaeru Otona no Keisan Doriru and No wo Kitaeru Otona no Onyomi Doriru, which sold over 2 million copies and were authored…
-
Contentions: Put a price on your marketing
There’s a reason to make people pay for your work. While profitability would be nice, it’s not the main goal. People being willing to pay for your work suggests brand engagement; you’ve made something people want. It also encourages them to actually use the thing. Consider the Michelin Guide, one of the original pieces of…
-
Practice as perpetuation
A couple of days ago, someone told me that they saw me using a portable monitor and decided to buy one for themselves. It’s just another reminder that people learn from each other and get energy and inspiration from each other. If you wish something was more widespread, the best thing you can do is…
-
Three things about your competitors
If a tattoo artist does a good job the first time you get a tattoo, you’ll be interested in getting more tattoos. They’ve just created an opportunity for other tattoo artists. If somebody reads a book about creativity, they’re probably actually more likely to read another book about the topic—not less. While competitive energy can…
-
Create a lot of value, extract a small part of it
Ryan Holiday writes in his lessons from writing The Daily Stoic for seven years: Give a lot of value away and capture a small percentage. I mentioned that we’ve essentially published seven books for free through the Daily Stoic email. On top of that, over the years, we’ve essentially created the largest Stoic library in…
-
Permission marketing, consistent distribution
“My passengers surprised me,” Gavin says, remembering his early days. “I thought they would be silent or on the phone. But most people wanted to talk. When I mentioned my jewelry, they asked for business cards, but I didn’t have any.” That’s when a light bulb went off in his mind: Why stop at business…
-
To promote your work on social media, ask friends to like or share, and send them a calendar invite
Because there’s so much noise on the internet, it takes an extremely loud one to stand out. In marketing, there’s a heuristic known as effective frequency, also less formally as the Rule of 7; in order for a person to commit to trying your product, they need to hear it at least 7 times. Given…
-
Publish everything, promote selectively
I’d previously corresponded with a prominent author who had dabbled with writing every day. They concluded that the practice wasn’t for them—they weren’t capable of developing a good new idea every day, which would reach hundreds of thousands of readers. This stood out in contrast to my recommended approach, which is to make a lot…
-
Don’t be precious about promoting your work
You will promote your work, and nothing happens. Someone else will promote your work, and nothing happens. Someone else will promote your work, and nothing happens. Someone else will promote your work, and it’ll go completely viral. Someone else will promote your work, and nothing happens. I’ve seen this happen over, and over, and over…