Earning 6 figures a month by writing, my self-media entrepreneurship route!

If you only have one chance to turn things around in your life, you must do your best.

I have written 400,000 words this year.

I spent my own time reading these words after get off work, and then compiled them based on my own experience and learning outcomes.

From writing reading notes to starting a content business , my journey has been extremely difficult.

Since it is difficult, it means there are experiences to share.

So as usual, I will make my content entrepreneurship route public, you can imitate it or refer to it.

1. Establish a base

To establish a base is to first try to establish your own writing topic.

• Find out what knowledge or skills you are good at
• See which ones you like here.
• Finally, let’s take a look at what popular topics are on the market now

The overlap between the three parts is basically the direction of your writing topic.

Regarding what to write, Mr. V gave us some good advice in his article "The Latest | Jianshu Author Ranking":

1. What to write?

Three religions × nine streams: The articles on Jianshu are nothing more than the three religions of "life, work, and study", and the nine streams of "academic thinking, stories, poetry, current affairs, essays, technology tools , books, movies, and audio-visuals, acquiring new skills, and complaints". Multiply the two together to see what kind of subject you want to write and what kind of subject you are good at writing, and you will have an idea in your mind.

2. If you really can’t think of anything to say, go to Weibo and search for today’s latest current affairs, hot topics, etc., and write a small comment.

Based on past observations, such articles have a great chance of being on the front page and receiving likes.

3. According to my observation, tools and organization posts, and inspirational and emotional stories are more popular among Jianshu's user groups.

In the book "The Hidden Rules of Bestsellers", the author mentioned that whether a book can be a bestseller can actually be known when the theme is determined.

For example, a book on project management can be considered a bestseller if it sells 10,000 copies. However, for a youth literature book, because of its popular subject, it is easy to sell 20,000 copies, and 50,000-100,000 copies are considered a bestseller.

So if your topic is not a popular one, you should have a psychological expectation of the number of readers.

If you feel like there are many topics you can write about, the best thing to do is to try writing about them all.

In those years, I wrote about useless topics

Every article is a training process of organizing, conceiving and presenting knowledge. Even if you think it is poorly written, the training process has been completed and you have made progress.

If all else fails, just read the article I wrote a year ago and you will immediately feel more confident.

2. Seek the road no one has traveled before

Since it is a popular topic, it means that you have a lot of similar content as others.

Then we have to mention differentiated competition.

If you have been writing for a long time, then I would recommend you to read books like "Positioning" and "Brand Competition";

But if you are just starting to write, I think you just need to imitate.

So I can find a road that no one has walked on. I can probably use the three steps of "guarding, breaking and leaving" to explain my steps:

Guard:

Go for deep imitation, imitate the writing style of your favorite author. If you want to learn systematically, buy his/her books, attend his/her micro-classes or training, or even make an appointment to meet him/her.

The learning and innovation of any skill is based on deep imitation. If you can't even master the basic routines, your originality is just a decoration and cannot help you sustain.

It is worth reminding that TA here is not one person, but a group of people.

Imitating one person is plagiarism, imitating a group of people is innovation.

break:

After following for a long time, you will learn the routine, and then you can make some improvements to his/her writing style to suit your own needs.

For example, I read "Your Knowledge Needs to be Managed", "Reading Like This is Enough", and "How to Read a Book". These are books that have had a profound impact on me, but after I did a lot of exercises according to the contents of the books, I began to make some improvements.

For example, the five steps of knowledge management mentioned in "Your Knowledge Needs to be Managed", I made an enhanced version with six steps, and a simplified version with three steps.

If I can't write better than you, I will attack you from multiple dimensions

Therefore, my differentiated competitiveness is reflected in the link of "breaking". I combined PPT, hand-drawing, and copywriting marketing in the article;

I even use it on my cat because it acts as a “visual hammer”. (Please read "Visual Hammer" for details)

Leave:

Skill training focuses on steps, but when you have mastered a skill.

Once a stable circuit is formed in the neuronal connections in your brain, you won't need to pay too much attention to skills.

At this time, explicit knowledge will become implicit.

Your writing style will come naturally without you having to try hard to present it.

3. Rely on the platform

If you were to run a specialty pancake stall, would you plan to open a store or push a wheelbarrow to sell them on the pedestrian street?

The answer is both.

Opening a small shop is like running a public account ;

But if you are just starting out, I suggest you focus on the platform and publish on the official account simultaneously.

Because the initial reading volume and attention of the official account will be very bleak, we need to expand our influence on platforms with large traffic.

Among the pedestrian street-style platforms, Jianshu currently has the largest passenger flow.

My initial strategy was to continue setting up stalls and try my best to stand at the entrance of the pedestrian street (recommended on the homepage).

How to get recommended on the homepage?

The prerequisite is that you must be familiar with the rules of the platform.

Therefore, you should read in detail the introduction to Jianshu for beginners, the frequently asked questions about Jianshu, and the rules for submitting articles to Jianshu.

Then I contacted the editor-in-chief and joined the group of authors on various topics on Jianshu.

Although there are good and bad people in it, at least they are all self-employed people who set up stalls on Jianshu, and official staff of Jianshu are also in it, so you can always get a lot of information.

Be a good person first, then do things.

If you abide by the platform rules and are familiar with the editors, many things will be easy.

So when Jianshu started to promote Jianshu authors, I was among the first group to be invited, because I often met the requirements for contracted authors, and the editors all knew me.

4. Accumulate users

The number of reads is not important, the number of followers is important.

A very important indicator I pay attention to on the platform is how many new readers there are every week.

When you continue to output, you can use all channels to direct all traffic to your platform account.

For example, after publishing an article, guide everyone to pay attention at the end of the article:

• That’s all for today. We will talk about something else in the next article. If you find it useful, remember to pay attention.
• I will do some book giveaways next, remember to pay attention
• Uncle, I don't want any reward, if you follow me, I will lick your ass

There are also some other ways, which is to post the article on Weibo headlines or Moments.

We are always curious about repetitive or continuous things. Of course, no one will pay attention to you if you post an article occasionally once a week.

There is a very important word in Ye Maozhong’s “12 Marketing Keywords”: repetition. If you are interested, you can learn about it.

I now have 60,000 subscribers on Jianshu, ranking first.

Jianshu does not have a user-focused growth curve like official accounts, so I manually compile the data myself every week to look at the growth curve.

Own data monitoring

Through the growth trend chart, I was promoted from 13th place to 1st place, which was achieved through data analysis and calculation.

As long as I update 5 articles every week for 6 months, I will definitely be the number one on Jianshu.

5. Dig cash flow channels

Once you have developed a strong, loyal, and growing readership, you can start to diversify your distribution beyond your primary platforms.

I started operating my own public account when I had more than 30,000 followers on Jianshu. Then, I leveraged the popularity I had gained on Jianshu to quickly accumulate my own users on the public account.

During this process, Jianshu has also made many adjustments. For example, now you can also give rewards on Jianshu via mobile phones. This is really an improvement that makes people cry.

From the original 200 yuan in tips per month, now we can get 1,000 yuan in tips per month. I believe this cash flow channel will get better and better.

While you guys were enjoying the flowers and the moon, I was selling meat to make money

I have made many diversified attempts on Jianshu to diversify my cash flow channels.

• For example, cooperate with public accounts to write reading guides and book reviews;
• Cooperate with other APPs to give micro lessons;
• Cooperate with BM, Choose Yourself, Workplace Power Bank and other large communities to provide a series of courses;

Many of my friends are better at writing than me, so naturally they earn more than me. Because my writing skills are not good, I can only combine my experience in product and project development to start micro-courses and training.

This is also the point that many fellow writers criticize, that their writing is so poor yet they still make so much money.

In the past year, I have given 150 sharing sessions; my micro-course content is updated once a month. If sitting in front of the computer and typing is brain-burning, then going out to share and flying around the country is burning your body.

What is Pin? It means to exchange everything you have now for what you want.

6. Build a team

Yes, if you are like me and write in your spare time, come and share.

You need a team to help you.

I now have a content officer who helps me proofread text (my articles now have fewer typos, right?), edit and publish content;

I have a BD (Business Development) to help me connect with business partners.

This way I can focus more on content creation and service communication.

One person walks fast, a group of people walk far.

You see, before I knew it, I had realized my dream of starting a business.

summary:

Having written this far, I have told you everything about my content entrepreneurship journey.

Personal brand designer Pan Lingzhu recommended me to watch Leo DiCaprio's "The Revenant" at that time.

She said she read it three times and then told me: Xiaoliu, look, when we build our personal brand, aren’t we just like Leo?

We don’t know how dangerous the journey ahead will be, we can only move forward;

Because we can't go back, there is no way out.

I don’t know how I will go on or what I will encounter.

But I will be prepared for whatever may happen.

I hope you can keep paying attention to me, and every time I stop to take a break, I will talk to you about my experiences, okay?