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For the last year I’ve gone on record as saying I wouldn’t take a traditional publishing deal for less than seven figures since there would be too much to lose for me long term.

I also said I’d take a publishing deal with Amazon – even if it was for like a $1.50

I’m an indie publisher at heart, and traditional publishing simply doesn’t fit with my model. There are too many things traditional publishers get wrong – at least for the way I prefer to do business – that Amazon gets right, or at least does better out of the gate. Because they know where things are going, or at least have fewer clouds in their crystal ball than any of the Big Six, and have provided the Collective Inkwell with the platform that’s supported our efforts so far, aligning myself with Amazon makes sense.

As a ghostwriter, the faster I wrote and the higher quality I was able to produce in any given time had a direct impact on the money I was able to make. Once Kindle exploded, I knew I could make exponentially more by writing for myself than I ever could writing for others. Even if it took me a year (or two) to get there and I nearly starved before I did. The choice for my future was clear.

It took Dave and me several months to find our feet, even making the stupid mistake of dabbling in print with our first few titles, before finally settling on our ideal model with serialized fiction late last summer.

We launched Yesterday’s Gone episode one in the final week of July, then finished our first season on October 3, 2011.

Yesterday’s Gone was far from an overnight success. While there were some people intrigued by the model – mostly entrepreneurs – the vast majority of feedback from readers and fellow writers was that serialization didn’t and wouldn’t work. People simply weren’t willing to buy their books in pieces.

I agree, but our critics had a fundamental misunderstanding of what we were trying to do.

Dave and I were never trying to serialize books, we were creating a new style of entertainment. Readers have shorter attention spans, e-books make it easy to create single serving experiences, and the golden age of scripted television has primed our population to mine the same vibe from their reading.

We started by changing the language of our stories, calling them episodes and seasons rather than books and volumes. We modeled our writing after the rhythms we’ve thoroughly enjoyed with cable serials like The Sopranos, Dexter, Breaking Bad, and too many others to list here.

As I said, Yesterday’s Gone didn’t exactly start out with a BANG! In October we did 60 guest posts, profiles and interviews to support our first full season, most on high profile sites like Copyblogger, Jane Friedman, and Jonathan Fields. All together, these barely moved the dial.

We sold 100 copies that first month. In other words, pathetic.

But we knew we were doing the right thing, and stuck with it, immediately getting started on our second season. By the second week of January, we knew we had a hit. And more importantly, we knew we had a model.

As ridiculously difficult as it was (and is) to maintain, Dave and I decided that to be the HBO, AMC or Showtime of Kindle, we had to create a similar experience for our readers. That didn’t just mean creating superb series, we also had to create consistency with our releases.

We could never leave our readers hungry…

Just as cable networks end each of their seasons with a new show the following Sunday, we would have to develop multiple series and space them throughout our year as well.

When Yesterday’s Gone’s second season ended in February, we immediately followed it with ForNevermore. When that was finished, we followed with WhiteSpace, each series gathering sharper reviews and further validated our model.

The most difficult part of what we’re doing isn’t the pace, it’s the faith it takes to believe in the model. Because we price our product at .99 during the first several weeks (before the full season is available) there is very little profit during the first two months of each season. We would easily make more freelancing. And worse, as proven with Yesterday’s Gone, it’s difficult to make anything substantial until your second season is live.

But Dave and I agreed to play the long game, building a base of series that would give us an incredible 2013. The hard work is nearly finished. We’re in the middle of our first season of Available Darkness (an AWESOME vampire thriller), and will end the year with five in-house series.

There are two more titles on the way, for a grand total of seven.

More on that in a minute.

A few weeks back, Amazon launched their “Amazon Serials” program. This was tremendous news for Dave and I since it validated the model. Even being invite only, we figured we would win big since Amazon was spending a lot of their own dollars and marketing to send the message that “serials were cool.”

But things quickly went from good to great when Amazon’s sci-fi and horror publishing arm, 47North, approached us about creating a serial for them.

We said of course, and now have two in production. Both will be live by the end of this year.

The first is called Z 2134, and could best be described as “The Walking Dead meets The Hunger Games, set in a 1984 style world.” Like all of our other titles, Z 2134 will unfold in six installments.

Our second series with Amazon, Monstrous, also six episodes, will follow immediately after Z. Monstrous is “Beauty and the Beast meets Spawn,” though like the pitch for “Z” it does little to convey the Sam Jackson with a snow cone cool of this project.

One of the things I love most about Amazon is their velocity, moving at approximately 3,172 times the speed of a traditional publisher. But it’s also what’s killing me right now.

Dave and I have approximately 200,000 words worth of top quality copy to produce in the next two months. I’m looking forward to every word, and have never been happier, but I also have no illusions about the difficulty of what lies ahead.

I’ll still be around, and will look forward to the Hangouts as a break from the insanity. Mostly, I wanted you to be first to know, especially since I wasn’t allowed to say anything until this morning! I’ve been very excited.

If you’d like to see how it all started, Yesterday’s Gone has the second season available for free today. You can get it here:

Yesterday’s Gone Season 2

The first two episodes are also free. You can get those here and here.

If you’ve already read Yesterday’s Gone, tell a friend and send them the link. You can be one of the cool kids who knew about it first.

This is still the only place I’m planning to blog, and it still will be subscription only, so if you have a friend you think would like what’s happening here, please send them a link to this page and they can opt-in to the box below.

I did it. So can you!

Talk to you soon.

Sean

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Collective Inkwell

As much as I appreciate the value of a good mistake, and the learning behind it, I overproduced at The Digital Writer last week.

Monday’s hangout snafu was funny – exactly the sort of technology hiccup it’s impossible to avoid, at least entirely, when working online.

This one was all my fault. It takes Johnny two seconds and the same number of clicks to get us going and live on YouTube each week. I was hoping for the same, but was embarrassingly less efficient.

I hadn’t verified my YouTube account, or realized I had to until people were trying to sign onto the hangout, and emailing me wondering what was happening.

Spoiler alert: I have two Gmail accounts.

The Ideal Solution For the Videos

Though we didn’t start at all as expected, we were closer to an ideal solution than we would have been otherwise by the time we finished.

We ended up recording answers in 10 minute chunks – long enough to prove a point or two, while staying easy in, easy out.

As for the hangout itself, I loved answering questions, and could do that all day. I feel helpful, and my voice gives my fingers a break.

Most hangouts will have a moderator; someone to keep me on task, ask me questions, and efficiently deliver a topic.

Each week’s hangout will be posted to YouTube in its entirety, then Tania will break the hangout into smaller pieces, 10-20 minutes, and publish those to YouTube as well.

I would love to transcribe these, since I think it would make the library a far better resource, but I can’t manage that yet.

I’ll do three hangouts per month, allowing you to shape the content as we go. Whatever you want to know most, that’s what I’ll spend the most time with.

Digital Writer will host the videos and the summaries. Written posts, like this one, will be hosted here.

This blog is subscription only, and will remain so. From here on, it will grow only through referral. If you have a friend you think would benefit from what we’re doing, or several, please email, tweet, or like this page.

I Need to Hose the Whole Thing Down

I’ve been needing to rebrand everything across the board FOREVER – gathering all my sites and assets and projects together, then unifying them beneath a single neat umbrella. Now that I’m clear on what I’m doing with the Digital Writer, I need to start immediately.

There’s no one in the world I trust to help me with this more than Danny, but I have to wait my turn since he’s been super busy with outstandingSETUP.

I can’t wait until we can get started on this because if we do it well, it can serve as a model author’s platform. We’re working on an “Author’s Theme” for WordPress as well, though I have no idea when that will be finished. It will be awesome when it is.

Collective Inkwell and Monsters

This week’s CI story was called “Monsters” and was a bit different from our other stories in the Dark Crossings series so far.

Its main character was a child, and the story dealt with bullying. We’ve found that when we write about relevant issues, our narratives resonate with readers, cutting into a layer deeper than simple scares.

Our short story, Hide ’N Seek, from two weeks ago earned nine 5-Star reviews (nothing lower) in its first 10 days, becoming our best-reviewed short so far. That story was about a negligent mother, sexting instead of watching her daughter while playing Hide ’N Seek at the park. Tragedy strikes.

Here is the teaser for Monsters:

10-year old Sheldon Harrison is afraid of monsters.

Every day he has to walk along a long stretch of woods where a Monster is rumored to live.

But that Monster isn’t as scary as the bullies which torment him. And the only way to avoid the bullies? To take a shortcut . . . through the woods.

If you would like a review copy of this title, please reply to one of your Digital Writer emails and I will send it to you.

Scammers Polluting the Author Pool

This week’s Self-Publishing Podcast was one of my favorite episodes yet, though I still enjoyed last week’s with Joanna Penn more.

We talked about buying reviews, and a lot of the scam IM products shilling Kindle success. I loved the topic, and think it’s one of the most important concerns facing modern authors.

Even after talking for an hour I felt like we were only getting started. I’ve thought of a hundred things that could’ve peppered the conversation since ending the podcast.

The nutshell: scammers suck and you should never buy reviews.

John Locke bought reviews. That doesn’t make him an asshole. Lying about it, like he did in a book that inspired me and countless others, does.

The existing environment is built on trust, bought reviews erode the ecosystem. It’s stealing.

Beyond the review buying lies a long list of IM scammers, flooding author inboxes with spammy mountains of But WAIT, there’s more!’s, fresh from the conveyor belt of their brand new spam-o-matic – promising to help you get rich on Kindle with a shit-heap of scattered tactics that might work for a month, even though the authors of the product can barely get them to work now.

That’s a hangman’s rope to a hard-working writers like you and me, who are playing a long game for a lucrative, lifetime career.

I have plenty to say about this, and have even considered writing a rant post, but I’m not sure how deep that rabbit hole goes.

Apparently, No Movies F*@#!* me Up

There’s never anything to learn from Better Off Undead, but it is nice to have a place each week where I promise nothing but a good time. This week’s topic was movies that messed us up (except using four letters to say it).

The example was Jaws ruining the beach for many people. I couldn’t think of an example since I always knew movies were movies, from since forever. Even if I felt creepy after leaving the theater, aftershocks were few, and always quick to die.

The BOU podcast is growing super fast, and I couldn’t be happier. It’s essentially three friends talking, but because it’s friendly conversation about topics that would interest the same reader who would likely love Yesterday’s Gone and my other serialized fiction, it might be the best broadcast I have for leading listeners to my work.

I will keep you posted on how this is working out. It might not work for all authors, but for some, a podcast could be a smarter solution than blogging. It’s in a different informational hemisphere, less saturated than what many bloggers face.

This Experiment Might Help You Most

I want to start talking a lot more about my children’s projects. Even if you’re not planning to write children’s fiction, watching a line of books getting planned, produced, and eventually published might shave months from your journey by nurturing anything from one idea to many.

I want to discuss projects, and with specific names, but I’m worried about saying too much, then having someone take then pen name. So I’m going to put out a book under the upcoming pen name with a single title – the equivalent of buying a domain. I want the children’s pen name up on Amazon so I can claim “first” before I tell you more about what I’m doing.

Zombies Are Slow, Especially When Writing Them

I’ve started writing a zombie story with Dave. This serial took him nearly a year of convincing before I agreed. I think zombies are a bit played, we have something rather zombie like in Yesterday’s Gone, and I don’t want to cover the same ground twice.

But since we’re doing the Better Off Undead podcast, a straight zombie story is a great fit. We came up with a premise that was easy to love, and started writing last week.

We’re doing several things different with this particular story, and I’ll start talking more about those in the next post. For now, I just wanted to admit that this story kicked my ass.

The time spent writing went over double its budget, and I still have more work to do once Dave passes it back to me. I’ll tell you what was wrong and how we fixed it next time. I only wanted to mention it now because it doesn’t matter how much you write, or how good you might be, writing = rewriting, and sometimes that can’t be planned on a calendar.

I Really (REALLY) Hope This Works

I just bought a press release package. It was super expensive and I’m going to be sad if it doesn’t work.

I’m not sad often, but this package is ridonculously priced for what is essentially a shot in the dark, but like a penny and a half less than it needs to be to make me want to try. If you were in a room with nine other people, you and eight others would agree I was being stupid.

But I understand press releases, have had a successful run with using them in a totally unrelated way, and have terrific product that is loved by its audience. All I need is more attention. And with the right press releases and intelligent headlines, I might be able to get it.

Press releases are the best SEO dollar I’ve ever spent, but writing and publishing fiction isn’t an SEO game, which is what makes this strategy a gamble.

This is another topic that I’ll detail as I go. If press releases work for me, they’ll probably work for you.

I’ll be back soon with another post. Please remember, this blog is subscription only, and will remain so.

If you have a friend or network who will benefit from what we’re doing here, please share by emailing, tweeting, or liking this page.

I did it. So can you.
Sean Platt

Enter your best email address in the box below, absorb the free content once a week, then take action on what you learn. You will be a more successful writer.

There were quite a few hiccups this week while trying to get the first Digital Writer Hangout going, and all of them my fault!

You can see the mishap in the sequence of videos below, or at least the aftermath where I answer some reader questions.

Despite the early hiccup, I’m thrilled it turned out as it did. Making these short, snappy videos turned much better than posting one long hangout people might not be interested in.

With the assortment of short videos, viewers can pick and choose which topics meet their needs most, then share those videos they’re confident will benefit their friends and followers most.

Video 1 – Smashwords and What I Would Do Different

This first video answers a reader’s question about the benefits and pitfalls of using Smashwords. I also explain why Smashwords isn’t our primary (or even one of our major) outlets.

“Smashwords is a global dashboard.”

I was also asked what I would do now if I could reset the clock four years. The full answer is in the video, but the short answer is:

“Whatever you have in your head, get it out immediately. Ideas held too long rot like fruit.”

Video 2 – Self-Promotion

How did I promote myself in the beginning? Well, I didn’t. I didn’t have to. But that wasn’t a good thing. I explain why in this next video, as well as why “I’m more comfortable with earned attention than asking for it.”

Dave and I divide our Collective Inkwell duties down the middle, but that’s far from the all on my plate. I’m a Production Model kind of thinker, and much of what I do is collaborative, so the latter half of this second video is a brief rundown of what I’ve been working on over the last three months.

“If I slow down, I’ll write less.”

Video 3 – Confidence

Give yourself permission to suck.

Who cares what your first draft sounds like? You’re supposed to be writing with the door closed. Just write. Then write again. And again.

Find out how many times I sometimes rewrite before I publish my copy, and how you can improve your writing with each step.

“I’ve written four million years in four million words.”

The above sentence is proof: practice makes perfect.

Do the opposite of what I do to be successful – focus on thing at the time and you will get where you’re going faster. Sporadic thinking is what makes me tick, yet focusing on multiple projects at a time, decays my model. I’m willing to sacrifice in this area since I know myself well enough to know that’s something I need as a happy writer, person and entrepreneur.

“You will be more successful if you work on one thing at the time.”

Video 4 – Scheduling and Rhythm

Dave and I are working toward crafting an ideal day-to-day schedule, and will hopefully be there by the end of fall/winter. Until then, I must flip back and forth between writing and rewriting.

“I don’t have a daily word count, I have a daily hour count. Within those hours, I try to write as much as I can.”

This video articulates what you can do to push your writing further each day by paying attention to your habits, then improvising your schedule to constantly nudge yourself two millimeters further.

Video 5 – My Fail and Time Management

Spending a few dollars on information that is organized and well-researched saves me time and energy. That was the idea behind the Digital Writer titles.

“I’ve never been afraid to spend money to carve myself the kind of career that I want.”

Effective time management is the reason I could shut down a successful preschool and make a living writing, on my own terms. Writing is a job, and you must be show up and tear through your copy on demand, or it will be difficult to succeed.

Spending time searching online for free answers is a poor use of your time. Stop it.

Video 6 – Pen Names and the SPP

“You absolutely must have a pen name.”

Different genres require different pen names, especially when it comes to Amazon. Fiction readers will rarely if ever be interested in writing sales letters. Pen names are a part of my business, and in this video I discuss how today’s Digital Writer can use a penname effectively.

In this video I also answer a reader’s question about something I said on the Self-Publishing Podcast about blogging. Essentially, WordPress blogs are losing relevance. A blog should be an outlet, not a place to “blog” in the traditional sense. Using your time to leverage Amazon and other self-publishing outlets will prove more profitable in the long run.

“If I were starting out right now, I wouldn’t blog. I’d publish content directly to Amazon.”

Another writer asked about the page count for serialized fiction. Serialized fiction is different from a novel. Don’t stress over page count. Instead, focus on your story. Make readers care for your characters and give them a strong story. Having said that, 16,000 words is about average for our stories.

Of course there’s more of this in your email, and even more in next week’s private email. Subscribers, see you there. Everyone else, you can get next week’s email by signing up below.

Enter your best email address in the box below, absorb the free content once a week, then take action on what you learn. You will be a more successful writer.

Until next week!
I did it. So can you.

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Collective Inkwell ]]> http://seanmplatt.com/digital-writer-hangout-1/feed/ 3 http://seanmplatt.com/now-we-have-a-community/ http://seanmplatt.com/now-we-have-a-community/#comments Tue, 21 Aug 2012 11:17:59 +0000 Sean M. Platt http://seanmplatt.com/?p=520 - Read More -]]> Enter your best email address in the box below, absorb the free content once a week, then take action on what you learn. You will be a more successful writer.

I was fighting butterflies as I published last week’s post.

Or they were fighting me. I knew they were stupid.

I read the copy several times, more than usual and even out loud, wondering if I was doing the right thing, hoping the right I was feeling inside wasn’t a lingering high from moving hot thoughts from mind to screen.

Writing is stripping naked so the world can read between your lines.

Fiction or non-fiction, your movement mars the page.

Most of my writing has been public. Except for the many times I’ve been paid to stay invisible.

Odd combo.

Overall, I’ve been far less personal for the last few years than I was during the first one.

This isn’t an accident. I know the exact day I started to pull away.

I’ll tell you about that day another time. The story will probably make you feel better about your own audience.

That day is relevant because it taught me what to expect. That expectation colored much of my behavior during the last few years, and determined how much of myself I was willing to give to you.

I wasn’t sure what would happen once I published last week’s post, but I’m thrilled, energized, and reassured by the response. Yes, this community is smaller, but still larger than I expected. Our size is a sign of a healthy reaction, and that healthy reaction has me eager to serve.

Now we have a community.

Many of you will publish your dreams to reality.

The last few months of doing it wrong has left us with some catching up, so I’ll get through a bit today, then we’ll dig deeper next week.

You must know some of what I’m working on for context. I’ll be discussing my projects in the coming months, starting at our first hangout next Monday. The more background you have, the more relevant the takeaways will be.

I’ll go over the details for that first hangout in a bit.

We do Ink. Well.

You’re already familiar with the Collective Inkwell, my small imprint with David Wright, home of Yesterday’s Gone, WhiteSpace and ForNevermore.

We specialize in serialized fiction. We publish weekly, every Tuesday, modeling what we do after networks such as AMC, HBO and Showtime, rather than traditional publishing. We print nothing. For now.

Dave and I have poured tremendous time and attention into crafting our model, doing everything from maintaining a ridiculously rigorous weekly schedule, to changing the market’s language with words such as “episodes” and “seasons,” instead of “books” and “volumes.”

It’s working well, and getting better by the week.

Collective Inkwell, because of our products and strategies, is the most well-developed asset we have, and what I’ll be discussing most.

In between seasons of our series, we release episodes from our Dark Crossings line of short stories. This week’s was called Hide ‘N Seek – about a little girl at the park with her mom, who is sexting instead of watching her child. Panic ensues all over the place.

If you got your Thank YOU email when you first signed up to the Digital Writer last week, then you saw the invite to “reply” for a FREE book. Replying to that email is a simple way to start reading Collective Inkwell content for free, and see what we’re doing first hand.

Painful to Watch, But Awesome to Listen to

While Collective Inkwell is the biggest project on my plate, podcasts are the fastest growing. The Self-Publishing Podcast is one hour each week, and while totally NSFW, it is also ridiculous fun.

Below is an embed of our most recent episode, where we discuss work habits. And by discuss work habits, I mean Johnny and I high-fiving for an hour about what works, while we make fun of Dave for having no habits outside of waking up and drinking Cherry Coke. It’s a miracle that man can do as much as he does.

I’ve not seen the videos because I find it too painful to watch myself. I’d rather hear myself sing, since that’s funny and horrible.

Our first podcast was doing well enough to warrant a second one. The Self-Publishing Podcast is hella fun, and a place to connect with other writers, but writers aren’t necessarily readers.

So the three of us piggybacked our first podcast into a brand-new one: Better Off Undead. Our new podcast gives us a chance to connect with readers who enjoy the same sort of dark fiction Dave and I are writing at the Inkwell (and preps listeners for Johnny’s awesome zombie trilogy, now in production).

We just finished our third episode of Better Off Undead, and that episode has already been downloaded 1,000 times. I couldn’t be happier with the results.

Rather than embed our most recent episode, I’ll start with the first, which is a hysterical tear-down of what is probably the worst movie ever made: Birdemic: Shock and Terror.

Seriously, you will die laughing. Johnny dropped weights on himself because he was dumb enough to try lifting while listening.

I tried to listen to our new show “Better Off Undead”at the gym & almost killed myself dropping weights while laughing. betteroffundeadshow.com/1/

— Johnny B. Truant (@JohnnyBTruant) August 3, 2012

Check out Better Off Undead Episode One, and Birdemic: Shock and Terror here:

My other project has nothing to do with writing, but might have everything to do with you.

outstandingSETUP is a small company that provides awesome websites to individuals and businesses. If you’re a writer, you’re also your own business. Watching my smart partner, Danny Cooper and I grow this business in real time is worth paying attention to. If you’re a writer without a website, or a writer who isn’t in love with the one you have, you must fix that IMMEDIATELY. I can help you.

Hit reply on one of my emails and I’ll put you in touch with Danny directly. We have our own servers, and offer the best value online. I promise.

The Thing I’m So, So Excited About

The other BIG project I’m working on – DEEP in production even though it won’t see light until early next year – is a full line of children’s titles. Basically, Collective Inkwell for kids.

We have several series in development. Collective Inkwell keeps me running week to week, I want to start the children’s version half a year (at least) ahead. So right now I’m working with several writers and we’re building a bank of children’s work. This is especially rewarding since it’s the first time I’ve really been able to include Ethan and Haley in every part of the writing and publishing process.

I’m loving that, and will be talking a lot about this project in the coming weeks.

Our first Hangout will be on Monday the 27th at 1:30 EST. I’ll be on Google+ at that time. You’ll be able to find the video live on YouTube. If you can’t make the video, don’t worry. I’ll send you a link after the show.

I’ll be live on Twitter to answer any questions you have. Or you can reply to any previous Digital Writer email and ask your question that way.

That covers the meat and potatoes of this week. Next week, I’ll get into a few more specifics about projects, and of course answer all of your questions. Everything to follow is entirely frivolous.

Because Everything Isn’t Business and Sometimes Danny is Wrong (Plus Exploding Volcanoes and Skinny Songstresses)

Everything that follows is crap that you probably won’t care about at all.

Personal rambling. Nothing more. Danny told me I should cut it out.

He is 100% right, even though he’s also totally wrong.

You can skip to the end of this post and you will have read 100% of the value. But I’m leaving in the rest because I know you might want to read it. Some people do. I would. But then again, I’m a curious fellow. Like most writers.

(Danny’s not a writer. It’s not his fault.)

My song on repeat this week was Fiona Apple’s, “Hot Knife.”

I love this song.

I downloaded Fiona’s latest album – some super obnoxious, all-too-pleased with itself 87 word title I won’t dignify here – then soaked it in with Cindy.

Before kids, music was a backbeat behind us. Now there isn’t enough. When Apple’s last record, Extraordinary Machine, first dropped, our entire family listened to it – a lot. Haley, four years old at the time, knew most of the words from all of the songs, and would clench her fists through “Window” just like Fiona would have wanted.

That album was fun, this one isn’t. Too moody for me. It’s filled with cool percussion, sure; thigh slaps and truck stomps and such. But it’s not a lot of fun. Apple either forgot how to write those cool calliope hooks that made her engaging in the first place, or she’s grown out of them in the false believe that smart melodies means selling out.

I don’t care for the album, but I also don’t care that I don’t care since I got my money’s worth in one glowing ruby of a song that’s been beating its patterns into my mind like wet concrete on a dry day.

Check it out:

Music keeps you inspired. Inspiration helps you write faster, with more feeling and fewer internal analytics. Any artist that makes me think “I wish I could do that” is worthy of my minutes. Fiona did that for me this week.

I subjected my family to Hot Knife all the way to the Pompeii exhibit at the Cincinnati Museum this last Sunday.

Ethan was begging to go ALL SUMMER. Actually, he’d gone twice already. He was begging to go with Daddy. I kept promising.

The exhibit was closing on Sunday, so I’d feel like a dirtbag on Monday if we didn’t go.

So even though I totally didn’t want to put pants on, I did. And I wore them, along with a smile, all the way to the museum.

I’m glad I went, for Ethan and for this week’s as yet unwritten words. My writing will be better because of it. The exhibit is somber, especially the final room, flooded with people casts; their death forever draped in a blanket of blazing ash.

My children go back to school tomorrow. It’s been my favorite summer, by far. But as fast as its gone, it’s also been a long 10 weeks, leaving me looking forward to the next one, when I’ll be starting with a fresh schedule.

I can’t wait to get more done and share it with you.

I did it. So can you.
Sean Platt

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Enter your best email address in the box below, absorb the free content once a week, then take action on what you learn. You will be a more successful writer.

 ”Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”

Please read this post to the end or you will miss out. If you can’t read it now, please come back later.

I will continue to help you, if you are a serious writer who wants to know how to fill the bottom of their writer’s boat. 

But I’m fresh out of fish.

As of July 17, 2012, I’ve been writing online for four years.

I’m also hoping for comments below that validate my decision, and prove there’s a community here worth nurturing. The conversation starts below. Please tell me what you think, I’m eager to hear. And please, don’t forget to share.

Enter your best email address in the box below, absorb the free content once a week, then take action on what you learn. You will be a more successful writer.

Writers have always held the power to push the planet forward.

Enter your best email address in the box below, absorb the free content once a week, then take action on what you learn. You will be a more successful writer.

Enter your best email address in the box below, absorb the free content once a week, then take action on what you learn. You will be a more successful writer.

You want an amazing writing career, and you deserve it. So long as you’re willing to write your face off, which most writers are, and learn as you go, which is the Digital Writer way, then you have untold miles of untapped potential before you.

 Mistakes harbor your greatest learning experiences. Only through doing things wrong can you validate what’s truly right.

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Enter your best email address in the box below, absorb the free content once a week, then take action on what you learn. You will be a more successful writer.

Whether you’re looking to amplify your online authority, or build a better online business, there is no sharper tool in your box than a simple blog (preferably built on WordPress)