New Rules for Writers: Are You Paying Attention?

The world’s changing FAST. Recently Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt said that more information was created online in just 48 hours than was created in the entire history of civilization until 2003.

Think about that for a moment.

Then, think about what it means for writers — what it means for YOU.

OK. You’ve thought about yourself long enough.

Now think about what this unimaginable flood of information means to the people who pay you to write — or, if you’re just starting out, to the people you want to pay you to write.

I’m talking about newspapers, magazines, websites, companies… all your buyers, no matter who they are, face huge, endless competition.

They don’t just face competition from their everyday competitors either. They face competition from the entire tsunami of information — for just slice of attention from their market.

We’re communicators, so when they hire us, they hire us to beat the noise. They want the material we create to compete for attention — and WIN.

Scary.

Over the past couple of weeks there’s been a brouhaha online about Google’s content farm update.

That’s Google clearing the decks. They’re saying that a lot of indexed information is just junk. They don’t want it in their index.

The huge content media companies will need to lift their game.

Correction: their writers will need to lift their game: these companies make their millions on the back of writers, after all.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know that I want you to make money from your words. I’m certainly not against the concept of content farms — why would I be? If you want to write, it won’t happen overnight. You need to write a lot of words to become a reasonable writer.

When I started out, writers expected to write for five to ten years without making a cent, facing endless rejection slips. Nowadays the content farms provide baby writers with an instant taste of success, and I’m all for that.

But… remember the tsunami of information. More information is created online in 48 hours than was created in the history of the world until 2003…

This means that in 2011 and beyond, there will be new rules for writers.

What are they?

I wish I could give you ten definitive rules for writers to grab and hold attention in the face of an ocean of information.

Here are just two: passion, and creativity.

Here’s number three: create a real writing business.

I created the “Your Writing Dream: Set Up Your Own Highly Profitable Writing Business” series so that you could take your writing from a hobby to a real career. Passion and creativity are key to helping you to do that.

Please bookmark the series; you’ll find a new post each week.

What are YOUR new rules for writers? How will you get attention for your writing clients? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

Blog For Big Companies, And Make A Six-Figure Income — Starting Today

If you’re looking for writing gigs, you’ll have seen that many businesses advertise for bloggers. Unfortunately, the businesses which advertise are all doing so because they’re looking for cheap content.

You can do much better.

You can find clients who don’t advertise, but who pay well for blogging. Did you know that experienced professional bloggers charge their clients a minimum of $1000 per month, per blog? Consider that if a blogger’s working for 20 clients, that’s $20,000 a month.

You can blog for businesses too, if you’re prepared: Blogging Ace shows you how.