Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Ignore the Metrics

Sourced through Scoop.it from: boingboing.net

Goodness, this is a marvelous piece! Fave quote (though there are many) emphasis added:

“Here’s the thing: If you write, it can be very tempting to do as the big players do: follow the best practices, A/B test your headlines, and otherwise let metrics mutate your style until you’ve gone from being a writer to being a copywriter. But an eyeball isn’t an eyeball. Not to you. You’re a person, not a company. You can’t re-brand, merge, or pivot. If you try to write like a corporation’s social media generation team, you will burn out your voice faster than a coloratura soprano at the horse track.”

David Moldawer agrees with the message of Build Your Author Platform: The New Rules: The most important thing about building a writer platform is to be yourself!

See on Scoop.it – Build Your Author Platform: New Rules

Danielle Lee writes the Urban Scientist blog for Scientific American. In 2013 she wrote a post about an ugly incident in which she was invited to write for Biology Online, asked about payment, decl…

Source: blog.jonudell.net

Too many “social media experts” advise writers to spend hours upon hours writing content on platforms like Medium, Huffington Post, and WIRED.com “for the exposure.” I often remind writers that people die from exposure.

As Jon Udell points out in this piece, “If there’s no market for something I want to write, I’ll put it here (on his blog) instead of on Medium or Facebook or some other site that earns in the currency of dollars but pays in the currency of (presumptive) attention.”

Never put social media ahead of paying work. Always try to sell your expertise to someone who values the effort of writing for an audience.

See on Scoop.it – Build Your Author Platform: New Rules