5 Terrible Mistakes Every New Writer Makes
And how to avoid them.
Rereading your writing from years ago hurts.
At the end of this post, I’ll share a link to the first article I ever wrote online. It’s about philosophy, Jiu-Jitsu, and what I thought I knew about life as a 23-year-old fresh college graduate.
The article itself wasn’t terrible, but it certainly wasn’t good.
It contained a lot of mistakes, many of which I’d continue to make for the months and even years to come.
Now, a few years into my writing career, I’ve learned a lot about how to create better content, how to tell better stories, and how to write things that actually have a chance of standing out.
Here are the 5 worst mistakes that new many writers make on the internet:
1. Writing sucky headlines and hooks.
There are thousands of amazing online articles that you will never hear about or read.
They are beautiful stories, they contain life-changing revelations, and you can learn ideas from these articles that can make the world a better place.
However, not all of these stories will see the light of day. Few of them will go viral.
The reason? There are a few, but the big reason is that the headline on the article sucks.
You need to learn to write a headline that ropes a reader in. Something that either entertains them, informs them or sparks their curiosity.
Here’s one of the best articles I’ve ever read online:
The story is beautiful and it’s not about weight loss.
So how do you write better headlines?
It’s actually pretty simple.
You must practice writing headlines, the same way you practice writing.
One day, I’ll write a whole article about headline generation, but here are some cliff notes to remember for now:
Lists are only bad if they let a reader down
“How to guides” are great if something how to do something important
Express an opinion — no one likes bland articles with vague headlines
Use adjectives (simple steps, effective ways, powerful quotes, etc). In this article, I used “terrible mistakes” instead of just mistakes.
Don’t let your reader down.
It’s not enough to write lots of articles. You must approach headline (and hook) writing like a specific drill that will take your digital writing to the next level.
2. Begging other people to read your work.
If you’ve ever been in New York City and on a subway, there’s always a person trying to get to read their book, buy their CD, or listen to their speech.
You’re just sitting on the train, minding your own business, and then a person that you don’t know is in your face trying to get you to buy their “content”. They wrote something and they’re excited to show it to you.
And look:
Writing something and then being excited to share it is a normal and natural feeling.
That feeling is the essence of the writing industry.
But that’s not how you get people to read your stuff. You can’t spam your way to success.
It’s tasteless. It’s annoying. It’s not even an effective strategy.
So what do you do?
You play the game.
You join the writing marketplace. You become undeniably good. You build an email list. You create free products (like a free ebook!) to build your email list. You write posts on social media. You write articles on different websites (like Substack).
You don’t beg people to read your work.
Make your work so good that people have to read it. So good that they can’t ignore it.
3. Being afraid to monetize.
You will never make money from your words if you do not charge money for your words.
This is a simple truth that most new writers forget. Many writers are afraid to monetize because they’re worried that whatever they try and monetize (a book, a blog, coaching, a course, etc.) will not make them any money. They’re scared of failure.
This a real and valid fear, but you need to get past it, especially if you’re early on.
So what do you do?
It’s not about how much money you make in the early days, it’s about the mindset shift that happens when you start thinking like a professional writer. Like a writer who charges money for their work.
You start to value your time more. You start to become more disciplined with your practice. You start to work smarter in addition to working very hard. You start seeing all of the different ways that you can earn a living as a writer.
You kill the “starving artist” trope long before it becomes your identity.
This will make your quality of life as a writer that much better and it will also teach a lot about entrepreneurship — which is essential if you’re going to enter the “creator economy”.
The solution is simple: create one monetizable asset so that you have something to start with.
For me, the first way I earned money through writing was the Medium Partner Program.
The first dollar I made through writing completely changed my world. It can do the same for you — but only if you take the leap.
4. Not giving away great work for free.
This is the opposite of monetizing.
However, if you want to become a writer and build an audience, you can’t have all your great work sitting behind a paywall. You also can’t only give away your low-quality work for free. In fact, there shouldn’t really be a huge difference between your free work and your paywall work — there should just be more of the paywall.
How do you know what to give away for free and what to charge for?
I think the best practice, especially if you’re a beginner, is to give away your best ideas for free.
Charge a premium for deeper explanations, more examples, and the ability to help someone achieve whatever your best idea promises.
For example, when I was a beginner, I wrote a lot about anxiety. As a result, I got a lot of messages from people who were struggling with anxiety, and I wrote an ebook for them.
The ebook wasn’t a best seller, but I still make money from it every month and every time someone reads something from me about anxiety, they end up finding their way to the ebook.
5. Lacking consistency.
My other newsletter, The Grappler’s Diary, is coming up on its 3rd birthday.
This newsletter has become one of the most popular newsletters in the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu niche, and this is mainly because I’ve been extremely consistent with the newsletter. I’ve written a Grappler’s Diary every Friday morning since April of 2021.
As a result, I’ve gotten up to several thousand free subscribers and hundreds of thousands of views, and I’ve been able to build “an audience” with the newsletter.
If I was publishing sporadically or “whenever I could find time”, I wouldn’t have that audience. Consistency is key.
How do you be consistent?
Building a writing habit is pretty hard. Not everyone who sets out to be a writer manages to stick with it over several years.
Unfortunately, however, the digital writing game rewards volume.
Create a posting schedule that you can stick to and stick with for at least 6 months.
I promise, after 6 months you will have either changed your life, fallen in love with writing, or you’ll just be too addicted to the game to stop.
If you cannot be consistent, you will delay your ability to succeed to the point where it feels like you’re just not very good.
Anyone can write a good blog post. The market rewards people who write good blog posts over time…
For years.
Closing Thoughts
Reading your old writing is hard.
It can make you cringe, it can make you uncomfortable, and it can be downright embarrassing.
However, there are a few habits that modern writers develop that completely derail their progress.
Once again, they are:
Writing crappy headlines and hooks
Begging other people to read your work
Being afraid to monetize your work
Not giving away great work “for free”
Not publishing consistently enough
If you can avoid these 5 mistakes, you’re well on your way to being a better writer in the modern world.
Oh, and before you go, here’s the first article I ever wrote on the internet. I hope you cringe less than I did when and if you read.
Thanks for reading another edition of The Modern Writer!
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Mr poo poo.