More than two years ago, I wrote a free manifesto on becoming a professional writer in less than a year. It was called 279 Days to Overnight Success, and the purpose was to outline the roadmap I had followed in crafting a new career after moving back to the U.S. from overseas and finishing grad school.

Somewhere around 15% of the total AONC readership can be traced to the worldwide interest in this manifesto, so I thought I’d take a quick look back at the lessons from it.

But First, a Disclaimer

I almost never look at my old work. The reason is simple: once it’s old, I don’t like it. When looking back I inevitably find flaws, inconsistencies, poorly-phrased sentences and arguments, and things I wish I had left out or explained better. Nevertheless, I think that most of the advice and storyline in 279 Days holds true a couple years later, even if I might say things a bit differently now.

In the manifesto I made the argument that crafting a sustainable career oriented around creative work wasn’t that difficult. I also shared how I’d been able to earn just under $50,000 in year one of the project, without putting ads on my blog or relying on sponsorship.

As I said at the time, the thing about money is that it is always relative: for some people, $50,000 is a huge amount of money, and for others it’s very little. My point was that I knew I could live off $50,000, and if I could get paid that much to write and travel, I’d be thrilled.

Nearly three years later, the operation has scaled quite a bit, with multiple projects in the six-figure range. As it’s grown I’ve tried to keep the basic philosophy the same. I don’t want to hire employees or outsource my life. I also don’t make much of a separation between “life” and “work,” since I enjoy what I do and don’t have any desire to keep it at a distance.

Overnight Success: The Plan of Action

The plan in 279 Days was presented in six points, noted below with a few comments.

1# Create a Compelling Story and Be Remarkable. No matter who you are, you have a unique story to tell. Your story doesn’t need to be well-packaged or boxed down into a tiny niche, but it does need to be somewhat clear and interesting.

In my case the story initially revolved around my travel goals, and to some degree it still does. I’ve tried to broaden the mission, however, to focus more on non-conformity itself and how people with different interests can live their own unconventional lives. Ultimately, that is the more important mission, and I hope to get even more specific about it as we go along.

2# Clearly Answer the “Reason Why.” If you’re starting an online project, why should your readers (or customers, or followers, or whomever) care about what you are doing? In the case of online publishing, tens of thousands of blogs are started every day. Why does yours matter?

Answering this question is critical, and you don’t have to do it just once—you have to do it over and over.

3# Prioritize Writing and Marketing Over Everything Else. What I meant at the time was that if you want to craft a long-term project, you’ll need to devote consistent amounts of time to it. Instead of marketing, I would probably use the word connecting now, because that’s essentially what marketing is. But the point remains: treat your work with the respect it deserves. Carve out time to devote to it.

Everyone is busy, but we all make time for what’s important to us.

4# Be Bigger than You Really Are. Often, new writers worry that they don’t have much to offer, because they’re “just getting started.” But my point was that you might be getting started on WordPress, but you’ve had your own unique experiences and perspective to offer for a long time. No one is better or more qualified than you to share those things, so don’t be intimidated to jump right in.

5# Build Long-Lasting Relationships. On my first book tour I talked about how I wrote 10,000 short emails to the first 10,000 people who joined the AONC newsletter. I don’t have any delusions that every single person was impressed by a quick personal note, but over time 10,000 individual actions will have a positive effect. You can apply a similar strategy even if you have 10 readers instead of 10,000. (In fact, you can probably do a better job since you’ll have more time to devote to them.)

6# Carefully Introduce Products and Services.There are all kinds of good reasons to do creative work, but if you want to make a living from it, you have to provide opportunities for people to pay you in some fashion. It’s also better to think about this from the beginning, and to keep it as natural and organic as possible.

Last year a company offered a significant amount of money to sponsor this blog. If it was a “bad” company, it would have been an instant no. But in this case, it was a good company doing interesting things. Despite the generous offer, it was still an easy choice: “Thanks guys, I’m honored, but we’re keeping it sponsor-free.” I’m glad to have the store, and I wouldn’t want to operate AONC any other way.

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Applications may vary, but if you want to get paid for creative work of any kind, I think these lessons will serve you well. The basic philosophy remains simple: Do work that you’re proud of. Care about people and help them. If you have a website, don’t clutter it with irrelevant ads. Instead, make things that people want and offer them for a fair price.

Looking back I can see mistakes and wrong turns, but I try to keep moving forward. I’m a better writer now than I was in 2009, and I hope to keep improving over the next three years and more.

It’s Not Enough to Say “Don’t Give Up”

A lot of advice about blogging leans toward the “Don’t give up!” mantra. Some of the time, it’s good advice. But if something isn’t working and you don’t enjoy it, there’s nothing wrong with moving on and trying something else. (Hat tip: old-school Seth.) I’ve experienced a lot of freedom by giving up things I was doing only out of obligation or guilt.

Similarly, it’s also not sufficient to say everything will be OK if you just keep going. The way you work something matters, not just how much time you devote to it. (Hat tip: Lefsetz.)

Nevertheless, once you’re on the right track… that’s when you don’t give up. That’s when you stick it out, building a tower every day by working on something that helps people.

Finally, A Note On Being “Too Late”

I often hear from people who feel like they are “too late” to start a new career or big project. Sometimes the concern relates to an advancement in technology (“I wish I had started this earlier”), and other times it’s more of a general feeling that they are just too late in life.

The thing is, that’s how I felt! In 2007 I looked around at successful blogs and wondered, is there any room for me? Fortunately, I’m glad I decided to start sharing my work, and fortunately, it’s improved over time.

This is probably the most important lesson: Forget about being too late. If you have something to share with the world, stop waiting. Your overnight success may be right around the corner.

Question: What is your creative work? Are you building your own overnight success?

Feel free to share your project with others in the comments. (Just be sure to keep links in the URL field, or your comment will be trapped in our active spam filter.)

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*Speaking of making things that people want, our new Unconventional Guide to Publishing is getting rave reviews. Do you have your copy yet?

Image: David

For the past three years, I’ve written at least 300,000 words for publication.

It’s not that difficult, and you can do it too—it mostly requires an ability to focus. If you don’t have this ability at first, fear not: it’s a learned process.

Why Write?

Someone once said, “I hate writing, but I love having written.” I tend to think you have to love at least some of the writing part too, but I get the idea. In my case, I write because it makes me feel good, and because I feel like it’s what I’m supposed to do.

If you want to write consistently and thoroughly, you must learn to make writing your job, regardless of whether it has anything to do with your income. It must be what you think of at different times throughout the day, even when you’re doing other things.

You may have heard the advice about carrying a notebook everywhere and writing things down as you think of them. This advice falls into the category of “extremely helpful tips that almost no one follows.” Trust me, it helps: I have my notebook when I ride my bike, when I go to a restaurant, and with me on the seat of two-hundred airplanes a year. Never keep anything in your head—keep it in the notebook instead.

Once you start recording information, you’ll likely find that ideas are not the problem. For most writers (or anyone doing most kinds of creative work), execution is the problem. Therefore, the framework I write from can be summarized in this quote from Jim Rohn:

“We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret and disappointment.”

In choosing to write, you must choose the pain of discipline. Good news: it’s not that painful, once you get used to it. You just have to make it more important than other things you could spend time on.

Make your art your obsession. Fall in love with it. Experience withdrawal symptoms when you don’t give it your attention.

Say no to other things so you can make art. Learn to view sacrifice as an investment. Writing is a joyful experience that will bring you comfort and satisfaction, but you must put the hours in.

Think about what you know how to do, and write down all the steps that someone else should take to do the same thing. Spend your vacation outlining the novel you’ve always wanted to write. Start a blog, even if you abandon it later.

Do not worry about quality, especially when you’re getting started. Quality will improve as you put in the hours. (For evidence of this fact, read the first year’s archives of almost any blog, including this one.)

Worry instead about getting your words in. Wake up early, stay up late, use that notebook you are carrying, appropriate those ten and fifteen-minute breaks in the day with nothing scheduled.

When you finish at night (or whenever you pause for a while), try to end in a place where you know what you need to do when you return to it later.

Why 300,000 Words?

In my case, I want to write 1,000 words a day, six days a week. I often write more, but rarely less. The 1,000 words a day is my own metric—yours may vary, but it’s a good one to steal. In the end I’m not necessarily concerned with exact figures; it’s just that having a number helps me to keep working.

Also, 300,000 words ensures I can write a book every year, 100+ blog posts for AONC, 50 or so guest posts elsewhere, at least 2-3 business projects that require a lot of writing, and a few long-form essays or magazine pieces. I don’t count emails (200 a day) or short entries for social media sites.

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I wrote most of this post when I was stuck in the Nairobi airport last month. Kenya Airways is actually a decent airline—on an hour-long flight to Rwanda, I was served a full vegetarian meal in Economy Class. In the U.S. I am upgraded to First Class 80% of the time, but I can’t even request a vegetarian meal in advance.

But I digress—the point is, while the national airline is nice, Nairobi Airport sucks. Sitting around for four hours, I knew I had two options:

a) keep whining to myself about it

b) use the time well

I knew I’d feel better if I used the time well, so I sat down and wrote. I made myself do it, camping out in a sea of people. There were no outlets, so I worked fast to conserve battery power.

I wrote 1,200 words, and then I wrote another 500 words for something else, and then another 500 words for this post. Four hours went by and I boarded my flight to Jo’burg feeling great. I was behind on my emails as usual, but ahead on my art. I drank bad red wine (shoutout to Kenya Airways again) and didn’t feel guilty about taking a short nap on the way down to South Africa.

I hope some of you write 300,000 words over the next year—then you can write the post about how 300,000 words was easy.

Most important: Love your art and it will love you back.

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Image: Brandice

Now that the birthday is over, we’re officially heading into Year Three of World Domination.

A few people said they were surprised that everything has happened so quickly. I regularly receive notes that say “I’ve been reading your blog for years.” It feels like several years to me too—but we’ve only just now crossed the second year point.

Last year I wrote an entire manifesto about creating a writing career in less than a year. To learn more about how it all happened, that free manifesto is probably your best bet.

Just to be clear, though, here are a few more notes. Some of them are specific to blogging and the delightfully strange hybrid career I’ve cobbled together, but I’m pretty sure the principles apply in most creative work.

Set a schedule and never miss a post. My own streak is now 336 posts in a row without ever missing a scheduled day. When you have a streak going, it creates its own motivation because you don’t want to screw it up. As I said in 279 Days, this isn’t so much about the readership—most people would forgive me if I missed a day, and many wouldn’t even notice. Instead, it’s about SELF-DISCIPLINE. Simply put, I need to do this to function well. One mistake leads to another, and I want to keep the streak going.

Get up early and stay up late. If Seth Godin creates an online book launch party and wants the posts to go live at 6am EST (3am on the West Coast, where I live), then you set your alarm for 2:45am and make sure everything is working properly. Yes, it’s possible to queue the post in advance, but what if something goes wrong—don’t you want to make sure that everything is exactly right? How will you tell people about it on Twitter and write an Amazon review?

Since I work from anywhere, I usually just tell people to set the time for a meeting and I’ll accommodate it. Later on I can figure out how to make that work. That said, I did tell Seth: next time, let’s start the book party on PST instead of EST.

Write for both men and women. We recently did an analysis with a random sample of 3,000 names on the email list. Of the names that were easily identifiable, the split was 51/49—almost exactly even (the women won by two points). I liked that. Some blogs are naturally a better fit for either men or women, and that’s totally OK. But for me, I feel like I’m doing something right if it doesn’t trend too far in either direction.

Write for all ages. Wyman Crane is one of our most active commentors and he is 72 years old. You’ll see him in the comments because he often says something about teaching an old dog new tricks. Lorraine Wright, another regular, is 65. She has visited 37 countries and recently set a goal to make it to 100 countries.

We also have a big group of high school students who write in with stories of surviving the culture of mediocrity they encounter in the education system every day. “What if my parents aren’t supportive of my dreams?” they sometimes ask.

My Suggestion: first, tell them you’re dropping out of school, changing your gender, and running away to join the circus. Then say, “OK, I won’t do that, but I do have a couple of other ideas.” That usually works.

So the clear answer is, ignore the idea that you are supposed to break people down in groups based on irrelevant information like age or sex. In other words—don’t focus on demographics, focus on who people really are. “Women ages 25-29 with a college degree” may be the kind of group you think about if you are selling energy drinks, but if you’re trying to change the world, don’t discriminate. I’m honored that so many old, young, and in-between people care about what I’m up to.

Make creative work the most important thing you do. Everyone complains about being too busy, but everyone finds a way to do what’s truly important to them. If watching a TV show is important, you’ll find a way to do it. You’ll watch it online, get it through Netflix and catch up on the weekend, whatever. And that’s fine, because we all do what’s important to us—therefore, all you have to do is make your business/blog/project/etc. extremely important.

Build relationships (really). Yes, I know that the phrase building relationships is starting to go the way of other outdated language thanks to people who have misused or exploited it. Such a shame! I’m interested in actually doing it. I answer all email myself, I don’t accept paid consulting offers, and I maintain a regular correspondence with anyone who wants to write in.

In what became a famous-or-infamous practice (depending on who you ask), I wrote a quick personal note to each of the first 10,000 people who joined the email list in 2008 and early 2009. Yes, 10,000 emails! And often many more afterwards, because people would frequently write back and ask, “Is this an autoresponder?” (Answer: nope.)

If you think this practice is trivial or a waste of time, consider the fact that about 70% of the people who join the list will never leave. I think they’re worth a quick “Hi, thanks for reading.”

Whether you want to write 10,000 emails or not, the point is: the little things matter. Do them.

You want to drop keys everywhere you go, and always focus on why anyone else should care about what you do. Pick up the check when you take people to dinner. Help people without expecting anything in return. If you ask for help yourself and the answer is no, go back and say “No problem, and thank you for considering it.” From what I can tell, only about 20% of people do that.

These things are not really that complicated or difficult. If the people you know aren’t used to them, however, that just means you’ll be that much more special around them. Then maybe they’ll start following the same pattern, and then you’ll know you’re really empowering.

Last but Not Least

Let the record show that this a long journey and I haven’t got everything right yet. I have a lot to learn, and this year I find myself being challenged in all kinds of new ways I haven’t experienced before. The only secret, I think, is continuous improvement. Watch and see.

Finally, to be really successful at something usually requires you to work at for a long period of time. Just keep at it. Don’t quit like everyone else does. When one tactic doesn’t work, try something else.

I’m in it for the long-haul. How about you?

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Image: Jeff

As I mentioned in last week’s survey invitation, when you’re trying to build a business, blog, non-profit, or pretty much any venture, regularly checking in with your peeps is an important way to make sure you know who they are and what they want.

This is especially important when it comes to a) transition points in the growth of your community, or b) product development at any time. Surveys allow you to take the pulse of a large group of people in a short period of time– and because of how sampling works, you don’t actually need to hear from all of them to know what most of them are thinking.

Keep in mind that most readers or customers are usually in the Silent Majority. As I’ve said before, well over 95% of them (sometimes 99%+) do not usually feel the need to participate in public responses like website comments or even one-on-one correspondence through email exchanges. If you want to know what the Silent Majority thinks, a survey is a great way to bring people out of the woodworks.

Granted, surveys also attract a self-selecting group of respondents, so there is still a big “Really Silent” Majority out there, but short of stalking people on an individual basis, a survey is the best you can get. The rest of this article will explain exactly how to set up an online survey– it’s actually quite easy– along with a few points on data interpretation that I’ve learned through trial and error.

Logistics and Design

The logistics to setting up a survey are very simple. To manage the data and make it easy for the respondents, you need to either use an online service of some kind, or hack it out yourself.

I’ve used Survey Monkey for years and am happy to recommend them without any benefit for me. It costs $19.95 a month for the premium version (the free version is OK for testing but then gets pretty limited) and is worth the investment if you’re in it for the long-term. There are some free alternatives, but personally I am happy to pay $19.95 a month for a service I know well. Some of the free options have intrusive ads on their survey forms, or redirect users to the survey service homepage at the end. Even though it may be a small thing, I never want to abuse the trust of someone who wants to share their input with me. Therefore I use Survey Monkey.

If you want to do it on the cheap, you could also hack together a survey using Google Forms. I’m not the best hacker and I already know another system, so I personally don’t have any need to change anything.

After you decide on how to collect the results, you need to set up the actual survey. Here’s where you need to think very carefully about what you really need to know from the respondents. You don’t want to waste anyone’s time by asking for irrelevant information, but you also don’t want to miss anything important.

Whatever you decide, I recommend including variations of the following two questions:

1) In 1-2 sentences, why do you read the Art of Non-Conformity site?

2) What do you think is the #1 thing I can help people with?

Obviously, you adjust these questions based on whatever it is you do. Also, if you have a few ideas of upcoming projects in mind, it’s good to test them out in the form of a ranking system. I usually phrase the question like this:

Here are a few things I’m thinking about doing in the next few months, but I could be totally wrong! Please let me know what you think of each idea.

Idea #1
Idea #2
Idea #3
etc.

I then apply a simple ranking scale to each idea and ask respondents to side with their first impression. The ranking scale I use usually consists of answers like “I love it! You should do it; Sounds Interesting; Would Need to Hear More; and It’s Not for Me.”

Generally speaking, I like to keep surveys brief – less than 10 questions or so overall. To get more responses, ask less questions. To get more detailed responses, ask more questions. It’s up to you, but just make sure that whatever you ask is something you actually need to know about.

Once your survey is ready to go in Survey Monkey or whatever platform you use, you’ll get a link to share with your readers, customers, or community. Be sure you test it in a couple different browsers to make sure it’s working, then send it out to your group with a polite request asking for input.

Limiting the Responses

I limited the first AONC survey last year to 250 responses and turned it off after two days. I tried to limit the most recent one to 500 responses, but had to turn it off after just a couple of hours – even on Labor Day, when a lot of people in North America were away from their email. After setting up the survey, I was a bit late getting back to my computer and ended up receiving more than 750 responses. (You guys are so fast! Sorry to everyone who got there afterwards.)

I deliberately limit the responses because a) much of the feedback will overlap after a while, and b) I want to pay close attention to what each person says. With more than a few hundred responses, I simply won’t be able to do that. My philosophy is that if someone takes the time to think about the questions and give me their detailed feedback, I don’t want to just skim their comments; I want to pay close attention to each of them.

Also, I don’t mention this in advance, but I try to send a short thank-you note to each person who takes the survey, and I couldn’t easily do that with thousands of responses. I know that this kind of task is inefficient and difficult to scale, but I also know that each person took a few minutes to share their input, so why can’t I take a few hours to write everyone to tell them I appreciate it?

Interpreting the Data

Once you get a good range of responses (I like 100+, although if you have a smaller group you can still get valid feedback), you want to review the data and find out what people have to say. Here are a few important notes on that process.

You’ll likely learn things you never knew before. One of the most interesting and insightful outcomes from a good survey is when you find yourself surprised by some of the responses. For me, one of the most important things I have consistently heard is that people read AONC because it helps them to not feel alone. Over and over I hear variations on this theme. I never could have expected this kind of feedback in the beginning of the project, but it’s now one of the things I’ve come to identify with most closely. As long as I’m connecting on that level with some people, I know I’m on the right track– and when you do your own survey, you may find something of your own that you never expected on your own.

Some feedback will be contradictory. If I ask about products, I usually gauge the initial interest level by listing a few things I’m thinking about building over the next few months. Inevitably someone will think a particular idea is the greatest idea I’ve ever had while someone else will think it’s terrible. The truth is probably somewhere in between, or they could both be right in their own way– for one person, it’s a great idea, and for another, it’s terrible.

Often this kind of feedback arrives back-to-back, which is interesting to compare. Again, it doesn’t mean they are wrong, or that I’m wrong. It just means that different ideas will resonate with different people.

When you take a survey, look for the trends. What jumps out from several hundred responses? What are people most interested or excited about? The trends are the obvious observations that come from looking at the data in spreadsheet form, and can usually give you an idea of what to do next.

To take it further, though, you’ll want to avoid looking strictly at the majority/minority data points. What I mean by this is that many projects are best suited to a passionate-but-small base of users. For example, when I asked about topics for future Unconventional Guides, the one on Frequent Flyer Miles was rated in the middle instead of near the top. Despite the average ranking, I know that people interested in earning miles and redeeming them for free travel are quite a passionate group. If I can reach that group, I won’t hesitate to proceed with the project even though I also know it won’t be a good fit for everyone.

Asking for name + email address is good. The first time I took a survey, I didn’t ask for any personal information on the grounds that more people would be willing to respond. I then found that the problem with complete anonymity is that if you want to follow-up with someone after reading their comments, you have no way of doing so. Asking for some basic information also ensures that you’re getting respondents who care enough about what you’re doing that they don’t hesitate to share their contact details. Of course, none of the information is shared or used for any other purpose.

In the end, you have to do what you think is right. Obviously, I’m a big fan of surveys, but in the end, the group opinion isn’t everything. I don’t think your course should be set for you by other people, even if the other people are like-minded or agree with you. Among other things, you have to have your own motivation for doing whatever it is you want to do. If your motivations are based strictly on the preferences of someone else, you’ll run the risks of burnout, boredom, unhappiness, or simply being less than you could be otherwise.

What I mean by this is that you can’t simply ask and let people tell you what you should be doing in your project. Feedback is great, but in the end you are the one responsible for the outcome. Also, sometimes what people want and what they say they want are two different things– but that’s a topic for a whole different article!

Wrap-Up

I’ve always liked this quote from the mad hatter in Alice in Wonderland: “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.”

Granted, a survey won’t necessarily help you know where to go if you don’t have at least a general idea in the beginning. The individualist in me would assert that you can chart your course without feedback from anyone and you’d be totally fine. The community-builder in me, however, knows that your work will have a deeper impact if you take the pulse of the group from time to time.

I hope this is helpful to those of you who are also trying to build something bigger than yourself. Wherever you’re going, stay the course!

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Also Read:

Business, Blogging, and Broken Windows
Product Launch 101
Unconventional Business Ideas
What Makes a Community?

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Did you enjoy this article? Please pass it on to others at StumbleUpon, or share your own thoughts in the comments section.

Survey Image by Kim Pierro

This is the follow-up to last week’s article on Product Launches. The series deals with the business side of blogging and social media – a topic that some will be interested in and others won’t.

This article will look at site comments, scheduling, organizational structure, and taking control over where your paycheck comes from. My goal is not to provide a comprehensive overview of everything related to business and blogging, but rather a close look at a few specific topics.

The analogy I’ll use is a variation of the broken windows theory. This sociological theory comes from the study of crime and deterrence. Roughly stated, it means that when a neighborhood window is broken, the property owner should fix it as quickly as possible. Otherwise, another window may be broken, then another, and pretty soon the whole neighborhood goes downhill.

In terms of crime and deterrence, the theory has sparked a lively debate among politicians, the justice sector, and academics. As we’ll consider it here, I think about broken windows in terms of issues that need to be addressed within an organization or community. Most organizations have some kind of public front that needs to be maintained. Continuing with the analogy, when one of their windows is broken, the organization can choose to ignore it or fix it.

Like other writers and entrepreneurs, I’m in the business of sharing information. Here are a few specific “windows” to be aware of when trying to build an online business or non-profit community.

Public Comments

Especially when you are first starting out, public feedback is emotionally addicting. “I love getting comments on my blog,” a number of people have told me. I love them too– but I’ve also learned that comments aren’t everything, and it also takes a lot of time and attention to monitor what people are saying.

Some blogs open the floodgates and let anyone have a say, even if what is said is harmful to other posters or people who just feel differently. If you have a blog of your own and ever get depressed after receiving a negative comment, you can cheer yourself up reading the comments on most posts at TechCrunch. It’s like going to the zoo, except there are no cages for the monkeys.

My belief is that a well-run blog is not a democracy. I have a “no asshole policy” on the site – in other words, I welcome constructive discussions, but I don’t welcome rudeness, name-calling, or just general troublemaking. Like the broken windows, once a popular blog opens the door to assholes, it’s hard to take back control.

Of course, the internet offers numerous other platforms where anyone can share their views. If someone wishes to, they can publish their opinions elsewhere. In reality, most assholes are not that motivated, so they will rarely take the time to set up a blog just to complain about someone else.

Lastly, I always remind new bloggers that the most readers almost never participate in the public comments section. On average, less than 1% of the readership will participate. The rest will happily read along without feeling the need to publicly respond. Therefore, bloggers have to be careful about focusing entirely on the response they receive in the comments section, since it’s not always representative of the whole community who reads.

Scheduling

If letting comments go to the dogs is one broken window, slacking off on the publishing schedule is an even bigger one. I’m a big fan of schedules, mostly because they promote consistency and self-discipline.

Over here, I have tried hard to keep the schedule sacred. In 2008 it was every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and in 2009 it is Monday and Thursday for main articles with a short update on Sunday. As I said in 279 Days, this rule is not so much for everyone who reads as it is for me. The problem is not that I feel so self-important that I think a lot of people would be upset if I slacked off. The problem is that I know myself, and I know if I missed a day, I’d be prone to missing another day, and before long the whole house could come crumbling down.

Therefore I keep the schedule: 547 days and counting so far without a broken window. I’m not saying it will never happen – I don’t post many articles in advance, and there is the real possibility that something could go wrong while I’m traveling and I find myself offline on a post day – but so far, so good.

One question that frequently comes up about scheduling is: “What do you do if you find yourself slacking off?” I think the best answer is to ask yourself if you’re doing the right thing. Are you still passionate about the work? Do you still derive personal meaning and help others when the work is actually done?

If your answer is yes, then you probably just need to improve your environment, say no to other things, and find a way to complete the work. In other words, you just need some self-imposed ass-kicking. If your answer is no, then you have a bigger broken window and therefore a bigger problem to address. You may need to make a bigger change or move on to something else. These things don’t usually get better on their own.

Values and Organizational Structure

The organization structure of what I do is hard to define. I write for free and still make a good living. Most of the people who read don’t buy any of my products, but enough do that I’m doing just fine. It’s simultaneously a career, a non-profit community, and a small business. Next fall it will be a book, then a book tour, and then a few other things I have planned.

The upside of this hybrid structure is that I love what I do. I don’t believe in life / work balance and I want to love everything I do. I feel like I’m in at least the 90th percentile of happiness. If I could get to the 98th, that would be great, but I’m not too worried.

The downside of this kind of structure is that it can get messy, and without careful attention it can become a broken window. Overall, I don’t really mind messy. It suits my ADD brain and my disdain for a structure that is imposed by others. To assuage the messiness, however, it helps if the values and mission are clear.

Not being clear about values or intention is a (very big) broken window. Get them right and you can make plenty of other mistakes with only minor consequences. Get them wrong, and you’ll be hard-pressed to sustain your project over time.

Even though I thought about what I wanted to say for two years prior to beginning AONC, I’m glad I didn’t start it when I first began outlining. I think my values were less clear then, and I’m not sure I could have sustained the pace or managed the growth even just a couple of years earlier.

Money-Making and Dependence

The last broken window is sneaky one. It reflects more of my philosophy on employment in general, and the principle is that I think working for someone else is riskier than working for yourself. People in traditional careers for big employers are sometimes afraid of going out on their own. Contrary to conventional wisdom, I believe the greater risk is in relying on someone else (a person or an organization) to take care of you.

As applied to online careers, I’m fortunate to have met a number of other successful authors and full-time bloggers over the past year, and I’ve also met a great many more who aspire to be more successful than they are– perhaps a nice way to say that things are not working out as well as they’d like.

As I’ve said before, success is entirely relative. However you define it, there is no single secret to success and I still believe that hard work over a long period of time is the best predictor, but one other element that I think is critical is to take ownership of the process.

Many forms of online work rely on other parties for success. By owning the process and building my own business, I’m able to control many more aspects of the money-making side of things. I am not dependent on an employer, Google, advertisers, sponsors, or any other single person (or group of people). All of these relationships seem to me like windows that are breakable. They might remain stable, but since you don’t have ownership of them, you can’t be sure.

It doesn’t mean that I have no dependence at all – but having it spread around, I have a lot less dependence than almost anyone I know who has not acquired enough wealth to not worry about making a living. Generally speaking, wherever you can take ownership over the process of how you get paid, it’s in your best interest to do so.

You Are an Entrepreneur

The implications for the bloggers and online entrepreneurs who have read this far should be fairly clear. Let’s say, though, that you’ve made it to the bottom and you don’t define your career in business terms. Personally, I think that everyone who takes responsibility for their own life is effectively an entrepreneur. Congratulations! You are the CEO of a corporation of one — or a sole proprietor if you prefer.

Perhaps you don’t have to deal with hundreds of blog comments or maintaining a regular schedule of posts, but chances are, you have your own windows to look after. Take a close look at what you do and ask yourself if anything is problematic or unsettled.

Broken windows are traditionally thought of as problems that need to be fixed, but they can also be seen as opportunities for growth as long as you recognize them in enough time to patch things up. Where are your broken windows?

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Broken Window Image by Josh

Friends and readers, my first product in several months is now available for your consideration.

It’s called the Unconventional Guide to the Social Web, and the goal is to demystify the art of using social media to promote something without being lame.

—>Go here to learn more

Because there are no real experts in the field of online interaction– there’s just you and your message. The central question is:

How do you get your message out to the world?

If you’ve followed along for a while, you may know that I believe the answer is to find an audience that is already passionate about what you’re doing. Those people are out there– you just have to find them. This will help.

Who It’s For:

• Anyone who wants to expand their reach in the online world
• Bloggers who want more traffic and readers
• Small Businesses who want greater customer interaction (and thus more loyal customers)
• Reps for remarkable organizations who are willing to embrace change

***

Who It’s Not For:

• People who don’t care about Twitter, Facebook, or online marketing
• Anyone who believes that the internet should not be used for promotion
• Cave-dwellers

***

What’s included:

A 30-page Yoga for the Social Web report, an audio recording on Social Networking for Introverts, audio interviews with several “non-experts,” a FAQ file, a video interview, an unconventional collection of social media success stories, and a number of additional bonuses.

There are three versions of the product to help people at different levels. For the first time, I’m also including the option to have a 30-minute, personal jump-start session. The jump-start session will be done by Gwen Bell, my co-conspirator in this project.

—>To check it out and learn more, hop over here.

Oh, and if you’d like to tell someone about this project, I’d really appreciate it. Thanks for your help!

###

Have you heard the hype about social media? Everyone’s doing it! It’s the new way! You have to get on the train before it leaves you behind!

And you know what? On a certain level, I believe it.

My new career has developed entirely through social media over the past year. For me, an introvert who prefers to keep to myself by default, I have felt entirely comfortable in getting to know thousands of new people over the past year.

I’ve thought a lot about why I’ve always had a small circle of close, local friends but now I enjoy knowing a much larger group of people all over the world. I think the difference is that the people I’m getting to know are self-selected, remarkable people. They’re interested in what I’m doing, which probably means they’re somewhat interested in world travel, entrepreneurship, unconventional ideas, or nonconformity in general.

In other encounters (AKA “real life”), much more filtering is required to find a good match. I get on airplanes to Chicago and sit next to corporate salespeople. Since we don’t usually have that much in common, I don’t worry if we each spend the flight absorbed in our own stuff. Sometimes we’ll talk and sometimes we won’t, and either way is fine with me.

With the online world, however, I can find all kinds of fun, similar people, and they can find me. So why doesn’t everyone do it? In all the conversations I’ve had over the past year about the use of social networking, I’ve noticed that some people who haven’t yet jumped on the train are frightened. They are worried about doing something wrong, feel overwhelmed with where to start, or they fear that no one will be interested in their thing.

Let’s be clear: I don’t mean to overhype the new media trend. The train isn’t really leaving the station – I mean, I just signed up for Facebook after a minor 5-year delay – so if you’re not into it, you don’t have to feel bad or anxious or anything. Despite all the hype, you won’t die if you don’t start sending @ messages everywhere.

But I also think that you don’t have to be afraid or overwhelmed.

Whatever it is you want to do, the good kind of social networking can help you. You can take things at your own pace, do it in your style. You can friend up who you want and stay from anyone you’re not interested in. The important thing is:

a) there are people out there who care about what you have to say, and

b) it’s not that hard to find them, and

c) if you want to, you can probably find a way to cultivate those relationships in a way that is beneficial to you AND them

Social Media Success Stories Needed

Together with co-conspirator Gwen Bell, I’m creating my next Unconventional Guide to help people use social media as a force for good – primarily individuals, small businesses, and small organizations who want to change the world.

This isn’t a pitch for anything – in a week or so I’ll start a more active pre-launch before the launch on August 18th. Right now I’m collecting stories of social media success, preferably the unconventional kind.

Here are a few stories I’ve heard so far:

• The crusade of Romeo the Cat, a shelter cat who has raised $20,000 for animal rescue since joining Twitter in 2009 (Romeo now has his own blog and PayPal account)
• The hard-working Susan Lewis, who decided to “hire a boss” through online relationships (she received multiple, credible offers and just made a decision)
• The success of the burrito shack in Ohio that acquired 2,000 Twitter followers thanks to an eager employee who wanted to increase business (the boss didn’t even know what Twitter was until he was flooded with visitors glued to their iPhones)

• A writer and editor who is deaf, but no longer feels that her lack of hearing is a handicap due to all of the work that comes in through online relationships

Important: these stories, and the other ones I’ve been collecting, are not the results of “social media experts” – in fact, I’m skeptical that such a thing really exists. They are all from regular people who had a project or idea they wanted to share with the world. In most cases, they had no idea how to get the message out, so they did it through trial and error.

If you’d like to participate, send me your success story in a couple of paragraphs. Include the metrics behind your success if possible – how many new customers came to the burrito shack? How many people joined your vegan glassblowing fan page? A number of the stories will be compiled into a PDF included with the next Unconventional Guide to the Social Web.

I’ve noticed that one holdup some people have about the social web is that they are worried about how to be authentic. I’ll have more to say about this next week, but for now, there’s really no need to worry about this.

Being authentic means being YOU.

You heard it first in kindergarten: there’s only one you, you are special, etc. Surprise! Everything else you learned may have been a ruse to keep you in line, but the special thing was right on.

***

Some people have asked how I use Twitter. The best answer is that I use it however I want, and hopefully in a way that is interesting to others. I ask for help with an Arabic translation of a letter for Saudi Arabia, and lots of people jump in to help. I ask for Chinese readers to help review a new translation of the World Domination manifesto, and I get several volunteers. (I still need a Polish reader to review that one – do let me know if that’s you.)

I help people too, whenever I can. If you want free wifi on American Airlines through September, the magic code is AAWiFi76194A1. If I’m flying domestic and get upgraded on a short flight, I’ll offer to exchange my First Class seat for an economy one to anyone I can find online when it happens. So far this week I’ve heard of at least $5,000 in confirmed Expedia bookings from people using the coupon code from Monday.

Impact and Actions

95% of what I use social networking for has nothing to do with product promotion, but when it comes time for a product launch, I learned with the last one that a lot of people will come forward to help out. Twitter is now the second or third biggest source of traffic to the site, and I finally joined Facebook because so many people over there kept dropping in.

Let’s go back to the intimidation factor. If you want to get on the train but don’t know where to start, here’s what I’d recommend:

• Sign up for Facebook and Twitter. Believe me, if I can do it, so can you. I don’t even answer my phone, but I have 15,000+ connections on Twitter I enjoy talking with every day.
• If you’re up for it, you can also join LinkedIn. Most people find it’s not productive to spend a lot of time there, but you can set up an online resume in an hour and then be done with it.
• Don’t worry about doing anything wrong. You’ll be fine.
• Use your influence for good. Help people. Share information; make other people look good.
• As Oscar Wilde said, “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” This is good advice for all of life, but it certainly applies to the online world.

• Start telling people about the thing you do. Yes, it’s OK to do that, and it’s not spamming. If it’s interesting, other people will want to be a part.

The beauty of the internet is that you can BE YOURSELF and somewhere you’ll find other people who are interested.

Contrary to what you may hear elsewhere, there aren’t really any rules about social media- which is another reason why I’ve come to love it. Oh, and if you don’t like what you’ve been doing, you can always reinvent yourself. That’s OK too.

A recession is an opportunity to look at what we’re doing and think about what has real value. New media is an opportunity to look beyond a small, local circle and find other like-minded people all over the world.

Upcoming: Product Launch! I’m really psyched.

On August 18th we’ll launch the Unconventional Guide to the Social Web. It’s like my other award-winning guides, except super-sized (you’ll see).

I know this project will help a lot of people, but I also know it’s not necessary for breathing. Just like Twitter, you won’t die if you’re not into it. More details will arrive in the next few posts.

Question: What are you up to with social media? Feel free to share your opinions or experiences.

If you have any questions, feel free to share those as well, and other smart readers will probably jump in with their $0.02. I usually try to keep the comments section free of outside links and self-promotion, but in this case, feel free to post your Twitter handle if you’d like. Now’s as good a time as any to come out of hiding.

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Social Media Flickr Wall by Luc Legay

Every day I get emails from all kinds of fun people who are getting started on the journey of building an online community. Some of them want advice, and I’m happy to help wherever I can.

I always say to take my $0.02 for whatever it’s worth, and ignore me if something works better for you. Also, I’m focusing here on online communities, but they share many of the same characteristics as offline ones.

In the 279 Days report, I wrote about the practical aspects of community building. We looked at RSS vs. email, how to create an e-book, and so on.

This post will look more closely at the underlying philosophy of a community. First of all, what makes a community? Definitions abound, but here’s mine:

A community is a group of people united through a common struggle with the same stories.

Let’s look at the definition and related features in more detail.

A group is more than two people. No man is an island, and two people can be a partnership, but you need at least three people to have community. Hopefully, over time you’ll have more than three.

A common struggle unites individuals into groups and creates a sense of urgency. The struggle can’t be too easy. It’s good to be victorious in the end, but you have to go through some hardship along the way.

The same stories help bond the group together over time. Stories can be about anything related to the community. They can be negative, positive, or descriptive.

That’s the definition – my definition, anyway. But what else does a community need?

A community needs a leader. Yes, I know we’re living in a time where everyone’s voice matters. I’ve written before about Influential Following, about how it’s perfectly fine to be a follower. But once you start building a community, you become a leader.

I’ve been a part of organic, leaderless groups and they always share two characteristics: a) they are very small, and b) they lack a collective vision. If you want to grow or take action towards a greater goal, you need a leader. A leader can recruit other leaders, help group members assume responsibilities, and so on – but someone has to be that person.

A community needs friends AND enemies. It’s easy to see why friends are needed, but defined enemies create cohesion among group members. You need a villain, a bad guy. The bad guy can be a person, group, idea, or belief.

Some might ask, why do you need an enemy? (Can’t we all just get along?) It’s kind of like asking what happens when nonconformity becomes the norm – what will we do then?

My response is that the idea of nonconformity becoming the norm is kind of like the idea of world peace arriving tomorrow. That would be wonderful; call me when it happens. Until then, having a defined enemy increases the strength of the community.

Here’s a good example of a new online community: ManvsDebt. It’s very clear what this project is all about. There’s a cause, a struggle, a leader, and a villain. Adam is a good storyteller and seems committed to seeing things through. He’s also moving from Indianapolis to Australia in just a few days. Good luck!

A (strong) community needs a long-term commitment. Make sure you know what you’re getting into when you start something up, and how long you’re willing to commit to it. A short-term commitment can produce a weak community, but a stronger group needs time to grow. The natural cycles of growth and regression are hard to shortcut.

A community needs its own language. The language can be terminology, concepts, or phrases that take on a special meaning to members of the community. Like anything else, the language can change over time, but it creates a subtle boundary between group members and outsiders. Here at AONC I write about world domination, a concept that some people “get” and others don’t.

A community needs to actively (and carefully) solicit other members. A good community reaches out to like-minded individuals and invites them to become part of something bigger than themselves. The message is:

Hey! You are not alone.

Here we are. There are other people who see the world the same way you do. Come and join us.

Just as a community welcomes the right people with open arms, a strong community will also gently turn away people who aren’t the best fit. This isn’t rude; it’s good for the community, and good for the people who don’t belong.

A community built on hope is stronger than one built on fear. Some groups can survive on negativity, but I think this is a risky gamble. I recently heard a public radio interview with a guy who runs an alternative, pro-gun rights group here in the U.S. Was he mad about Obama being elected? Hardly. “This is the best thing that could have happened to us,” he said. He sounded excited about the fact that his group had someone new to hate.

I give him credit for his honesty. If you can mobilize pissed-off people into a cause, you can go far. The only thing I worry about is, “Where do you take those people?”

Personally, I would not want to lead a group of pissed-off people. They might turn against me at some point, just as they turned against something else to unite into a group in the first place.

That’s why I believe a strong community has to be for something in addition to being against something. The leaders (and active group members) have to be able to lead the followers out of one place and into somewhere else.

Preaching to the Choir

One more thing (important): when growing a community, it’s usually better to focus on connecting with people who are naturally predisposed to your message than to try and convince hostile people to join. Evangelism is hard; recruitment is easy.

Even so, as a community grows, the leader has to begin making choices in who she targets her communication towards. The categories overlap, but roughly speaking, you have three:

Option 1: Focus on the most vocal members. This is usually a mistake. Just as a good teacher learns to look past the hands that are always raised, a community leader should try to look beyond the most vocal and active members to make sure the other people are enjoying themselves.

Option 2: Focus on the true fans. True fans are vitally important to the long-term sustainability of the community, but I also think it’s a mistake to focus exclusively on them. Since they typically represent only about 2-4% of the total group, it’s good to pay attention to what everyone else thinks too.

Option 3: Focus on the silent majority. The silent majority are the people who just hang out without ever saying anything. They don’t usually comment on blogs, you may never hear from them, but they care about what’s happening in the group. Very much.

As important as everyone else is, I think the silent majority is extremely important. Over here, I appreciate the vocal members, I rely on the true fans, but I don’t want to forget the silent majority. Sometimes they come out of hiding and I’m amazed at who they are. Wow! Look who cares about what I have to say. All this time they were there, and I had no idea.

Are you part of the silent majority here? If so, thank you for reading. I take your time and trust seriously. No pressure to do anything. Everyone else, I appreciate you too. The state of the union is strong.

Good luck with your own community building.

***

Your Turn (the not-silent group): As mentioned, take my $0.02 for what it’s worth to you. When I asked for input this morning, I received 28 different definitions of “community” in the first 5 minutes. Feel free to use the comments section to share your own thoughts about what makes a community.

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Community Image by Shira Golding

Hey everyone, I’m reporting live from Rarotonga in the South Pacific. It’s a nice place! Details on Monday. But first, I have an important message from our sponsor.

(Yes, that would be me. There are no sponsors.)

The Important Message

The title of this post is deliberately provocative. First of all, I know that marketers are people too, and most people are marketers of one kind or another.

But when I talk about hating marketers, you probably know what kind of marketers I’m talking about. I’m talking about car salesmen marketers who play on our emotions to get our money.

Anyway, here’s the deal. I’m proud to say that 279 Days is still kicking ass. It’s going all over the world, literally – a Chinese and Spanish translation are both on the way from two volunteers. I’ve lost track of all the people who have told me about the new blogs they’ve started by following the model. I wish them a huge hard-working success, and I’m tremendously excited for everyone who has applied some of the lessons.

However, during the big launch week, I received an email that I found profoundly disturbing.

It’s not what you’re thinking – the message wasn’t from a vampire. The writer wasn’t criticizing me, at least not directly. He even said I was “awesome” – but instead of feeling happy, I felt sad in a way that I couldn’t precisely identify… at first.

Here it is:

Chris,

I don’t mean to sound silly, coy, or to pry, but why do you not have people opt-in to receive your manifesto?

You’d be building an email list of followers who’ll eventually turn into customers, clients, etc.

You are sitting on a goldmine here far beyond what’s being tapped now. Why not make this a monthly membership program with a call-to-action, $49 or $97 a month.

And your income will probably be 10x what you estimate for 2009 if you play your cards right…

You are doing awesomely great dude!

Where do you want to take this?

John

P.S. The value is in that list of followers. And not just on twitter but your email list which you have cleverly disguised as “small army”.

Make the email opt-in obvious. Put it in the upper right like everyone else. Even if you just use it to gift ideas… But eventually you can use it to sell your stuff and the stuff of others.

Because we are all so busy with information EVERY FREAKING DAY you need a strategy to stay in touch with folks if they don’t buy the first time…

I know I’m not telling you anything you don’t know – but do this stuff man – do it now.

OK, I’m out…

It took me a while to figure out why I was so disturbed by John’s message. As I said, it wasn’t a direct criticism, and if you’re not familiar with internet marketing, you might miss some of the nuance in what John is writing about. Later that night as I went for a run in the park before dinner, though, I realized why I was so troubled.

The way that John sees the world is all about manipulating people.

See, the approach outlined in John’s email is defined by scarcity. According to the scarcity perspective, you all are my prospects. I’m trying to convert you to customers. If I get your money, I win. If not, either I’m doing something wrong or you suck.

Well — that is precisely the OPPOSITE of what I believe.

As John alludes to in the end, I do know how internet marketing works. I know where you are supposed to put the email form; I know how to use scarcity to increase sales.

I just prefer to operate from a perspective of abundance. Freely give, freely receive. Why force people to join a list before reading my work? Some of them would resent that, and the commitment level of the others would be pretty weak. Why inspire people with something and then tell them that they need to pay me each month to “really” get what I have to say?

Yes, I call my network a small army – but this is not a “clever disguise.” It’s the real deal. I spend hours every day building relationships with people. Many of them are in India or Africa and will never give me a dime. That’s OK with me.

The Money-Making Side of Things

I’m sorry to pick on John – he is far from alone in thinking this way. The problem is that this attitude runs directly counter to what I believe and why I started this project to begin with.

Ironically (or not), I actually have a pretty high conversion rate when I sell products. With the Working for Yourself guide, it’s about 4-5%. If you’re in marketing, you know how high that is – if not, 1% is usually a base number.

But even with a high conversion rate, that still means 95% of people don’t buy. I don’t view this wide majority as “prospects” who have failed to convert into customers. They are doing cool stuff, probably don’t need anything I sell, and I am honored for the chance to connect with them.

That’s what disturbed me so much about the message – realizing that to many people like John, building a community is all about building a cash machine.

I’m not an evangelist, and I realize that I probably can’t change anyone’s mind about anything. Someone asked recently, “How can you convince someone that your opinion is right?” I’ll write more about this later, but there’s an easy answer: you don’t. If your business model relies on convincing, I think you have a uphill battle ahead of you. Instead of convincing people who are opposed to your message, spend your time finding people who are already predisposed to it.

Trust and Money

By the way, you want to know something? I think I’ll do just fine without John’s tactics. Here’s another email I really enjoyed. This one came from Joel, in New Zealand by way of Canada. Joel had just bought something from me, and here’s what he had to say:

Thanks Chris!

This is the first information product I have ever purchased. It took a step of faith to make the purchase:

A) my grandmother wasted a fortune on mail-in sweepstakes, so I’ve been raised to be thrifty and suspicious of being suckered by strangers. (And your pitch is the opposite of smarmy. Here I am.)

B) I’ve already quit the job and flown from my home in Canada to stay with family in New Zealand. There ain’t no money coming in for the time being. So this expense is an investment in a new life.

I don’t need to tell you that the future looks bright. It’s nice to know it.

Best,
Joel

Check out Joel’s second paragraph:

“It took a step of faith…”

This was a highly emotional decision for Joel. To earn $39 is relatively easy. To earn someone’s trust, well, that takes some work.

“This is the first information product I have ever purchased…”

Obviously he had been pitched before. I’m not the only guy on the block. But when he read about this offer, something clicked.

Product Launch Update

Speaking of products and salesmanship in general, I’m coming out with two new products over the next month. I’m excited about them, and I know they will help many people. The first one is called the Unconventional Guide to Art and Money. After a few delays to make it better, the launch is coming up very soon. (Yikes – we have a lot to do to get ready! Time to wrap this up.)

But first, I had to talk about marketing and explain where I stand. My stance is, treat people with dignity and respect. Take the high road and give up money if necessary. In some circles, sorry to say, this is an unconventional perspective.

Then, of course, do the good kind of marketing that people don’t hate at all.

This kind of marketing provides clear solutions to stated needs. According to this perspective, if you have a need I can meet, I don’t need to force you to join my list (you’d join on your own); I don’t need to auto-bill you each month (you’d be happy to pay).

I don’t like to debate by email, and besides, I get a lot of mail. I wrote back to John, short and sweet:

Hi John,

Freely give, freely receive.

Best,

CG

John wrote me back with more things I was doing wrong. He told me to save his email address and write him in 10 years to let him know what happened. I guess the implication is that I’ll be sorry then, he’ll have been proved right, whatever. (Yeah, I know – at that point I just hit the archive button. Life’s too short.)

No thanks, man. Who knows what will be happening in 10 years, but I suspect in some form I’ll be busy keeping up with everyone else out there. Every day I hear from more great people all over the world, including plenty of places where PayPal is not accepted. Good things are on the way; the future is bright.

Most importantly, wherever you are, I’m honored that you care about what I have to say. No cash machine, auto-billing, or email opt-in required.

Thanks for reading.

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Used Car Salesman Image by TexasEagle

This is a more advanced look at how I’ve been able to build the AONC site into a diverse community over the past year.

I’ve already written 79 pages about this subject, so this follow-up is mostly for the 50,000 people who have read that report so far. What I want to do in this article is focus on using multiple spheres of influence to create widespread, perceived authority.

One of the most important parts of developing a following is answering the “reason why” question and proving yourself to be an authority on at least one thing other people care passionately about.

From the very beginning, it’s important to understand that almost all authority is perceived, not objective. What this means is that if people think you’re smart or interesting, voila, you’re smart or interesting. In 279 Days I wrote about this in the strategy I called “Be Bigger than you Really Are” – also known as “Fake it ’till you make it.” A big part of building influence is essentially creating the perceived authority.

Usual disclaimers: I’m not an expert (no one is) – I’ve made many mistakes along the way. Use what helps you and ignore the rest.

***

To kick things off, take a look at this image (click to enlarge):

This image represents the largest traffic sources that regularly bring readers and visitors into the AONC site. I haven’t broken them all out into percentages or anything quantitative, mostly because I don’t worry about things like that. I’m more interested in the qualitative characteristic of having perceived authority in several areas that each help me get more readers.

THE PRINCIPLE BEHIND MULTIPLE SPHERES OF INFLUENCE

Just as you don’t have to live your life the way other people expect you to, you also don’t have to choose one specific topic to develop expertise in. As long as you can a) be somewhat interesting, and b) work hard over a sustained period of time, you can develop the following you need to achieve almost any goal.

This represents an effective diversification of influence, and ultimately a diversification of followers.

THE BIG PICTURE (for this site)

I write about nonconformity in Life, Work, and Travel – a topic that is admittedly quite broad, and thus it draws readers from a variety of backgrounds. I have a USP – see the great Sonia Simone for more on how that works – for each primary area of my interest.

Life – Within Life, people come to the site to read about challenging authority, finding alternative ways to set and accomplish goals, doing great things for yourself while also helping others, and standing up to vampires and other small-minded people.

The USP in this subject is what I mentioned earlier (and continue to mention frequently, because it’s important): You don’t have to live your life the way other people expect you to. In the image above I defined it as, “Be yourself, because everyone else is already taken” – one of my favorite quotes from Oscar Wilde.

Work – Within Work, people come to the site to read about unconventional business ideas, the products, and general advice on breaking out of traditional employment. I connect with entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, executives, and people who aspire to those roles.

The USP in this subject is that, for better or worse, I have been self-employed for my whole adult life. Whenever I get endorsements from business bloggers (especially someone like Seth – who is essentially a one-man Business Week, except much more interesting), I get a large group of new business-minded readers who want to know more about how that works.

Travel – Within Travel, people come to the site for the Journey to Every Country, the Frequent Flyer Challenge, general travel hacking info, trip reports, and sometimes just to connect with another world traveler.

Just as with work, when it comes to travel I’m much more of a generalist than a specialist. I don’t claim to be the most widely-traveled person in the world, or a photojournalist who spends months taking pictures of villagers. Other people can do that much better than me.

TRAFFIC SOURCES

Diversifying my perceived authority has led to a diversification of traffic sources. Every day new readers come to the site from a variety of referrals. The largest ones are listed and explained below.

Blogs – By far my biggest source of traffic, readers, and good vibes comes from other bloggers who tell their own communities about the site. If you want to help, the best thing you can do is link me up. If my site was never indexed in Google, I’d still all of the traffic I needed thanks to other blogs and sites who link to me.

World Domination Manifesto – I wrote the Brief Guide to World Domination to be flagship content – something that would draw readers in and help me define my stance as a professional authority-challenger. The manifesto has been online since June 2008, but every day I still get emails from people who have discovered it for the first time. I love that!

279 Days Manifesto – The follow-up to World Domination, this report has brought in even more readers – which is ironic, since I wrote it for a more limited target market than the first one.

Twitter – The only major social network I regularly use – although feel free to add me on LinkedIn as well. I explained recently how I use Twitter – basically the goal is to add value, connect with people, deliver helpful information, and make other people look good. Say hi anytime – I’m @chrisguillebeau.

Newspaper Column – I recently started writing a travel column for the Oregonian, the largest newspaper in Oregon. My column is in the printed paper about once a month, with a few blog posts in the Travel section of their site in between. It doesn’t really bring a huge amount of traffic, but being a newspaper columnist produces a certain amount of perceived authority, and I’m hoping to syndicate the column to a broader audience in the future.

Other Media – So far the site has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Times, La Presse, MSNBC, and a bunch of smaller outlets. Of course, new media authorities like Slate.com, LifeHacker, and Huffington Post are also important, and I’m grateful to them as well. I regularly build relationships with journalists, offering to help without being quoted, and trying not to be anal about whatever they want to say about me. (This process could be an entire article, so I’ll save it for the future.)

Huffington Post – Speaking of syndication, the ever-insightful Gretchen Rubin told me recently, “Ubiquity is the new exclusivity” – meaning that the more places you can be with the same message, the better. I thought that advice was brilliant – and it’s basically the approach I used when HuffPost asked me to start writing for them.

The gig is unpaid, and I was concerned about writing original content for them when I’m supposed to be writing a book (in addition to everything else), so I was happy when they told me I could cross-post some of the travel articles I publish here on AONC. They win because their readers get access to content they didn’t have before – presumably it’s good content! – and I win from the broader exposure of the HuffPost name.

(In fact, I have another, similar deal coming up this week – I had to quickly edit this article, since I originally included the source by mistake. Oops… hopefully they won’t notice!)

Organic – I don’t get a huge amount of organic (search engine) traffic, but it’s slowly growing. The beauty of legacy content is that, over time, a few of the better articles receive good indexing in Google, and new readers every day through the archives.

Some of the Google results I see are really quite funny. Last month three people arrived when searching for “ass kicking of a lifetime.” Another person came in by searching for “take over the world while being nice.” Lots of people drop in for variations on terms like frequent flyer miles, round-the-world plane tickets, world domination, working for yourself, jobs that travel the world, and so on.

HOW TO BALANCE MULTIPLE INTERESTS

When I first started writing, one of my big concerns was about defining a core audience with the broad topics I wanted to write about. Would people “get” it? Would entrepreneurs care about international travel? Would people living in cubicle nation want to hear what I had to say about working for yourself?

The answer turned out to be a qualified yes.

I had to learn to mix it up, preempt objections, and accept that not every article relates to each reader, but those things were to be expected. It also helped when I learned to provide more details and background – how much it costs when I travel, all the details of conducting your own annual review, and so on. I was worried about writing longer posts (this one is more than 2,000 words), but it turned out that the details are what most of my readership really wanted.

At this point, I’ll say that I honestly don’t worry about it that much. For the most part, I write about whatever I feel like as long as I think it is interesting and centered on helping others. After one year of writing, I have a strong archive of legacy content on multiple subjects. If I head out on a long trip and write about travel for a while and someone gets tired of it, there is plenty of other content they can consume if they want.

They can also just stop reading, and I know that I can’t please all of the people all of the time. The other day someone unsubscribed because “the articles are really long!” I told him he was right – if you want to read an online comic strip, there are plenty of those out there. I’m trying to attract a more thoughtful crowd.

WRAP-UP

This model is unconventional because the traditional wisdom on building an online presence (or small business) is that you should start small and expand outwards.

If your passion or business is golf, you’re supposed to write only about golf. According to this theory, no one cares what golfers think about tennis, let alone politics, the state of the world, or anything related to your personal life.

Naturally, I think this belief is wrong… or if not wrong, it’s clearly old-school.

The model I used to build out this project is unconventional, but it’s no longer unusual. About 50% of the people I wrote about in 26 People I Highly Respect are following a similar model.

At some point I’ll post a more detailed update on the reception to 279 Days, including my response to some of the limited criticisms of the report. One of the criticisms I disagree with is the idea that as more people start blogging (or whatever medium you choose), there will be less “followers” and the value of any one person’s project will become diluted.

I may be wrong, but I believe the opposite: the field is wide open. One person’s success does not cause another person to fail. If anything, there’s never been a better time to begin an unconventional career.

In other words:

Be yourself, because everyone else is already taken.

Avoid scarcity; embrace abundance.

Help others and do what you want.

That sounds good to me… how about you?

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If you’re still reading after 2,064 words, here are a couple of questions:

• What is your perceived authority?
• How can you leverage it to help others and create multiple spheres of influence?

Feel free to share stories, tips, or other questions in the comments.

(By the way, thanks for your patience with the delayed comment posting over the past couple of weeks while I was traveling. I’m home this week and can interact more quickly now.)

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