A Deep Dive into The Art and Business of Online Writing

A little while ago, I stumbled upon the book The Art and Business of Online Writing.

As someone who writes online regularly, the title instantly grabbed my attention. Plus, when I found out that Ali Abdaal, a content creator I really admire, recommended it, I figured it was worth diving into.

Photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash

The book is written by Nicolas Cole, who has tons of experience in the world of online writing, and he shares some fascinating insights on both the creative and business sides of it. I found myself highlighting a lot of key ideas as I went along. In this article, I’m excited to share the most valuable lessons I learned from the book—insights that I think every online writer could benefit from.

So, let’s grab a cup of coffee and dive into it.

Quick summary for those in a hurry

According to Nicolas Cole, online writing is not blogging - instead, you should write and publish on platforms.

Quora, Medium, and the like offer good opportunities for authors to build an audience. Directing the audience to a personal website is the next step. Once readers are on your website, monetization can begin.

If you find an audience, success is inevitable.

To find an audience, several things are essential: regular writing, clear & specific content, and credibility.

About the author: Nicolas Cole

In his teenage years, Nicolas Cole was a successful WoW player and started writing about it on a social media platform for gamers. There he realized that readers were often more interested in the stories than the instructions.

He began studying journalism but was put off by the “dusty” attitude towards the internet and changed his major to creative writing. After college, he started his first job as a copywriter for an agency.

At the same time, he also started writing on Quora.

He quickly built up an audience. In his work, he became an assistant to the management to get mentoring from the boss.

One of his posts on Quora went viral. He seized the opportunity, created a website, and published eBooks. His fame made him the most-read author on Quora. He started writing columns for Inc. Magazine. With every post and every column, his popularity increased further.

This led to him receiving messages from successful business people asking him to share his skills (in writing) with them. This soon became so lucrative that he could quit his job as a copywriter and earn a living as an author/ghostwriter.

He wanted to scale the ghostwriting business further and soon founded a company with a good friend to help various clients improve their writing.

With the book The Art and Business of Online Writing, he now wants to make his method accessible to a wider audience.

Online writing ≠ Blogging

According to Nicolas Cole, blogging is an outdated form of online writing. But a blog makes sense if you are pursuing one of these goals:

• Business selling a product or service
• Solopreneur or digital marketer

A blog is therefore an online business whose core element is not writing content, but marketing and selling products and services.

Being a writer in the digital age

The reason to start writing online is simple: data.

Writing online lets you quickly see what your audience likes and dislikes, so you can adjust your writing style and content to match their interests. Writing online first …

• Reduces the risk.
• Helps you find your voice.
• Builds your audience from day 1.
• Gives insight into what people want to read.

7 Levels Of Success

I enjoyed this part of the book because it offers a fantastic guide for discovering and developing your niche as a writer.

• Level 1 - conscious vs. unconscious: Write with a purpose.
• Level 2 - choose a category: Technology News or Business Productivity. At this level choose the niche you want to write about.
• Level 3 - define a style (where are you within the spectrum?): The spectrum ranges from “educational” to “entertaining”. It can be a good practice to write unexpectedly for your niche (e.g. entertaining in an “educational” niche).
• Level 4 - Optimizing the style for speed: On the Internet, attention spans are short and so you have to provide readers with information quickly (fast narrative style).
• Level 5 - Specificity is the secret: The topic shouldn’t be too broad. When you start writing online, the topic should be a narrow niche. Once you’ve built an audience, you can expand from there.
• Level 6 - Engineering credibility: There are three forms of credibility: (i) implied credibility (if the content is exceptionally good), (ii) perceived credibility (what other credible people say about you), and (iii) earned credibility (this is the most underestimated form of credibility. It is important to wear your “badges” proudly and openly, like e.g. writing online every day since 2015).
• Level 7 - create your category: You can only make it to the top if you have your category - otherwise you will become second at best. Cole cites “Wizardry for Kids” as an example - fantasy for a younger audience. There are millions of ways to create a new category: Audience x Genre, Genre x Genre, Audience/genre x tone, …

Where to write online

Many new authors want to be published by big publisher like Forbes, Inc. Magazine, …

One thing they certainly do is create credibility. Decorating yourself (or your webpage) with the logos and writing “Published in Forbes” creates credibility. But you won’t reach many readers.

Nicolas Cole suggests publishing on social platforms instead:

• Quora (where he started)
• Medium
• LinkedIn
• Wattpad
• Twitter
• …

There are certain stages in writing on social platforms to get started and don’t give up:

• Just start writing
• Write consistently for 6 months and then make a decision (to carry on)
• After you’ve shown perseverance, you can start to grow. If you can’t write consistently, then writing is not for you.

Ingredients to the perfect article

5 Forms of proven writing

According to Nicolas Cole, there are five types of online writing:

1. Actionable Guide: These are instructions (formerly How-Tos). The goal is for the reader to bookmark the article.
2. Own opinion: This is the largest category of articles online and therefore a very competitive field.
3. Curated list: Lists can seem uncreative. However, when implemented correctly, they are an excellent way of providing readers with information quickly.
4. Story: Telling a story is not limited to fiction alone!
5. Credible “talking head”: The goal in this category is to be seen as a credible resource for the reader: the article was written by someone who has experience and knowledge of the topic.

Headlines

The key to a good headline is the “curiosity gap”.

The headline should be intriguing enough to spark interest, but it shouldn’t give away the whole answer. After all, you want the reader to keep going and read the article. A good headline answers the following questions:

• What is it about?
• Who is the article for? Or “Is the article for me?”
• What does the article promise? (And how credible is the promise?)

When formulating the headline, it is important to always think about the audience and adapt the wording accordingly. A great method for execution is to write several headlines and then decide for the best one. Iteration is important here to get rid of unimportant filler words.

Structure & Flow

Online, there is a battle for attention.

That’s why writing styles have evolved to help authors get to the point quickly. An optimal article should be 800-1200 words.

To give readers quick milestones, paragraphs should not get too long and should follow a rhythm (e.g. 1-3-1).

The structure of (almost) every article looks like this:

• Introduction: The introduction should answer the 3 questions from the previous chapter (in the order listed) as quickly as possible.
• Main part (x main points): Again, it is important to cut the fluff. The paragraphs should follow rhythms, such as 1-2-5-3-1 or 1-3-1 - depending on the number of points to be discussed.
• Conclusion: For online articles, a conclusion is optional. Usually, readers are finished as soon as they have read all the main points. Nicolas Cole is an advocate of ending with a “cliff” - e.g. without a conclusion or by weaving the conclusion into the last main point. If you think a conclusion is absolutely necessary, readers like short summaries or a strong opinion from the author.

The language of the articles should be as simple as possible and aimed at the general public:

• Write similar to how you would talk about the topic.
• Use short sentences.
• Alternate short and long sentences/paragraphs.
• Get to the point and be clear. It’s better for an article to divide the audience into strongly agree and strongly disagree than for everyone to just think “Meh”.

Content Roadmap

Online, the crowd wins.

Therefore, it is important to write regularly as authors who write a lot, spin the wheel of fortune more often. Hence, they are more likely to achieve a viral article.

But it’s not just about quantity.

Quality matters too, especially if the content is timeless. This means that the articles can stay relevant for a long time and be reused: whether it’s republishing, sharing again, or posting on a new platform.

Nicolas Cole recommends that you look for three category buckets and divide them up:

• General Audience: topics such as good habits, productivity, or life lessons through your lens.
• Niche: In this category, you can talk about your hyper-relevant category.
• Industry-specific: This is writing within your niche for a certain type of industry (e.g. digital transformation in the steel industry).

Keeping these three categories in mind, you can plan your content roadmap and mix up your publishing schedule with articles from each category.

How to make money as a writer

How do you make money as a writer?

With your website.

The trick is to write on social networks first. This way you collect data on what works and which 800-1200 word articles don’t. Articles from the “best” topic are then combined into “Pillar Pieces” on your website.

This is how you bring traffic to your website. Readers should feel comfortable there and their expectations should be exceeded: all this useful information is free?

Making money from writing is only possible after …

• You have been writing regularly (> 6 months).
• You defined clear content buckets and tailored them to your audience.
• You launched your website and positioned yourself in your niche.

According to Nicolas Cole, there are three main ways to earn money with online writing:

1. Advertising: This means selling readers’ attention. The possibilities range from partnerships to affiliate links to Google Ads.
2. Paywall: You can hide many things behind a paywall: Books, courses, etc. Nicolas Cole emphasizes that you don’t need millions of readers, but “only” 1,000 loyal ones to make it work.
3. Services: You can also use your writing skills as a service, like doing copywriting, ghostwriting, or consulting.

Bonus: My top 5 learnings from the book

1. “Done is better than perfect”. This quote is especially true for writing online because it enables you to learn based on the instant feedback you get.
2. Specificity is the secret to successful writing: you have to get into a category and then stay specific.
3. In online writing a conclusion is just optional. Most readers skip it anyway.
4. A great article has four main ingredients: (i) an article type, (ii) an intriguing headline, (iii) a structure that supports the reading flow, and (iv) of course: good content.
5. Monetization starts after you’ve been writing consistently (> 6 months) and launched a website with Pillar Pieces.

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Thank you so much for reading my deep dive into The Art and Business of Online Writing. In this article, I didn’t stick to all of Nicolas Cole’s recommendations: it’s a bit longer than he might suggest. But that’s because the book has so many valuable insights and I wanted to create a deep dive.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my article anyway and learned something. If you like in-depth book summaries, and personal stories but also enjoy short-form articles please drop by again. I usually publish new articles every Thursday and Sunday.

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Cheers, Matthias