Episode 239: Everybody Writes Book
Are you writing content for your business? In today's episode, Fiona shares ideas on how to find content in everything that you do. Content is really storytelling and there are stories we can tell about everything. Tune in!
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
Fiona's writing experience
Everybody Writes by Anne Handley
Conclusion
Get in touch with My Daily Business Coach
Resources and Recommendations mentioned in this episode:
Welcome to episode 239 of the My Daily Business Coach podcast If you're listening in real-time, it is the 20th of September. That is also when the Marketing For Your Small Business course and coaching program kicks off. So if you're listening to this on your morning routine, and you're gonna join us for that, I'm really looking forward to meeting you today. And if you missed out this time, we do offer it again in, I think it'll be February or March next year. You can always do the course anytime over at MarketingForYourSmallBusiness.com or you can join the nine-week live coaching when it starts again, next year, if you have any questions or you wanna be on the waitlist, email us at hello@mydailybusinesscoach.com. But yes, it is into September.
This is the type of mirror that especially if you are in retail, you'll be working on your content. And today's episode is about that. Before we get stuck in, of course, I wanna acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of the beautiful lands in which I record this podcast. And that is the Wurrung and Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. And I pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded. Let's get into today's quick tip episode.
If you know me, I could finish that sentence with so many other things, but if you know me, you may well know that I have been a published writer. I actually had my first book put out in 2020, it's called Passion Purpose Profit, sidestep Hustle, and build a business but I've also ghostwritten books for celebrities. Yes, I have actually done that with massive contracts. I can't say who they were for. I have written many books for families. Families used to hire me back in the day to interview their eldest person in the family. Usually, a woman is like a grandmother or a great-grandmother and sits with them and records their life, and put them into a book. And it was such an interesting thing. What a beautiful opportunity it was for me to sit with these people. They were usually, I'd say all of them were in their nineties and we'd talk about their life.
We'd talk about all the parts of their life and sometimes parts that they hadn't actually spoken about with their own kids. That was interesting, but yes, I have been a writer for books and I have also been a published journalist for 22 years. I used to have a column in the newspaper here in Australia. It was syndicated between Melbourne and Sydney. I've written for numerous publications, online newspapers, and Sunday magazine lift-outs in the United Arab Emirates. I've written for fashion magazines in Japan. I've written for online publications like Refinary29, Cool Hunting, The Design Files, Broadsheet, and a whole lot of places. And for me, people might assume that I find writing really easy and in some cases I do, but I can also sit at a computer like everybody else, even with so much experience, and feel like, “I just can't get the words out.”
Maybe I'm writing a post for social media and I will just be like, “God, why can't I get my words out?” Other times it flows really easily. I have a Sunday email that comes out every single Sunday. That is one of the easiest things that I ever have written. It's about a thousand words or 900 words every single week. I guess that has been really easy to write because I really understand my audience, but I know that a lot of people in business feel they are not good writers. A lot of people feel like the content, particularly copywriting or writing is not their forte. And for a lot of people, perhaps they've been told at some point down the line, maybe by a crappy teacher or a parent or a guardian or somebody close to them that you're not a good writer.
Today, I wanted to talk about a book that I think is super helpful. It's not a new book it's been around about 10 years or close, but I think it's one of the best books to read. If you are somebody who struggles or feels that it's challenging to come up with writing in particular, whether that's a blog, whether it's for your EDMS, whether it's for your social media. And of course, you can outsource this to a copywriter. But I think that a lot of people, particularly when you're getting started with business and you don't have a huge budget to spend on this sort of stuff, it doesn't hurt to upskill yourself. The book I wanted to mention today is called Everybody Writes by Anne Handley and we'll link to that in the show notes, it's put out by Wiley and it just says your go-to guide to creating ridiculously good content.
This is a book that I came across. I don't even know how I came across this book. I think I might have had, I'm literally looking in the front of the book to see when it was published. It is 2014. I was gonna say, I might have come into it when I started my first business, which was writing content for websites, particularly fashion websites back in 2007. I was also doing freelance proofreading for publishing houses. I had my Sunday age column and a whole bunch of other things. I remember buying quite a few books on writing because I had really taken the plunge. I had left a good job to go out on my own and to do it full time. That's when I actually started ghostwriting and doing celebrity books as well. But I don't know how I came into this particular book, but it is a good one.
What I find particularly good about this is that it's written in simple language. You don't have to be some sort of like a literary scholar and it's broken down into multiple ways that you could write particularly for business. It'll give you things that if you haven't ever studied English literature, that was actually my major at university, along with I did a double major in sociology and English lit. And then I also went back and did a postgrad in journalism and then another postgrad in editing and publishing. For me, a lot of the stuff that's in here is part and parcel of my career and my experience. But I think for so many people it's not taught anywhere. So if you don't study those things sometimes just thrown into a role, even if you're employed for somebody else.
You just expected that and you'll be able to pump out an email every week or you'll be able to come up with really great snappy content for our website or for product detail pages. And it's not that easy. This book actually goes through everything from like, what is the passive voice? What is an active voice through to kind of creating your own GPS system for when you are writing things? Now that sounded like a kind of odd idea, but that is exactly how I write. When I write articles, I have a very clear system that I work to. It's like a template I've always done it like that. Not always when I was first starting out, I didn't know how to do it, but I now have this template that I work to, which really just makes it much easier to break down things.
But it talks about how to come up with your own kind of GPS. It also talks about how to come up with a personal voice, and how to look at everything from interviewing people. If maybe you've got a blog in your business and maybe you're starting to interview people, maybe you have a podcast and it all has interview tips in there. It has also so much in there about finding kind of these content moments to find ideas. I think that's another thing I hear about from people like, “Oh, but I have to write an email.” Like, what am I gonna write about? This really gives you some ideas of like how to find content in everything that you do, because it is there's a story. Content is really storytelling and there are stories we can tell about everything.
Even today, I can think about at least five stories that I could tell you about my day. And that's just 1 24-hour block, let alone all the things that we've been through in our past that have brought us into the business owner that we are today. It is called Everybody Writes. I think even the title is a really good one because everyone can write, everyone is able to write. I think so many times we somehow get it into our heads that we are not good at something. And writing is up there. I hear it quite often from people. As I said, it's called Everybody Writes and it really goes into all sorts of things. I'm literally flipping through it now. And there's everything from the length of words that you should be putting into a blog post or an email subject line, or it's got a Facebook post or YouTube video.
This is an old book, so old by internet standards so it is coming up to nine years or eight years since it came out. But I still think so much of it is really relevant. It's definitely one to look for. If you want to find out more about it, of course, you can just Google Everybody Writes and find it in all sorts of online places. We'll also link to it in the show notes that you'll be able to find over at mydailybusinesscoach.com/podcast/239. But I do think that if you're somebody who feels that writing content is something that you have to do in your business and that you get to do, I should say, but is also something that sort of stresses you out. Then definitely check out this book. It's all of the chapters are really a couple of pages each.
It's easily read, it's easily digestible and it just gives you some kind of frameworks and some markers to use when you're creating content, which I think makes everything easy. I am, as everybody knows all about the templates, all about putting things into a framework and a system that just makes it easier. And this is a really good book that will show you how to do that. Again, it's called Everybody Writes your go-to guide to creating ridiculously good content by Anne Handley. It's created by, or it's published by Wiley, and I'm sure you'll find it absolutely everywhere online. That is it for today's quick tip episode, a book review. The podcast show notes will be available at mydailybusinesscoach.com/podcast/239. If you found this useful, please hit subscribe so you don't miss out on any more of these quick tip episodes. And if you're up for a longer read, you can definitely check out my Sunday email. It comes out every single week and it really dives into kind of one area of business or one area of my life. It's quite personal often that I'm going through and that I think is relevant and helpful to share. That is it for today. I will see you next episode. Bye.
Thanks for listening to the My Daily Business Coach podcast. If you wanna get in touch, you can do that at mydailybusinesscoach.com or hit me up on Instagram @mydailybusinesscoach.
