The Guide to Writing Online

I don't know if it's exclusive to us - I hope not - but I am German and that's pretty much what I thought.

I'm aware that people have to make a living. I'm much more open for advertising at the end of an enjoyable piece, if I have developed an appetite for more.

He is giving some weight to his advice on writing online, not just boasting, is my impression.

European here, you nailed it. I stopped reading because of this, unfortunately. Americans, why does everything have to sound like a cheap TV commercial from the 90s ?

That sort of thing also puts off many Americans, but is expected from job applicants.

Do those same rules apply to writing cover letters for job applications?

Hi, Belgian here. Normally I also don't like people boasting. But in such articles, I like to have a background about the person.

I'm not going to waste my time reading advice from someone who posted 5 articles and has 10 subscribers.". And if they don't tell me why I have to listen to them, I won't.

> what the hell is this person trying to sell me

He's selling sign-ups to a course. It's linked towards the end. The name is "Write of Passage."

I’m not European and stopped reading at this very paragraph. The feeling you describe must be more universal.

I'm an American and I completely agree, but I think some context might be useful. Americans are trained from a young age that you have to sell yourself. You need to toot your own horn because no one else will. It is a component of the hustler culture in America. You always need to be fighting for the smallest advantage and overselling is a popular mechanism. Its incredibly dehumanizing, but thats never stopped America before.

This is the online trend of marketing eating itself, where they sell the I'M ACCOMPLISHED, IT'S EASY is followed by YOU CAN DO IT TO followed by a couple minor points of interest so it feels substantial, then a long-winded rehash how important everything is and how capable you are of doing it, and oh look there happens to be an intensive course for learning all of this but if you REALLY want to be a superstar marketer there is an ultra-special course...

It's kind of like a pyramid scheme of skills/accomplishments where every person in the system is spending all their energy teaching everyone else how to sell their skills and accomplishments as the first step without anyone actually saying or doing anything of value. I would say Tony Robbins is the kingpin of this, where he has built a career out of successfully telling people how they can be just like Tony Robbins with just a sprinkle of substance to make it feel like a meal.

No, they won't. They might pore over your archives, though.

Here is another one I noticed—'unphased' is used instead of 'unfazed'.

>Unphased, Nick kept publishing.

I know the feeling. What has somewhat helped me is to not write for publishing to the general population but for somebody who doesn't know about the topic. A gentle introduction that they consider not too demanding to follow but feels like they have a better understanding after reading. You can publish later, but I find it easier to focus on a single person and make it useful for them.

I feel this too, and the way I deal with it is writing targeting the audience that you can still remember being a part of, for whatever is interesting to you.

So think back to what you knew and thought 6-9 months ago, and write for people in that boat. You probably learned a nifty trick or two since then, or had a recent revelation. Write just about that. Once you have an audience you can start to listen to their reactions and further questions to decide how to back-propagate from there even more (because not everyone arrives at that point from the same path).

The cool thing is that this works even for stuff you aren't a master at -- there's always someone who is just a step or two behind you in whatever it is you are doing, even if you are only on step 4 or 5 from being an absolute beginner. As long as you care about the topic and can pinpoint a meaningful thesis for your writing.

Derek Sivers wrote about exactly this:

Obvious To You, Amazing To Others https://sivers.org/obvious

There's also an animated video version, if you prefer video.

https://youtu.be/xcmI5SSQLmE

What's the problem with writing something obvious? Honest question. I don't see why that should matter. (I mean, sure, you don't want to write 1000 words about how you should blink your eyes so they don't dry out.) Try to think of one person you know that wouldn't already know what you're writing. Even if it's obvious, it's not literally something everyone in the world already knows or shares your perspective on.

It's a rather limited form of writing, but if you have some topic that is also covered by Stack Overflow, you can answer questions.

That has the (big, in this context) benefit of directly and immediately showing that a) there is interest in the answer, since someone posted the question; and b) feedback about the quality of your answer, with the option to edit and improve it.

Sure it's bite-sized for the most part, but it is writing in some form. And yes I'm biased, it's easily my number one form of writing (but I don't go around wanting to be a writer, I don't think).

It's generally safe to assume nothing is ever obvious. Better to write simple things out than to write nothing at all.

Yes, good point. The approach I'm trying is to find a narrative that's interesting to me, but includes a bunch of the obvious stuff along the way.

Even worse, there will be exactly one person to whom your text also sounds obvious (rightfully [or not](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect)), and that person will leave a long angry comment.

The key is to accept that whatever is your topic and however you write it, someone will be disappointed because it is too simple, someone will be disappointed because it is too complex, someone will not understand the article because they miss some of the prerequisites, and someone will get angry because you spend too much time explaining the prerequisites.

People are different, you can't make everyone happy. The unhappy people are more likely to give feedback than the happy ones. (You probably wonder why other writers have tons of positive feedback. They likely paid for it. Or it is link spam: "your article is so awesome and inspiring; now here is a link to my completely unrelated web page".)

I guess you just have to imagine the target audience, and keep writing for them. First you get both positive and negative comments, which is okay, because the people who didn't like the first part should stop reading. If they keep reading your N-th article and posting the same angry comments, they are idiots; ban them and erase their comments. (There is a difference between pointing out a mistake, which is a good thing, and posting "this is noob stuff, loser" under ten articles in a row, which is bullying.)

Any time I learn anything new it's never "wow, now I am smart", but always "ohh... I can't believe everyone but me has known this thing all this time".