The Game Changer - This Changes Things

Plus My Month Two Stats

I hope you’ve had a great week. Being surrounded by so many great writers here on Substack is having a positive effect on my writing. I feel myself shifting from the self-imposed label of “Content Marketer” to the much more comfortable “Writer.”

This week, I’ve found myself writing content about topics I’ve never normally considered just because I want to… long may it continue!

Today, I have three things for you.

The first is the reason I am rewriting this newsletter just before it’s scheduled to go out.

I also have my month two Substack stats,a look at how my account here is growing, and my recipe for never having to deal with writer’s block.

Enjoy! (and if you do, please share!)

The Game Changer

We all know that AI will impact writers and content creators, but I didn’t think it would have such a positive impact so quickly.

I was told about NotebookLM yesterday. It’s a Google experimental app that summarises the content and pulls third-party references to create something unique. BUT, and here is the key thing for us, it will create an audio deep dive into the content.

This audio is in the format of an engaging Podcast, and is usually 8 or 9 minutes long.

You’ll find two summaries in this newsletter.

The first is a Summary of my recent book Engage Empower Enrich, and the second is from a short article I wrote about Writers block.

I’ve included two so you can see how 400 words compares to 7500 words. I find both really engaging, and I’d love to listen to more content in this format.

Here is the First:

Engage Empower Enrich Review

Please have a listen … and remember this is experimental so it will only get better!

How would you use something like this?

On a sales page as a YouTube review?

Imagine how many book reviews and summaries you could crate in one day.

Let me know how you would use something like this.

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Month Two Stats

I celebrated the end of my second month here on Substack earlier this week. Here is how things have gone.

You’ll first notice that I’ve picked up three paid subscribers, for which I am eternally grateful.

I spent a lot of the month working on the back end of my account. I created an offer I hoped was a “No Brainer” and found a theme I liked that highlighted my content. That all feels like time well spent.

I also added a serialised newsletter for paid subscribers that goes out each Tuesday and contains a chapter of an upcoming course and book.

Subscribers

Subscriber growth has remained steady at around three new subscribers each day. I want to increase this to around five a day, so I’ve started engaging with and promoting other people's content that is related to mine a lot more.

By helping others grow, I hope to get a “trickle-down” effect. This seems to be working as I picked up eight subscribers yesterday.

30 Days Views

Views have grown again this month, which is good. I’d like to get more views this month, so I’ll be linking to my content from external sources a little more.

I don’t use social media, Mental Health > Dopamine! so this will be an issue!

Open Rate

The open rate is the only negative this month, but I expected this. Adding a paid subscriber newsletter would always drop the open rate. Hopefully, it will stabilise at around 40% going forward.

Summary

Overall, I am very happy with how things have gone; I know others have much higher growth rates, but I always like to grow “slow and steady” and build on “solid foundations.”

I continue to tweak things, try different ideas and find what works

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Never Have Writers Block Again

Earlier in the week, I wrote a short note about writer’s block:

NotebookLM summary

The Note came from an article I wrote on Medium, but more importantly, this is what Google’s NotebookLM did when I asked it to summarise the article;

Yes, once again that is AI.

Even though I generated it from my content, I can’t believe what they produced; it sounds like a podcast that I’d listen to and come up with things I hadn’t thought of myself.

Give it a listen, it will blow you away.

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On to the rest of the post!

Let’s dig a bit deeper.

Spreadsheet

The key point in that note is to have a spreadsheet, notebook, or anything where you can quickly jot down notes you can refer to for ideas.

My spreadsheet has things like

Eric, the fish

The avocado terrorist

Afternoon Tea With The Prodigy

They mean nothing to anyone but me; however, when I need content, I can write a 500-word+ story out of any of them.

Build a spreadsheet and fill it with ideas that you get from day to day.

Call To Action

This one is so logical I can’t believe no one ever talks about it.

If you are going on a road trip, you usually start by knowing your destination. (stick with this, it will make sense!)

So, for example I am here in Marbella, If I wanted to get to Madrid, I’d type Madrid into the GPS.

The GPS would then give me a route to take.

Creating your call to action is exactly the same.

If I were writing an article and knew I would promote my “Inner Circle Community”, I’d write the Call To Action before I did anything else.

So I’d write something like:

If you want access to like-minded content marketers, 20+ free courses, regular training videos, and all the help you need, check out The Inner Circle

Now, to make this make sense, I need to write an article where it’s the logical place to finish.

So, I might write about how I struggled as a content marketer and how valuable I found it when I finally found a group of like-minded people who understood what it’s like to write and publish content and like me struggle to earn what I hoped i’d earn,

Finally, I’d add a lesson/transition linking the main content to the CTA.

Bullet Points

Bullet points are a writer’s best friend.

I am even using them for this part of the newsletter!

• I created a spreadsheet of content ideas.

• I started writing the call to action first

• I create bullet points that I then turn into sentences and paragraphs

• I used social media to test ideas (who knows, you may find this is a newsletter someday!)

If you are stuck on what to write, make a set of bullet points on the key topics and then expand on them.

EXACTLY what I’ve done here! 500 words of content from 4 bullet points,

I rest my case, your honour!

Use Social Media To Test Ideas

This is straightforward: post social media content regularly, and if you get stuck for an idea, look at what people reacted to and expand on that for your content. I have two years’ worth of content on an abandoned Twitter account that I still use for content ideas.

Easy!

That's it for this week. Have fun!

Mark