The week’s posts on a single page (most recent at the top):
The Bouncer
There’s a great idea for freelancers in Michael Port’s Book Yourself Solid: the Velvet Rope policy.
The analogy is that we as freelancers should treat those we do business with like exclusive night clubs treat the people trying to get in. Those people want to be accepted through the velvet rope at the door, which is guarded by security staff who appear to be far too serious for a joke. Those people trying to get into the club want to be invited in, welcomed warmly and treated with respect, and they will repay that respect happily once they’re in.
But we all know that some make it through the velvet rope while others are left out in the cold, literally.
And that’s how we should be treating clients and prospects. We should be very selective about who we do business with.
If they don’t cut the mustard, they don’t get past your velvet rope.
Talk Talk
Clearly, I’ve got plenty to say but I’m keen on only a few of the platforms available to me.
I try to avoid negative people and negative conversation, and generally prefer to converse in person or on the phone rather than via a screen or to a machine, whether it’s an Amazon Echo, Google Assistant or a customer service line that wants me to say, in a few words, why I’m calling.
This is probably why my followings on social media are low in number, despite knowing that for my books to really succeed, I need a large, engaged following.
The battle goes on.
Feel It Still
In my experience, some pain never truly goes away, so I don’t expect it to.
I believe you can reduce its negative effect on your life and happiness, but this only happens when you stare it in the face and deal with it.
And it doesn’t matter how long it takes you, because no one’s watching and no one else knows exactly what you’re doing.
Olympic
Impostor syndrome is real. I couldn’t sneeze because of it.
At most of the events I’ve worked, there’s been a part of my brain that wanted me to keep a low profile, to stay quiet and hidden, to not be noticed in case I got found out as a ‘fraud’ who didn’t deserve to be there as I’d only got in through my late dad’s work and legacy.
I’d go to sneeze but would somehow manage to stifle it. I would stay quiet but surely people who saw me at that moment must’ve thought I was an idiot with very unnatural behaviours.
Then eventually I came to realise what was going on and decided to recognise the fact that, possibly, I kept getting invited back to work at big sporting events because I had something useful to offer, maybe I actually contributed valuable work.
Maybe I was there on merit, not just because of my surname.
I decided to tell myself, every time I wanted to sneeze in the office surrounded by people I respect hugely, that I too was “here on merit”.
Muted or stifled sneezes are now a thing of the past.
Eight Days A Week
Mrs P and I took our daughters, Shiana and Mischa, to Liverpool recently and we all loved it. We went on the Magical Mystery Tour (highly recommended) and ended up in the Cavern Club.
I went to the toilet. There was a bloke working in there, one of those fellas who squeezes a drop of soap into your palm then gives you a paper towel when you’ve washed your hands.
He’s singing:
“It’s been a hard day’s night…”
“Has it?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says, with a tired resignation and sounding like his night was more embryonic than young.
“What time did you start?” I ask.
“2pm.”
“What time d’you finish?”
“3am,” he says, looking and soundly thoroughly depressed at the thought of it.
“Every day?”
“Eight days a week!”
“Ah, very good,” I tell him. “Well played, my friend. I set you up, you get the laugh! Nice work.”
His job reminded me of some that I’ve had that were less than satisfying, among them: clearing up rat poo for no money, shifting boxes and pallets and all kinds of products – from bottled water to long industrial rods of steel – in sweltering or freezing-cold warehouses for not much money, and clearing up rubbish on weekend afternoons for a tenner at a couple of outdoor markets.
Deeply unpleasant work that probably helped to build my determination to do something that I could be proud of, and where I was in control.
Rollin’
Every year, Google rolls out hundreds of updates to its algorithm. Most of these are very small and have little noticeable effect on SERPs (search engine results pages).
But every now and then, Google will release a huge update that has a huge effect on all sorts of websites’ rankings.
Why does Google make these changes? Because ultimately they want people to carry on using Google, and if the search results that using Google produces don’t come up to scratch, people will start using other services more.
For search marketers, knowing the dates of these Google updates can help explain changes in rankings and organic website traffic and ultimately improve search engine optimization. (Source)
Some updates in the past have been:
- Panda – to weed out low-quality content sites
- Penguin – to penalise pages and sites (by demoting them in the SERPs) that used black-hat SEO techniques (ie naughty) to manipulate the number of links pointing to the page. This included paid-for backlinks
- Hummingbird – placing greater emphasis on ‘natural language’ search queries, considering context and meaning over individual keywords
(Source)
We’ve Got A File On You
In my recent post that listed all (well, most) of the things I have to do to get my book finished, I mentioned “two ebook and one paperback” formats.
So here’s a brief word on what I mean:
My designer will take the Word doc I send containing the whole, edited book and from that create three files:
- A PDF, which I’ll upload to Amazon/Create Space which will be used for the print-on-demand paperback version of the book
- An ebook file in the .mobi format, which is what the Kindle needs
- A second ebook file, this time in the .epub format, which is what other e-readers need (I think Apple products use this one)
>>>Playlist<<<
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