But nothing could be further from the truth. Every single day is unique. This day will never come around again. You only have this one shot, so don’t blow this one opportunity to live these twenty-four hours. So, you must treat today like the gift it truly is.

It’s not just about us, though. We have to treat our audience the same way. We have to show up every day, ready to write, ready to create, ready to serve. They deserve the best you can give.

The legendary singer Tony Bennett said, “If you walk out there like it’s just another night, the audience is going to treat you the same way.” Those are wise words from a man who has been entertaining and serving audiences for decades.

Daily Question: Are you treating this day as the gift it truly is?

Today’s episode is sponsored by the Book Marketing Mastery course. Use the code “DailyWriter” to get 10% off.

The post Today is a Gift appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

How do you break through the messy middle and keep going?

Remember: it’s not about you. It’s about your readers. Do you love them? Do you care about them as individuals? Do you want the best for them?

It’s best not to picture your readers as one big group. Think of one person. Just one. Picture them reading your book at the doctor’s office, at their kitchen table, or in the car waiting for someone. What’s the expression on their face? What are they thinking and feeling as they read? How will they be different after they’ve read your book?

That is the person you’re writing for. They have a name and a story. That is the person who will get you through the tough parts, the messy middle, the long journey from the starting line to the finish line.

Writing is hard. So why do we do it? For the love of our readers.

Question: Who is the person you pictured reading your book, and how will your writing change them? Be specific.

The post We Write Because We Love Our Readers appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

It’s tempting as a writer to think that “everyone” is your audience. But the reality is that your message is not for everyone. It’s a paradox that the more you focus on a very specific type of person, the more people will be able to relate to it.

Specifically, narrowing down your audience will give you three things:

1. Clarity. A lot of the frustration that writers feel is because of confusion. When you understand who you’re writing for, and the frustrations that you’re helping to solve, life gets a lot easier and more fun. You want your material to attract the right people and repel the wrong reader.
2. Intensity. It is very exciting to go through this process and finally get a handle on who you’re writing for. This will give you an incredible intensity because you know your audience and understand them. It also takes out all of the guesswork about your writing. When you have clarity, you will then have an intensity of focus because you know what you’re trying to accomplish.
3. Feedback. When you start to write for a particular type of person, you will get feedback from people that will help you further refine your audience’s needs and interests. If you are writing for “everyone,” your message is going to be diluted because you’re always going to be second-guessing yourself.

If you try to write for everyone, it’s like going down a wide river that has no momentum. When you write for a more focused and specific audience, it’s like going down rapids where the banks are close together and there is lots of action. You will experience a lot more excitement and get where you’re going much faster.

Daily Question: What specific audience are you writing for?

The post Focus on a Specific Audience appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

It has been said that the middle of every project feels like a disaster. You’re far enough away from the starting point that you’ve lost some of the enthusiasm you had at the beginning. But you’re too far away from the end to see the finish line.

How do you break through the messy middle and keep going?

Remember: it’s not about you. It’s about your readers. Do you love them? Do you care about them as individuals? Do you want the best for them?

It’s best not to picture your readers as one big group. Think of one person. Just one. Picture them reading your book at the doctor’s office, at their kitchen table, or in the car waiting for someone. What’s the expression on their face? What are they thinking and feeling as they read? How will they be different after they’ve read your book?

That is the person you’re writing for. They have a name and a story. That is the person who will get you through the tough parts, the messy middle, the long journey from the starting line to the finish line.

Writing is hard. So why do we do it? For the love of our readers.

Daily Question: Who is the person you pictured reading your book, and how will your writing change them? Be specific.

The post For the Love of Readers appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

In your author journey, it is easy to view yourself as the hero. You’ve worked hard on your writing, books, and marketing. You’ve conquered emotional obstacles. You’ve proven to yourself that you can do it.

All of those are heroic acts, to be sure, but it may surprise you to learn that in your author story, you are not the hero. You are not the main character. You are not whom the story is about.

So who IS the hero, then? The hero is your reader.

No matter if you’re writing fiction or nonfiction, your goal is always to serve your reader. They are the one you’re trying to influence, entertain, inspire, educate, or change. They are the reason you’re writing in the first place.

You’re not the hero. You’re the mentor, the wizard, the guide. You are the Obi-Wan Kenobi to the reader’s Luke Skywalker. You’re the Gandalf to their Frodo. You’re the Glinda to their Dorothy.

What you are doing as a writer may be heroic, but you’re not the hero—the reader is. Make sure to do everything in your power to help them get what they came to your writing to find.

Daily Question: As the mentor to your reader, what do you hope they take away from your writing?

The post You Are Not the Hero appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

I’m excited to introduce you to my friend Morgan Gist MacDonald. She began her career in academia as a sociologist, but soon found the entrepreneurial pull to take her skills as a researcher, writer, teacher, and leader into building a publishing company from the ground up. With more than 15 years’ experience in writing, editing, and publishing books, Morgan leads the Paper Raven Books team as Founder & CEO in developing the best practices for publishing successfully in the modern, digital age.

Morgan is also the author of the excellent guide Start Writing Your Book Today: A Step-by-Step Plan to Write Your Nonfiction Book, From First Draft to Finished Manuscript.

In this conversation, Morgan shares how to make time to write your book, a few important habits for getting a book done, tips on writing your draft, and a number of book marketing strategies that have worked really well for her.

Morgan is a creative genius who leads an amazing company. This conversation is packed full of insights and wisdom!

You can learn more about Morgan, Paper Raven Books, and grab her guide through the links below:

Paper Raven Books

Grab Morgan’s Guide, Start Writing Your Book Today: A Step-by-Step Plan to Write Your Nonfiction Book, From First Draft to Finished Manuscript.

Follow Morgan on Facebook

Connect with Morgan on LinkedIn

The post Morgan Gist MacDonald on How to Start Writing Your Book Today appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

Writers tend to think about what a book can do for them, and it can certainly do a lot of things for you. You can grow a business, earn income, build your reputation and credibility, and much more.

However, writing is ultimately a SERVICE to other people. If people are going to spend time, money, and energy reading your book or your writing, they need to receive value from it.

When considering what you want to write about, ask yourself this question: What is the main thing you want your reader to do? What is a tangible change in their life your book will help them achieve? (By the way, if you’re writing fiction, there is still a transformation—you want them to be moved, transported, etc. by your story. Fiction can often have a more powerful impact than non-fiction.)

Asking yourself this question is one of the most radically helpful things you can do when considering what to write.

Daily Question: How do you want your book or your writing to serve your readers?

The post How Do You Want Your Book to Serve Readers? appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

So many aspiring authors never write their books because they are always worried about what people will think. Will their book be “good enough” (whatever that means)? What will their family or friends think? Will their friends from high school ten, twenty, or thirty years ago think they are still cool?

I say, “Who cares about all that?” Those people don’t matter in your journey as a writer. Here’s who does matter: the reader out there who is waiting for you to finish your book so they can read it.

We think about a book as a one-to-many communication, but it’s one-to-one. People read as individuals, not as a group. It’s that one reader who just lost their child, who is going through a divorce, who is thinking about taking their own life, who wonders if anybody understands what they’re going through.

THAT is the one you’re writing for—the person who is tired of spending all their energy keeping up their appearances and just wants someone to be honest and authentic about their life. They are looking for connection with another human.

Whether you write fiction or nonfiction, don’t worry about what the imaginary crowd thinks. Just think about what your reader thinks, and imagine how they are going to love what you are delivering to them through your book.

Daily Question: Are you concerned about what your family and friends think about your writing? Why?

The post The One You’re Writing For appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

We writers often talk about the reasons we write. But what are the reasons we don’t write? What keeps us from writing?

Several things probably come to mind: procrastination, not enough time, and not feeling creative, among others. But at the end of the day, there is one main thing that keeps us from writing.

The novelist Erica Jong hit the nail on the head when she said, “I went for years not finishing anything. Because, of course, when you finish something you can be judged.”

We’re all writers here, and we all understand each other, so let’s take a moment for some honesty. Is there someone in your life you’re afraid of disappointing with your writing?

Maybe it’s a parent or a sibling. Maybe it’s a teacher. Maybe it’s a friend of yours who has a popular blog or has had some books published.

Imagine that you put your writing out there and they don’t like it. Maybe they express some disappointment or even leave a bad review on Amazon. Then, they move on with their life and promptly forget about it.

But that’s about the extent of it. At its worst, being judged by someone just means our writing is not for them.

Yet in our minds, we are terrified of not being liked, or of disappointing someone. We let this fear of being judged by one person keep us from writing what 99 other people will love.

So finish your writing. Do the work. Chances are pretty high that the 99 will love it. And the one person who might not like it? That means it just wasn’t for them.

We like to think of this person as the one we should convince, the one we should try and bring into the fold of our readership. But you must let them go. Don’t worry about the one that got away. Instead, focus your energy on the 99 who enjoy your work and want to support you.

Nobody said this was easy… but learning to let go is an essential part of being a writer.

The post Most People Will Love It appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

The Christmas classic It’s a Wonderful Life opens with a scene in heaven. Two angels are listening to prayers from Bedford Falls for George Bailey, who is in trouble. They call in a third angel, Clarence, who is being sent to earth to help George. If he succeeds in his mission, he’ll finally get his wings.

But before he is sent down, he needs to spend some time getting to know George. All he can see is a blur, so one of the other angels has to clear his vision because he doesn’t have his wings yet. And with the senior angel’s help, Clarence can see clearly so he can move forward with his mission.

There is a similar relationship between you and your readers. Your mission is to help them see the world more clearly. It doesn’t matter what you’re writing. The mission is ultimately the same: to help the reader get a clearer vision of life.

How is your vision? Do you see clearly? No one can believe your writing, believe the truth in it, unless you first believe it yourself.

The great novelist Charles Dickens wrote, “I have nothing else to tell; unless, indeed, I were to confess that no one can ever believe this narrative, in the reading, more than I have believed it in the writing.”

Is skill important? Yes. But skill is nothing without belief. When you believe in what you’re doing, you can take the reader anywhere you want to go.

The post Do You Believe It? appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.