If you want to write, learn from the best.

Nicolas Cole is the god of online writing. He has amassed 100m views and published 7 published books. He’s also started three 7-figure writing businesses.

I’ve bought his course, read his books, and devoured his newsletters. And spent the last 12 months applying his ideas to my writing. The results have been astonishing (4600 followers/$800 monthly earnings).

So let me give you Cole’s top 7 lessons:

1. You can make good money as a writer

Cole hammers this point over and over.

At college, he was told it was hard to make money writing. But Cole believes it’s straightforward. And has proved it by coaching others to do it. He clearly explains the process and exactly what to do. He’s convinced anyone can make 6 figures if you follow his steps.

Read on to discover what they are.

Give away 99% of your best writing for free. Monetize the last 1%. Nicolas Cole

2. You don’t decide your niche

If you want to grow your audience and make money. You can’t write whatever you want.

Don’t spend time pondering what your niche is. Write loads and let your readers decide. Cole recommends picking 3 categories to write in. Do it for 6 months and see what readers prefer. New writers are often surprised by what the data reveals. You are a poor judge of what sells.

As a sidenote, you can write for the pure joy of writing. Cole does this. He writes poetry. But he pays no attention to the metrics for this. As he doesn’t expect this to earn him money.

There are 2 types of writers today: those who use data to inform and improve their writing, and those who fail. Nicolas Cole

3. The most important skill is writing

Some gurus teach you how to hack a platform.

This is helpful until the platform changes. It’s short-sighted growth. Cole focuses on writing skills. He believes these transfer to any platform. And work in any niche. Once you have the skills you can use them wherever you want:

• improve your career
• grow a newsletter
• youtube scripts
• writing courses
• ghostwriting
• freelancing
• ebooks

Develop your writing skills. It’s a rock-solid foundation for growth.

When it comes to writing online, platforms will always change, but the rules will stay (pretty much) the same. Nicolas Cole.

4. Write a lot & consistently

Cole’s early success came from publishing every day on Quora.

I’ve found this the easiest way to grow. Write more. It can be hard to define better quality. But quantity is easy to measure. When I shifted from 1 article a week to 3. I quickly gained traction on Medium.

In the game of Online Writing, volume wins. Nicolas Cole.

Even after 148 articles I still can’t predict which will do well. Publishing more is like taking more shots in a football game. It increases your odds of success. It gives you more data. So you can learn more.

Cole prioritises quantity over trying to get your writing perfect. Develop systems so you can write quickly. He encourages the use of templates and processes to speed up your process.

Consistent output is the secret to every growth metric on the internet: views, comments, Likes, shares, etc. Nicolas Cole.

5. Everyone’s an expert

The information age is over.

People are overwhelmed and don’t want more information. They are desperate for clarity. Clear guidance that cuts through the noise is the holy grail. And the person best placed to help is someone who has solved the same problem.

We are now in the transformation age.

New writers struggle to know what to write about. They lack confidence in their expertise. Cole has a brilliant 2-year exercise. List everything you’ve learned in the last 2 years. Analyse everything aspect of your life. What do you have today that you of 2 years ago didn’t?

Think about:

• skills
• failures
• knowledge
• experiences
• mindset changes

In all these areas you are an expert.

You have valuable insights you could teach someone a few steps behind you. If you’ve solved a problem in your life — you’re an expert. People are yearning for your help.

This is your great opportunity.

6. Tell stories and be helpful

Cole discovered a viral formula 10 years ago.

He noticed the best Quora answers had 2 key ingredients:

• they told a story
• they were helpful to the reader

People promote storytelling as the new thing. Medium editors are obsessed with it. It’s sold as the way to beat AI content. But it’s always been this way.

People relate to stories.

If you’ve done Cole’s 2 year exercise then you’ll have a mound of content. Just remember your stories need to help readers with their life. Draw out the lessons, reveal your mistakes, and share your tips.

Don’t be self-indulgent. Be useful.

7. Know how to get and keep attention

The brutal truth is without attention you have nothing.

You can have the best ideas in the world. But if you don’t know how to grab attention and keep it. No one will get to read it. Cole has a wealth of practical ideas on how to do this.

If you follow his advice for points 2–6 you are well on your way. But you need more if you are to win online.

Headlines

Cole has an abundance of advice on headlines. Here’s some of his key tips:

• Be clear, not clever
• Makes a promise
• Be specific
• Take a stance
• Tease the content without revealing the main point

It’s only “clickbait” if you fail to keep your promise to the reader. Nicolas Cole.

Formatting

Be warned some Medium publications will reject you if you follow Cole’s advice on this. But he’s a big fan of dovetailing a paragraph with single sentences. The so-called 1/3/1 rule.

Be direct

Cole taught me online writing is different from what you’ve been taught.

It relies on short sharp sentences. Delete as much as possible. And be definite in your statements.