A Copywriting Student’s Content Addiction Confession
My name is Colin Y.J. Chung and I am a content addict. I have been sober for about twelve minutes. Maybe less.
My inbox brims with “valuable” e-newsletters from internet marketers and copywriting gurus. All writing to me personally (using list software).
It’s horrible.
Sometimes, I feel like half my day passes in a drunken haze of free reports, downloadable audios and streaming videos.
Mmmmm… sweet, delicious content. I can hear it talking to me, right now…
“What’s that? You want me to consume you?
“But we’re writing an e-column right now…
“John’s an ugly monster, and he’ll kill me if I don’t get this out to him on time…
“You want me to read/listen/watch you instead?
“You want me to read/listen/watch all your friends’ stuff too now?”
Sorry. My head wandered a bit. It happens when you’re on over thirty mailing lists. (All successful millionaire top guns who’ve been there.) All in the same mastermind group scheming the next record-shattering product launch. All very important people you should listen to and buy stuff from. (And click on their affiliate links.)
Right.
Are you like me? Did you get into the copywriting business only for the larger universe of internet marketing to siphon you in? Is your hard drive filled with gigabytes of content you’ll never get to?
My wife grilled me earlier this week…
I kept whining about how, if I had more time, I’d create my own info-product. Write tons of sales copy for the product launch. Make fast money. Yadda, yadda, yadda.
She asked me point blank, “Why can’t you do it now? You spend so much time on the computer already. What are you doing exactly?”
It made me sit down and ask myself tough questions. I wrote out all the side projects, content lists and unconsumed resources I owned. It looked like the solution to Einstein’s theory of relativity. (This is on top of working for John, never mind participating in Shaune Clarke’s coaching program this week.)
Then, I broke it down to time spent on each. Guess which one floated to the top?
That’s right. My thirty plus mailing lists, binders, CDs, MP3s, etc. etc. ALL STUFF THAT DOESN’T MAKE MONEY. You can justify it all you like, but collecting a library of “valuable” content won’t do a darn thing for you. Even if you consumed it all, you’d end up confused by all the different voices, all saying different things with god-like authority.
Conflicting opinions like: use clichés, don’t use clichés; 125 word headlines or 12 maximum; which size font to use online.
However, I see a shining white light stabbing down from the heavens …
While e-mailing Shaune Clarke my pre-coaching program survey, I realized how much I had learned, no, embedded into my writing style, by listening three times over to “Sell More Without Hype: Indirect Persuasion Copywriting Secrets Revealed.”
I also realised that by investing real money with one source, as opposed to getting free stuff from thirty different big names, you hunker down. You hunker down hard and listen.
Like John said in a recent post, get off all those mailing lists.
I purged my subscription list the other night. I removed myself from over twenty-five! I had never sat down and counted them all before. It floored me.
Shaune just sent me the materials for the coaching program. A heft of content. But it’s coming from ONE voice. One voice I can trust to take my copywriting to the next level.
Not this permafrost thin network of thirty plus voices.
Recovering Content Addict,
Colin Y.J. Chung | REALITYcopywriting.com
P.S. Last week, I promised I’d tell you the number of extra zeroes that queue by my net worth now as a result of STUDYING copywriting. Here is the no-holds-barred, god-honest REALITYcopywriting answer: 0. Do you want to know why?
Because I haven’t written a word of sales copy yet! You’ve heard of “analysis paralysis”? I call it “content latency.” I fully intend to break out of it with Shaune’s interactive coaching course. Nothing like a group of people making you feel bad when you don’t do your homework.
If you are a fellow recovering content addict, please comment below. Share with me what your “twelve step” plan is for sobering up…
P.P.S. Click the following link to check out the recording I told you I slowed down and listened to three times over. “Sell More Without Hype: Indirect Persuasion Copywriting Secrets Revealed” (that’s me singing badly on the sales letter. Long story… see two e-columns ago)…
http://www.realitycopywriting.com/no-hype-copywriting-song/
P.P.P.S. There’s still a seat left in Shaune Clarke’s upcoming coaching program. If you want to join me (we can be homework buddies), go to…
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9 Responses to “A Copywriting Student’s Content Addiction Confession”
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September 25th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
At last! Someone else admits content addiction, too! Thanks for pointing this out, so I can more consciously wend my way through all the downloads on my hard drive — and actually get some work done.
September 25th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
I share your pain. We should start content addicts anonymous except it would take us away from our primary objective. 12 steps. I can’t think of all 12 but maybe everyone can add a couple?
Firstly
1.Admit it. Well done. We’re all there
2. Purge like you have done and I have done just recently also
3. Listen to what you want. What you believe. What you know to be true. Find your own faith.
4. Find a buddy (or mentor like Shaune who will whip your butt if you don’t do what you’re supposed to) to get you through and keep you on track when you’re tempted.
5. During the weaning phase allow yourself one day a week where you can spend two hours reading other stuff just to keep up to date but do not subscribe to anything. Just eavesdrop a little. No-one gets hurt.
6. Do not write your own info product because you will be tempted to go get content for it and start the whole process again. Wait until you are completely cured.
7. Focus on one job at a time until it’s done right. This is almost impossible for us addicts because by nature we multi-task everything and get bored quickly. Realistically we probably won’t be able to do this, but just by trying we will actually complete some tasks more quickly and then able to move on without guilt to the next shiny object.
OK I got half way, I’m passing the ball now.
Recovering one day at a time.
Kath
September 25th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
Wow Colin - you have nailed it!
I too am wondering how did I become an info junkie overnight. It started with a few subscriptions which bifurcated to free reports which along the way introduced me to related web sites and more free reports and blogs and so on. Before I knew it I was lost in a labrynth trying to get back to my real purpose.
It’s a time sapper and a real test of self discipline to pull back and out.
Agree with Kath, one task at a time. This multi-tasking thing actually translates to get everything only half done.
As for coach, I already got one before I learned about Shaune Clarke. I’d be truly lost without her. BTW absolutely adored Selling Without Hype - it is soooo spot on.
regards,
Matilda
September 26th, 2008 at 1:40 am
I’ve been reading your posts, and with each one I read I’m more and more convinced we must be ‘twin copywriters-in-training of different mothers’.
Okay, my age must be showing here, and you’re probably too young to recognize my adaptation of the album cover title, ‘Twin Sons of Different Mothers’ from some 60’s-70’s band that I can’t remember. Do you even remember albums?
Anyway, when I read your words I have to wonder if we’re the same person in different bodies.
Like you I started with AWAI — and just about the same time you did. Only instead of just starting off with the 6 Figure oourse, I began with the all inclusive 2 year Circle of Success program.
From there it’s all a blurr — like magic my mailbox filled with one copywriting list after another, and everyone had THE program, and although some focus on one aspect and some focus on another, they’re all pretty much the same, because they all teach the same style of copywriting.
In addition, just like it was for you, it wasn’t long before the internet marketing lists found me. It was like my email address was waving a flag. Free reports, teleconferences, webinars, programs, and binders filled with pages I couldn’t possibly find the time to read quickly became a way of life.
When my daugher came home from college for the summer, and couldn’t even sit down at the kitchen table to eat because the table surface and chairs were all covered over with piles of copywriting and marketing resources (I print out everything that comes through my computer), I knew I had to do something.
So what did I do?
Did I stop printing… unsubscribe… stop ordering all the free programs I had access to through Circle of Success? No, I didn’t.
Instead I bought more binders and a high capacity 3 hole punch, and spent weeks of beautiful summer weather inside — organizing everything. Then I went out and purchased a new bookshelf to store it all.
But I didn’t stop collecting. After all, maybe the one thing I didn’t have would be just the thing I needed to become a success.
I knew I had to stop, but the monkey was already on my back and crawling up and down my legs to boot.
Then I listened to Shaune’s USP call. From there I had a wonderful phone conversation with him, signed up for his coaching program, received a wealth of his materials, and everything changed… instantly. Really it did!
It wasn’t at all difficult to put everything aside, and really quite painless. I did buy 2 new binders to keep Shaune’s materials in, and a bunch of disks to burn the recordings onto — and tomrrow I’ll purchase a book Shaune recommended to me, but that’s it — unless, of course, he recommends or sends something else.
Since last week I have unsubscribed from every copywriting and marketing list except for AWAI. (I am a member of the 2 year program, after all.) I did, however, stop sending away for all their programs, and free of cost doesn’t even matter anymore.
It’s my plan to focus all my time and energy on Shaune’s coaching program. All the lists and free reports will be there if I decide I’d like to check them out again some time in the future, but for now I feel as though I have no need.
Right now, for the first time in about 6 months, I feel like I’ve found everything I need all in one place — something totally different and unique –something not offered anywhere else.
I don’t feel the least bit badly about the information collecting I’ve done over the last 6 months. Not at all. I don’t feel any of it was waisted time. I believe it was a needed phase — an initiation of sorts. After all, it got me to where I’m supposed to be. Without all I’ve done in past months, I wouldn’t have known what was right for me — I wouldn’t have been able to feel it as I do.
I had to gather all that information and read what everyone was saying. I had to know what was being offered and how it was being offered. I had to do this to know none of it was right for me — not for the type of copywriter I want to be — the type I know I can be and should be in order to find the fulfilling satisfaction I’m looking for.
So what I suggest is simple… Keep on with those lists. Keep reading, absorbing, colleting and searching until you find something you not only know is right for you, but something you can feel in your entire being is so right for you that you don’t even question, no matter what the cost.
And when you find such a program… such a method… such a person… such a path… that’s the time to allign yourself fully with it and let everything else go. All that collecting has served its purpose and is no longer needed. Some of us need to collect longer than others, but eventually, in our own time, we all pass through our initation, and when we do — that’s when it’s finally time to get down to work.
Meryl
September 26th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Hey Colin
I hear ye,I’ve been a content junkie for years,and have thousands of PDF’S and ebooks etc to prove it.
I tried purging my inbox too,but that subscriber list just keeps growing.I have decided it’s time to clean out the junk,and move forward.
I recently purchased “Sell More Without Hype” through your boss John,and this made me realize I
was wasting my time with all the other hyped up garbage on the net.
As a novice copy writer,sell more without hype really resonated with me,and when I listened to this mp3.I was riveted to my seat,and was amazed at the scope of the content.
As I told John,I opened notepad,and took notes,as I listened to it,needless to say my fingers were busy.
I can see that you have benefited from it also,plus the fact you are working with a great copy writer in John Manley.I thoroughly enjoy reading John’s articles,and yours now that your under his wing as an apprentice.
I owe John,a debt of gratitude for referring me to Shaune Clarke.As I’m now a student with Shaune .
I look forward to working with you in the near future.
P.S Keep up the great work
Sincerely Brian
September 28th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Right on Colin!
I chuckled while I read your post, as I too have fallen into the copywriter’s trap. I recently dumped about twenty subscriptions that started out as help from some successful copywriter and morphed into one of his good-ol-boys who was going to make me rich in fields other than copywriting.
I quickly learned that most of the copywriter elites aren’t really writing much copy these days. They are selling their tips (via e-book) to the newbies; with the promise that the more you know the more successful you will become.
I am so fortunate that I found Reality Copywriting. I am currently in the middle of my AWAI copywriting course, but I don’t feel comfortable with their techniques. I agree with Shaune that, while their way may have worked in the past, today’s consumers are more aware of scams. I do not like the high pressure, redundant, direct mail lessons in my current lessons and I plan to drop out and learn from a like-minded group of people (Reality Copywriting course).
September 30th, 2008 at 1:36 am
Hey everyone,
I just want to take some time out to thank everyone for commenting on my blog post here. I see that it genuinely resonated with a lot of people.
I’m glad.
A quick update from me: I’m down to two guru email lists. With all the free time I have now, I’m actually writing and creating more instead of absorbing.
Kath - We should totally do something like that. It looks like contentaddict.com is free! Of course, in order to monetize it, you’d have to make it subscription based… so it would eventually self-implode.
Maltida - I’m seeing a huge value in tackling one thing at a time too right now. It’s hard to do it at my day job… constant IMs and e-mails is the norm there… but for copywriting, I’m reducing the “clicking around”.
Merle - It’s Dan Fogelberg. (I looked it up.) I stopped listening to the music of my generation in 1997 and went backwards… blues, punk, jazz, classical, folk, (real) country, bluegrass… and along the way I bought vinyls just for the “cool factor”. So yes, I know what albums are
I’m really excited we’re going to be in the same class together! I can’t wait for it to start.
Brian - Thank you for the encouraging words. I see we’re going to be “homework buddies” too. This is all very exciting. I can’t wait to connect with you over the tele-seminar classes!
I notice you live in Ontario too. Go bug John in person for me will ya? (just kidding) Ring me up if you come out to the West Coast.
Yvonne - Welcome to the “no hype” side of copywriting… John and I have tons of blogs posts already posted and coming up that talks about this. It’s like seeing the world with a whole new set of eyes.
Thanks again everyone… you all rock my world (and really made my day with all your comments!)
Colin
October 4th, 2008 at 3:36 am
Colin, I can feel a sales letter coming on.
Are you a content addict? Do you have piles of pdf’s clogging up your hard drive? So do we that’s why we………and you could set up a total affiliate site to Shaune’s course, no subscriptions.
See what happens? Another shiny object to think about…….dammit, I thought I was getting better
October 5th, 2008 at 11:13 am
Ahhh… so it’s Dan Fogelberg!
Glad you did the research. That line has stayed with me all these years — popping into my consciousness at various times. Remember the line like I heard it yesterday, but could never remember which album it came from. You solved the mystery for me — thanks.
I,too, am pretty excited we’re going to be together in the class. We’ll meet later this week. Looking forward to it.
Meryl