Your job is what you do, but your work is who you are

That quote has stuck my entire adult life. 25 years ago my college professor said this as an attempt to convert wide-eyed students from simple cogs in the cubicle machine, to true artists — no matter their craft. No matter their calling.

Your work matters.

Work — the right work — is a direct reflection of your well-being. Like a perfect mirror. When we can’t do our best work we lose our sense of purpose. When we retire from our work we feel a loss of identity…

Hey,

I just published this story.

If you’re a writer or creator and thinking about building an email list, but you don’t have your first book or product finished, it’s OK. Inside this story I share a better way to build your email list, and why it’s better to build a list before you have something to sell.

In your service,

August Birch (AKA the Book Mechanic)

P.S. Here’s a link to that story once more.

There are two kinds of marketing — push and pull. With push-marketing (most ads), you interrupt whatever the person is doing, disguise your ad as much as you can so it looks like content, then shove them into your sales funnel before they get distracted by something else.

I’m not against ads.

Ads are necessary if you want to grow your creative practice beyond a certain level. But if you want to take your marketing a different route — the pull-marketing route, come behind the curtain. There’s plenty of room.

While more of your peers trip-over themselves, losing as much…

Hey,

I just published this story.

If you wondered whether or not to participate in Medium’s affiliate program, I hope this story answers your questions. I also have a better use of your writing efforts than promoting Medium’s subscription service.

Hint: The referral program is a total dumpster fire.

In your service,

August Birch (AKA the Book Mechanic)

P.S. Here’s a link to that story once more.

I was just as excited as you. Here, we writers have a new income stream we can add to our Medium content. At first I was really excited with the sample numbers floating-around. All we need is a handful of new subscribers (about $2 a person in affiliate commission) and we’d make a steady stream of income every month no matter how well our stories do.

So far, so good.

But the actual numbers just don’t happen.

Plus, I haven’t seen any articles from writers sharing their stats on new sign-ups (or how they’ve made hundreds of dollars etc.). …

Hey,

I just published this story.

If you’d like to earn more from your Medium stories, you can follow these seven steps to help give all your writing an income boost. Best part is, none of these steps have anything to do with the partner program.

If you’re frustrated with earning a few pennies per month from your Medium stories, these seven steps will help.

In your service,

August Birch (AKA the Book Mechanic)

P.S. Here’s a link to this story once more.

If you’re a new writer (even if you’ve been here a minute), it’s likely you’re frustrated with the partner program. Just as we feel like we’ve got a handle on what to expect, they go and change the algorithm. And the rules.

At it’s core, Medium is just another content site.

This means there are some things you can start doing today that will increase your writing earnings tomorrow. The best part is, you don’t need to worry about the partner program at all.

In fact, using the method I share, the partner program will be an added bonus, but…

Hey,

Since you’re a writer, creator, or both I wanted to give you the same opportunity I gave to all the folks on my main email list.

Tomorrow, Friday, September 16th at 10 pm EDT US, I’m increasing the enrollment fee for my TinyCourse program by $70. If you’d like to grab your own copy at the current, introductory rate of $127, you’ve got one day left.

TinyCourse will not only give you all the steps you need to build your own micro-course (or even a big course), but it will also give you graphic templates and resources to host…