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Which are the most common mistakes you’d like to warn your readers for? And help them avoid? Sprinkle these mistakes — with advice on how to avoid them — over your tutorial, to keep readers captivated.

Your word choice has to be sharper and harder-hitting than the words you use when you talk because in writing you can’t scream, sing, or use wild gestures. Your words have to capture attention, express emotion, and get your message across.

To make your writing voice stronger and more dynamic: Choose sensory words like creepy, bland, or dazzling Pick emotional words like mesmerizing, mind-numbing, and captivating Religiously tighten your text; and tighten it more

There’s one more thing you shouldn’t forget: A good teacher or mentor inspires her students to implement her ideas. Consider what might stop your reader from following your advice … and take away that final obstacle. When you encourage your readers to overcome their doubts and take action, they’ll hang on to your lips to hear each word.

Metaphors help readers visualize an abstract concept by relating it to something concrete. They help people understand a new idea by relating it to something they know already.

Problems are like speed bumps — they slow your reader down. They start paying attention again, because everyone is keen to avoid glitches, hassle, and mistakes.

Do what you want. Self-publishing simply means you write a book and you figure out how to get it into the hands of other people. It might just be you sell it on your email list. Congrats! You're then a published author. In my post "How to Self Publish a Bestseller" I write about the details and the numbers.

This seems opposite of what I said above. But blogging is not such a bad idea. How come? Because it makes you write every day. And it also is fun to build friends and community around your blog. But if you want to blog, don't just register a domain name and start blogging. You won't get any traffic.

There's a thousand ways to build community and practice writing on the Internet. Blog is one of them but there are many others. My #1 suggestion: first practice on Quora (cc Marc Bodnick) If you go there, follow me and say "Hi!".

If you don't write every day, you won't know what your potential skill level is. You will be producing sub-par work. And in a world where 15 million books will be published this year, your book will have little chance to shine.

Do the math: if you just write 1,000 words a day that are publishable then you have a book every two months. 1,000 words a day is not easy. But it's not hard either.

No. You used to be able to make a living writing articles. Just a few years ago. In 2005 I made a good living writing about 3-4 articles a day for different publications while I was running my fund and before I started and sold Stockpickr. But those days are over. People just don't pay for content. And there are too many writers. It's a supply and demand thing.

ou have to write more than one book. And for most people, you have to write dozens of books.

You’ll catch clunky sentences, missing and repetitive words, and misspellings.

Make a list of your most common offenders. Then search for those words and see if you can take them out without altering your intended meaning.

Take a look at each sentence and see how many words you can cut out.

Check to make sure you put commas before direct address in dialog.

The most mutilated verbs are lay, sink, drag, swim, and shine.

Flowery verbs such as quizzed, extrapolated, exclaimed, and interjected, stick out. Instead, use said and asked, with an occasional replied or answered.

When sentences begin with “it was” and “there were,” readers are left wondering exactly what “it” is. These words are vague. “It was hot today” can easily be replaced with “the sun baked his shoulders,” which paints a clearer picture. Think: strong nouns and verbs.

Your role is to sell your products or services – but in order to do that you have to engage and encourage your audience. Your content can’t read like you’re in it for the sale. Your job is to be an advocate for your audience. You’re there to help. Learn how to engage on each platform you’re using for marketing, and then be present as a helpful, encouraging voice to guide your audience to the right decision.

Unlike the early days of SEO copywriting, you can’t keyword stuff and get great results. You can’t even rely on customers to visit your website before they make a decision about company.  They are connecting with you on Facebook, following you on Twitter or reading a landing page.

When a person can see the finish line, they’re far more likely to start.

Take a look at what happens when you google “From 2,500 to 1 million fans in 2 years”.

Ask yourself if you can add either a quantifiable benefit or a specific time frame to your post.  Can you tell the story about how you got more readers to your blog in 30 days?  Or can you tell the story about how you helped a friend drop 15 pounds without starving herself?

oday is the day for cold calling. Most people don’t particularly enjoy this aspect of marketing but it is extremely valuable. Use the list you made on Monday and call each company.

By now you are getting some serious responses to your quick burst activities. So today you want to focus on social media. If you don’t already have Facebook and Twitter accounts for your freelance writing business, this is the time to set them up. You should also have a LinkedIn account. If not, set one of those up as well. Then go into the settings of LinkedIn and Twitter and set them up to update whenever you post to the associated Facebook page. Properly setting up your social media pages is extremely important; you are selling yourself. Make it look good.

You’d just rather do anything in the world other than work on your writing project

Avoidance and procrastination: Sometimes we go out of our way to avoid a difficult writing challenge.

Eat well, exercise, and drink plenty of water. Schedule time for rest and relaxation. Don’t run yourself down.

A Few, Final Writing Tips for Combating Writer’s Block

if you have two projects going, you can rotate back and forth to maintain your interest in both.

Get advice from other writers. Often, they’ll see a solution where you see no way out.

Of course the other thing to do when you’re resharing the same piece of content is to mix up the timings of your updates. If you first tweet a piece of content at 9am – at least wait a few hours to reshare it so that others in different parts of the world are likely to be online. The same thing applies to other networks (although I’d wait longer than a few hours to reshare on networks like Facebook or Google+). Also consider avoiding sharing during those times of the day that are particularly ‘noisy’. Sometimes sharing during times that you’d think your audience isn’t online is actually best. Dan Zarrella calls this ‘contra-competitive timing’ and has some great data on the topic here.

Anne Rice

Regardless of what time I work (shift work), I wake up at least 3 hours prior and like clockwork, 1) I brush my teeth, 2) make breakfast, 3) sit down at my desk, 4) check emails, 5) check in on my social connections and finally 5) after stretching my legs for a moment, I write on cue for at least two hours.

ake note of the things you do consistently every day before and after work.

Create a space of time within your current daily rituals for writing every day. Make sure it’s at a time of day that works best for you.

I highly recommend creating a writing sanctuary for yourself, somewhere you only go to write, and therefore, your mind will associate being there with writing.

Reverse-engineer your social-media success by noticing what sorts of posts get shared a lot in your niche, and writing something along those lines.

the key ingredient: Write a strong headline

Use hashtags

Use a scheduler

Don’t just keep retweeting your headline and link. Instead, vary what you say.

Be sure you share other things inbetween the repetitions of your new post. Do some scanning, find some interesting stuff, and lace it into your schedule as well, so you don’t start looking like an obnoxious salesman and continue to appear to be putting out useful, varied info.

How Much Clutter Can You See?

What’s the Mood of Your Room Like?

Are Your Tools Good Ones?

Just imagine trying to write with a dried-up pen, where you have to keep stopping to go over too-faint words.

Are You Allowing Distractions In?