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You made it!
You did it Reader,
you survived the most promo heavy week of the year, and I hope you didn't waste too much money buying stuff you don't need. 😅
In my last email, I mentioned that you won't see me running any big Black Friday/Cyber Monday promotions and flash deals.
Sounds weird, right?
It seems like everyone and his dog is offering discounts this time of the year, which might make you think you have to do the same if you're an entrepreneur running your own business.
Well, thankfully, that's not true, my friend.
When you're a creator/writer/entrepreneur/[insert fancy term], you make the rules.
You decide how you make money.
You decide when you work and how you work.
When you do it right, you also decide who you work with and what you work on.
Sure, you can go with trends and offer discounts for Black Friday.
But you don't have to.
You can do the opposite - just like me.
I created my signature program program, Medium Writing Academy, four years ago and haven't offered discounts once.
Instead of offering 90% off for Black Friday, I ran my biggest live launch to date shortly before Black Friday without any discounts.
That's the beauty of treating your business like a game - you get to be flexible and have fun in the process.
💛 Medium's latest update: The Friend Tier 💛
Earlier this week, Medium announced a new friend tier, which was in the works for a while:
This doesn't change much for writers (or readers), but it's a nice add-on to what Medium already is.
As a creator who spends A LOT of her time on Medium, I personally loveeee that I'm now able to share friend links to stories from other writers.
I run two newsletters with tens of thousands of subscribers who are not Medium members, so when I wanted to share Medium stories in my emails in the past, I had to beg writers for friend links - not anymore!
I can't wait to share more of my favorite resources from brilliant writers thanks to the Friend tier.
Plus, I got a cute little badge on my profile by upgrading - and who doesn't like badges?!
Coming next week
I currently spend most of my time with our students inside the Medium Writing Academy Live Edition. We have several live coaching sessions happening each week (seven sessions scheduled for next week, to be precise 😅), and it's an absolute pleasure to already see the massive progress our students are making.
But there's another side to running live cohorts that most people aren't aware of: They teach me as the instructor a lot too.
In each live cohort, I meet dozens of new writers who have ideas and questions. Through conversations, I learn what the biggest struggles of new (Medium) writers are.
With new updates, new strategies become relevant, and working with writers so closely allows me to ensure we always have the most recent updates covered in the course.
Earlier today, one of our students shared the following question in our private community:
No, that's not true. This claim is absolute nonsense, and yet there are self-proclaimed Medium gurus who spread misinformation like this.
In my upcoming emails, I'll help you understand why this is nonsense and what you should focus on instead.
On Monday, we'll talk about how to get more engagement on your stories.
[Spoiler: Asking readers to engage with your stories is not a way to do it.]
Have a lovely weekend, Reader, and make sure to check your inbox on Monday to learn how to write stories readers will want to engage with. 🥰
Big love from my screen to yours,
Sinem
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Write • Build • Scale with Sinem Günel
I help you write confidently, build your audience, and scale your income. Subscribe for first-hand insights and actionable strategies to turn your ideas and knowledge into a thriving digital business, so you can make money doing what you love.
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