Why I publish so little these days?

The Poet Recompensed, René Magritte (1950)

As I'm inching towards my 4th year as a full-time ghostwriter, I find it more and more difficult to create content. At least for myself.

Many writers will tell you that it gets easier over time, but most of them haven't improved a dime in those years.

It's just "profile optimization" fiasco madness.

And the main culprit is narrow knowledge gaps in my audience's mind.

Knowledge gaps are what make someone click on your content because they give them a missing piece of the puzzle they're solving in their heads.

So let's say someone is a flag enthusiast and they're familiar with 250 flags out of 254, you can post something like "4 flags that even flag enthusiasts don't know" (Made to Stick by Chip and Dan)

They would click because there's a gap in their knowledge.

And since the personal brand and social marketing bubble have exploded in last couple of years, everyone knows everything about these topics.

There's nothing new under the sun.

Everyone is writing content on hooks, personal brand and content strategy ( just at the surface level, though).

So, it becomes very hard to find underused subtopics, back them up with valid research and offer a logical solution.

It requires critical thinking and hours of looking at notes to find some connections among them.

And since I'm running a content agency and have client work, I don't have the luxury of time.

So the question in your mind arises (or should arise) :

Then how are you constantly publishing for your clients? Is it low-quality, then?

Good question.

Most of the content I'm writing for my client falls into 1 bucket of writing.

And that Knowledge telling, not Knowledge transforming. (Bereiter and Scardamalia -1987)

Knowledge-telling is usually what happens when you tell kids to write. They dump their running thoughts on the paper, simply telling what they know.

But Knowledge transforming, on the other hand, is difficult. It's the way of basically convincing someone through a hypothesis backed by solid argument and research.

And since my clients are usually running 7-8 figure business they have a lot of interesting content stemming from their actions.

It becomes easier to create content when someone is solving hard problems.

If I would have a pie chart for the content I'm producing for my clients, it would look like:

• 80% knowledge telling

• 20% knowledge transforming

It works for them since they have a lot to tell.

But I want my content to be the exact opposite of this.

I want to write more and more knowledge-transforming content that stands the test of time.

I don't want to publish something that will be irrelevant after 24-48 hours of posting it on socials.

That's why, before publishing, I ask myself 3 questions:

• Am I the only one saying this or among the fewer ones?

• Have I done the research behind it and do I have interesting notes?

• Can I offer a logical solution to solve it?

And very few of what I have in my first drafts would pass this test.

(No wonder I publish so little these days.)

The only solution I'm trying out these days:

Read more, take even more notes and jumble them.

I'm trying to opt for Ryan's note-taking system for a while.

It provides a great structure for what I'm trying to do.

If I want my writing to stand out from the crowd, I have to do better research, and for that, I might have to read and plow through old books that most people are not reading.

My note-taking is also quite simple. I once tried to categorize my notes into different themes and subjects, but they ended up collecting dust in my notion, which is the exact opposite of what the notes are intended to do.

So, right now, it's very free-flowing. I just write down anything that I find interesting. Maybe it's a framework. Maybe it's a theory. Maybe it's a story. Maybe it's a fact.

There's nothing wrong in the process.

Everything is up for grabs.

I read every book with a pencil in my hand. Always.

At the end of each chapter, I force myself to write down 3 things I learned from it. I also create a personal index for all the things I find interesting.

Once I complete that book, I transfer all those handwritten notes to my notion.