Five Lessons Poets Can Learn From Henry Rollins
May 15, 2008
Henry Rollins has had one of the most varied careers a creative performer can possibly hope for. He has worked as a singer/songwriter, spoken word artist, movie and television star, comedian, author and poet. While he had never achieved blockbuster success in any of his chosen fields, he never lacks for opportunities to work and perform. Here are five lessons poets can learn from Henry Rollins.
Write about yourself honestly
I can’t really explain it, but I feel as long as I tell them my dark sides there is nothing they can dig up. – H.R.
Rollins’ spoken word performances mostly take the form of a personal memoir. He tells stories of unflinching honesty about his life, whether it portrays him in a good or bad light. The ability to look at yourself and the world around you with absolute honesty can come with a price. Allowing the world to see the true you is not only difficult, it can be downright painful, but it allows you to connect with your audience in a way that few poets ever manage.
Be open to change
I believe that one defines oneself by reinvention. To not be like your parents. To not be like your friends. To be yourself. To cut yourself out of stone. – H.R.
One of the qualities that has kept Rollins in the public eye since 1981 is his ability to move on to new projects. Rollins spent the first five years of his career as the front man for the band Black Flag. When it broke up, he went out and formed his own band. He also began to tour alone as a spoken work artist. He then began a film career with minor movie rolls. This eventually led to his becoming both a radio and television host. Over this stretch of time, he has also written numerous books. While his career has varied, Rollins personality and voice has remained remarkably steady.
Hard work will be rewarded
I just get things done instead of talking about getting them done. I don’t go out and party. I don’t smoke, drink or do drugs and I’m not married, that leaves a lot of time for my work. – H.R.
One of the reasons Rollins has had such a long career is because he has worked so hard. He is constantly releasing new material, touring and performing. He stays in the public eye because he always has something new to show people. The world can’t forget you if you never go away. Prolific writers may not be better writers, but they get more chances to succeed because they always have something new to show you.
Self publish if you have to
If I lose the light of the sun, I will write by candlelight, moonlight, no light. If I lose paper and ink, I will write in blood on forgotten walls. I will write always. I will capture nights all over the world and bring them to you. – H.R.
Rollins began writing books while he was front man for the band Black Flag. Like many beginning poets, his first efforts at self publishing amounted to photocopied sheets of paper. He later moved up to publishing chapbooks and eventually started his own publishing company. Rollins did what it took to get his voice heard. Today, self publishing is a much easier task. You can publish on the web for free or next to it. Printers are cheap and powerful now, so publishing chapbooks is not an expensive challenge either. Print-on-demand services like Lulu now make it fairly easy to release full-sized books of poetry and even sell them on Amazon.com. There are no more excuses. If you aren’t publishing, you should be.
Don’t be afraid to fail
Scar tissue is stronger than regular tissue. Realize the strength, move on. – H.R.
Not every poem you write is going to be great. It is hard to please yourself, and it is even harder to please others. Letting other people into the world of your work opens you up to their criticisms. No poet, no matter how good, is perfect. You can find fault with anyone’s work, and people will find fault in yours. Writing in general, and poetry in particular, is such a subjective means of expression that you can’t possibly please everyone. No matter how the good poetry you write is, especially if you become well-known, someone out there is going to hate it. Accept that there is no perfect poem and no perfect poet. Write what you can write and accept what comes.
Note: I am republishing this article of mine from another, now defunct, site.
05/15/2008 Writing Jobs and Links
May 15, 2008
Today’s Job Advice
If you tell people about your radical new idea at work, don’t be surprised if no one follows up on it, but if someone does decide to give it a try be prepared to back them up. It was your idea, after all.
Today’s Writing Job Roll
Poewar is Seeking Guest Bloggers — $250 Prize
Freelance HR Blogger — Virtual
Freelance New Media Blogger — Virtual
Sports Reporter — Leesburg, Florida
Business News Reporter — Santa Rosa, CA
Copywriter — San Gabriel Valley, CA
Associate Editor — San Francisco, CA
Proofreader — Lawrenceville, GA
Freelance Copy Writer — Elgin, IL
Editor Tradebooks — San Francisco, CA
Today’s Job and Writing Links
Writing Website Content Headlines
How To Invest In Websites In Your Spare Time
What I Should Have Said About Management Trends
Living the Prolific Life: A How-to Guide
Namaste - Your Path To Business Enlightenment
The Violent Truth Of Opportunity
What I Learned from Writing Blog Madness: Content vs. Commerce
May 14, 2008
A lot of sites have something they want to sell you. They may simply run a lot of outside ads, or they may be pushing services such as writing, editing, consulting or design. When I was running Writing Blog Madness, I tried not to penalize blogs that had something to sell, but in many cases the sales pitch did hurt them in the competition. Articles that would otherwise be helpful seemed less valuable because the sales pitch was too strong or the blog’s design would be less attractive because it was weighed down by ads.
I don’t fault anyone for using their blog to make money or promote themselves. I like money too, and I get a fair share from PoeWar. I just think that, with competing sites only a click away, you have to be very careful about how you promote your message because you are competing with plenty of other blogs that are either unconcerned about money or found a better way to promote themselves than you did.
Is Your Sales Pitch Hurting Your Sales?
If you have a strong sales pitch, especially one that you work into your articles, you need to examine it closely. How many sales/queries are you actually getting? If you work a sales pitch into every blog entry and you haven’t made a sale in months, then the strategy isn’t working. If you have a dozen ads and only a hundred daily readers, you need to think about how many people leave your site because your articles are just part of the clutter. You also need to think about how many potential regular readers/customers you have lost because your content took a back seat to your sales pitch.
How to Know When to Turn Down Your Sales Pitch
The tips below are mostly based on numbers and statistics. Statistical tracking is a key to any advertising campaign. If you are trying to make money from a web site and you aren’t tracking your statistics, you need to start. Try Google Analytics, they monitor everything I’m about to discuss and plenty more.
- If your readership is under 500 people a day, you should probably work on expanding that before you hit the readers with the hard sell. You need an audience before you can sell to an audience.
- If your readership hasn’t grown in three months or more, you should keep a close eye on your sales pitch. It may be driving readers away.
- If the average number of pages readers view per visit is under 1.5, you are almost certainly driving people away. When readers like your site, they tend to explore, looking for more articles to read and checking out that all important “About Me” page. If your site is loaded down with ads or your articles come on too strong, chances are they’ll look at one article and then move on to another site.
- If you aren’t getting comments on your articles, it may be because of the sales pitch. People tend to comment when they feel their opinion has value and the article leaves them with something to say. If they feel like they are reading a sales brochure, they aren’t going to add to the conversation because there is no conversation to add to.
- If you aren’t getting many links from other blogs or web sites, then the chances are pretty good that they aren’t finding value in your articles or they see through your sales pitch. Bloggers like to feel as if they are part of a community. A heavy sales pitch can take you right out of that community.
Four Quick Fixes
There are four quick steps that can help you get your sales pitch down from a shout to a whisper.
- Be upfront and brief. Say very clearly what you offer and then move on.
- Do not work a pitch for your services into an informational article. Let the article stand on its merits. If you feel you need to discuss your services in a blog entry, save it for a separate entry and keep it down to once a week or once every five posts or more. Put the content up front.
- Pick one spot per on your page to promote your services. It can be a prominent spot. People understand and accept the need for advertising. Just keep it to one spot and say what you have to say. The people who are interested will look.
- Take out any poorly performing advertising. If your page is filled with ads, chances are only a few of them (if any) are actually making you money. Get rid of the ones that aren’t selling. They are just clutter.
05/14/2008 Writing Jobs and Links
May 14, 2008
Today’s Job Advice
Never be afraid to negotiate your potential job’s salary or other flexible items such as title or vacation days. Just be sure to wait until they make an offer. Don’t discuss money during the interview process unless you suspect that they are going to come in far too low and you don’t want to waste your time.
Today’s Writing Job Roll
- Freelance Men’s Issues Blogger — Virtual
- Freelance Pet Related Bloggers — Virtual
- Freelance Copywriters — International
- Freelance PR Writer — Telecommute
- Freelance Grant Writer — Telecommute
- Editorial Writer — Fayetteville, NC
- Assistant Editor — Hugo, OK
- Education Writer — Odessa, TX
- Junior Assistant Editor — Santa Monica, CA
- Proofreader / Copywriter — Los Angeles, CA
- Technical Writer — Phoenix, AZ
- Editorial Assistant — San Francisco, CA
Today’s Job and Writing Links
- How to get your spec tossed out
- Quitting and Freelancing: When the Brushoff is Sorely Needed
- How to Choose a Specialty as a Freelance Writer
- The Science of Freelancing
- The Volunteer Writer
- Website Content: Giving the Grand Tour
- How to Supercharge Your Content With Concrete Details
- Create a Blog Pack to Get Blog Traffic and Increase Subscriptions
Tuesday Mini-Rants
May 13, 2008
Amazon Goes to the Dark Side
Amazon has been squeezing print-on-demand publishers, trying to force them to use their print services in order to get a buy-now listing with them. To me this is a case of a big company using near-monopoly tactics to put smaller companies out of business. I’ve been a big fan of Amazon over the years, but this stinks. Anne Wayman has been covering this over at The Golden Pencil, I advise you to take a look.
The Television Networks Blew It
As I predicted months ago, the television networks are seeing significant drops in viewers. Now that almost all of their shows are back the networks are assessing the damage and trying to convince themselves that the cause is anything but the WGA strike. Oh no, it couldn’t be that! The true test will come next fall, when the new season debuts. I predict that we will see an erosion of about ten percent from last fall’s already record low numbers. Of course, if the actors go out on strike over the summer, things could get much worse.
My Local Newspapers Suck, Again
I’ve chronicled the downward spiral of my local daily newspapers a few times. At this point they mainly serve as a place to recycle day-old national headlines (the kind I can get up to the minute on Google News) criticize the local sports teams and send some poor schlep to city council meetings. Oh, and they love telling you who got shot, though they generally get the details wrong (it turns out that loudmouth neighbors don’t make for reliable sources). Thats all fine, but now they’ve decided to charge more for their useless rag. It now costs 75 cents a day to pick up a copy of the morning paper at the newsstand. The afternoon paper, always known for its irrelevance, only raised their price to 50 cents. At this point, I am beginning to suspect that the papers want to drive readers away.
