What happened on your journey so far?

You need to build a platform to establish your authority and visibility, but what works and what no longer does?

 

Maybe the original estimate of how many patrons or fans it takes to succeed just doubled.

 

Final Installment in a three-part series.

Part One: What’s Going On? Why?

Part Two: Where Are You Going?

What Happened on Your Journey So Far?

1. What did you discover?
2. What surprised you?
3. What insights have you learned?
4. What are new opportunities you are better positioned for?

What did you discover?

Well, first off data and information ages.

If you are like me articles randomly pop up that I believe will be important when I have time to review them.

One source for me is Medium.

Another is Flipboard.

Oh, and another is Apple News.

So you save them, tag them, and retrieve them sometime in the future when you’re ready for them.

When you can apply  the tips or secret know-how they describe.

And, of course by then, you discover the source disappears.

Which is a hard lesson to learn.

If you curate back up the originals, or lose access to pearls of wisdom you so desperately need now.

The best example?

AnyWired missing in action.

Next discovery?

Figuring out which tools you should  use.

Do the “aging” tools still work?

Are they evergreen?

You need to build a platform to establish your authority and visibility, but what works and what no longer does?

Turning to crowdfunding, what did I learn?

I discovered I was at least 6 months behind.

While riffing on  self-publishing and marketing in 2016 Katherine Milkovich summed up  my journey so far.

It all just takes trial and error.

What works for somebody else, may not work for you.

What surprised you?

Maybe the original estimate of how many patrons or fans it takes to succeed just doubled.

The initial number ballooned from 1000 raving fans to 2000.

Behind again.

The biggest surprise?

At the beginning of 4th of July summer weekend, roughly a month and a half ago, I logged in to one of my 6 sites.

Clicked on its dashboard like I do everyday to write and rewrite and upload photos and link and …

WTF?

Out of nowhere I received 10 times more views than spam comments.

I’d been running an experiment on Flipboard and LinkedIn.

How did my post attract 592 followers of KnowLabs on Flipboard; 840 in LinkedIn.

It’s still a mystery how 404 people visited my site when only 10 to 12 on average bother to stop by.

Take a look for yourself. I’d love to duplicate it somehow.  Let me know what you think.

What insights have you learned?

WordPress help and support sites are outdated. 

It takes a long time for me to understand why things don’t work.

Administering the technical aspects of the six websites drains my energy.

That continuing steep learning curve steals time away from writing – what I love to do.

And, puts me into a failed-problem-solving frame of mind.

Not so conducive to creativity and clarity. Or maintaining a consistent 60-minute writing habit.

But, writing about the trial and errors encountered (know banking process) help me understand why something goes wrong. 

Those lessons could provide how-to steps for Millennials, 45+ Empty Nesters,  55+ year olds and Baby Boomers ready to move to a resort, quality-of-life community.

And, take their mobile, remote work with them.

What are the new opportunities you are better positioned for?

In the original book content, I skipped over the details for making money while you sleep. 

I assumed readers would already know how to do that, but not how to pick out the best place  to live – where other birds-of-a-feather liked them flocked. 

When this knowledge laboratory is more complete the content guidelines will be more detailed and maybe more marketable.

Some future topics – how to:

• Conduct a laboratory.
• Bank new knowledge and expertise mastered.
• Package and repackage your deposits into new products.

Next Steps:

1. On Amazon / Kindle publish “On Your Own Terms: Pack More Meaning and Passion into Your Life” 
2. Promote it as Book One of a five-book series in Volume One on all of my sites and on Flipboard and LinkedIn. 
3. Join the Writing Cooperative and take their challenge covering all the mistakes I made in my first year (plus or minus) as a reluctant website administrator. 
4. Repurpose those and drafts from The Knowledge Path – Volume Two and Three on Patreon. 
5. Get MailChimp working as my primary vehicle for getting subscribers and supporters to review and leave comments on Amazon. Add Patreon link to my websites and my email, Flipboard and LinkedIn. 
6. Automate a consistent process of content aggregation, curation, composition, and circulation. 
7. Master the chain reaction  of Awareness – Interest – Liking – Desire – Trial – Repurchase and Regular Use. Make it easy for your fans to buy a piece of you, and then advocate on your behalf.
8. Achieve the long-term goal of subscribing, sponsoring, then buying books and reports, joining membership.

What have you discovered on your journey?