Habits for Smart Writers

Since March, I’ve been on a writing streak. I spent the first two months of self-isolation working on my novel and finished the first draft (87,000+ words). I was also writing a few articles here and there, but then, once my novel was complete, I started writing one article daily.

Aside from the blog posts, I was also writing regular newsletters and working on my upcoming collection of short stories.

I was born in Assam — a state in the northeastern part of India. Aside from Assam, there are six other states in this region — Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Nagaland, Meghalaya, and Tripura — that are collectively known as “the Seven Sisters.”

Ethnically, the people from the northeastern part of the country have different features from the people in the mainland. We have fairer skin, straight hair, more slender build, and epicanthic folds in our eyes. As the book North-East India: Land, People and Economy makes clear:

“While the original settlers were the Mongoloids, the Indo-Aryan and other groups…

I’ve always believed it’s important for writers and freelancers to build multiple income streams. If one stream suddenly dries up, you need something to fall back upon to support yourself until you can find another gig or project to replace it.

I recently talked about the various sources that contributed to my earnings for the month of May:

1. Medium partner program: 23%
2. NewsBreak: 32%
3. Writing for my freelance client: 32%
4. Brand collaborations on my newsletter: 6%
5. Coaching and consulting: 4%
6. Miscellaneous (book sales, paid partnerships, Quora Spaces, etc.): 3%

I've come to realize that having your newsletter is the best…

I’ve heard it said over and over again that relying on a single source of income is never a good idea

Even though your workplace promises security, if you lose your job due to whatever reasons like a deadly global pandemic or a global recession or the mention of the country’s economy, you’ll have nothing to fall back upon

And that’s why it’s always best to work on multiple sources of income.

This post is about how I developed six sources of income aside from the salary of my day job. …

Hello lovely readers

Hope things are going well with you. Welcome to another edition of The Book Times, the Sunday newsletter by Books Are Our Superpower.

This week, we had some crazy good articles (more on them in the next section).

We are also drawing close to the launch of the Books Are Our Superpower Book Club I put together a group of six exceptionally talented writers to launch this super cool book club.

It took me a LOT of courage to take such a big step. …

As a writer, do you need an email list?

The answer is, yes. Always.

If I could go back in time and change one thing in my writing journey, I’d have started building my email list sooner. I only actively focused on building my newsletter in 2020, after more than five years of writing online.

If you’re reading this, don’t make the same mistake as I did.

No matter whether you’re just starting out or you’ve written thousands of blog posts and published more than a couple of books, you need a mailing list.

But why send out emails when…

This past year, every one of us likely heard a story about Covid19 that turned out to be false.

Perhaps it was a promising treatment that you heard about from your cousin on Whatsapp or a rumor that Covid19 can spread through food that you saw in your newsfeed.

Given our heightened anxiety over Covid19, I know I took many of these stories seriously. Sometimes, I even argued with my family and friends when it turned out I had the facts wrong.

This was not only embarrassing but also dangerous from a health standpoint. …

Have you ever struggled with building a new habit, but then lost motivation after a few days of dedicated work?

Or maybe you have struggled to break out of an old habit, but the pull of the comfort zone was too strong, and you failed?

If you can resonate with these situations, this article is just for you.

According to BJ Fogg, the founder of the Behavior Design Lab at Stanford University, you can build a new behavior when motivation, ability, and a prompt converge simultaneously. This is known as the Fogg Behavior Model or B=MAP.

If you want to…