Marketing

My Interview with Nathan Barry on The Art of Newsletters

I recently sat down with Nathan Barry, Founder of the email marketing platform ConvertKit, for a super in-depth discussion about my philosophy and strategy for building an audience via a weekly email newsletter. You can watch the 80-minute interview on YouTube or listen to it as a podcast. I switched from Mailchimp to ConvertKit in August of 2019,…

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Introducing the Keystone Course Accelerator

“Honestly, I feel like more people should know about you and your content.” That’s how the email from a guy named Billy started. It was April 2019, and I was at a crossroads. I had been teaching my Building a Second Brain course for a couple years at that point. I’d had success, but the…

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I’m speaking at Teachable’s “Share What You Know” Summit

It is June of 2016, and I’m sitting quietly at my computer in a trendy cafe in downtown Oakland, California. I’m gulping down a huge, over-sweetened chai latte and sweating profusely as I log in to my computer. I’m incredibly stressed out, and using the sugar as a coping mechanism. I’m sweating not because I’m working…

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Introducing Building a Second Brain 11: Idea Inception

I recently rewatched Inception, the blockbuster film directed by Christopher Nolan. The film takes place in a world where “dream sharing” technology has been developed by the military for training purposes. By hooking a group of people up to a special device and putting them to sleep at the same time, a team of dream…

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Crafting a Book Proposal

Your proposal is like a business plan for your book. It needs to justify why your book is worth not just years of your time and effort, but the time and effort of dozens of professionals around the country (and maybe even around the world) who will be needed to get your book on shelves….

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Own Your Writing Platform

Publishing a book is like running for political office

There are a lot of people out there who you want to take a certain action at a certain time and place in the future With political campaigning that action is to vote With book campaigning it is to buy your book

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The New Forte Labs Website

I’m very pleased to officially present the new Forte Labs website! Here’s what’s new: New logo I had designed my last logo in about 15 minutes using cheap software, and it wasn’t up to the task of representing the company any longer. The WordPress developer created it as part of the site design, and I think…

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Interview with Billy Broas

This is an interview with my online course marketing coach Billy Broas. It is an in-depth discussion on what really matters in the marketing of online courses, contrary to what most programs promise (10 easy steps to a profitable online course!). He built and sold his own course Homebrew Academy, and now helps other course…

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Email Boss: My Top Learnings from an Online Course Accelerator

I recently completed an intensive 10-week accelerator for online courses called Email Boss.  The program was one of the greatest educational experiences I’ve ever had. I learned more about online marketing and persuasive psychology in 10 weeks than in the previous 6 years of trial and error in online marketing combined. In this article, I…

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The Building a Second Brain Chain of Beliefs

I recently joined an online course “accelerator,” in which a course marketing expert coaches 5 course creators through 10 weeks of exercises and experiments to level up their marketing efforts. It’s been a fascinating journey already, and I’ll be sharing bits and pieces of what I discover here on the blog. One of the most…

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Top 10 Things I Learned from Chimp Essentials

I recently completed an online course called Chimp Essentials, by well-known writer and freelancer Paul Jarvis. The course teaches everything you need to know to be able to effectively use the email service provider Mailchimp for your online communication and marketing. I took Chimp Essentials to finally get serious about email marketing after years of…

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