I’ve been writing and publishing on the internet, in some form, since before the MySpace days (hey Tom).
Over the years, I’ve been the proud owner of several different blogs, books, podcasts, newsletters, online courses, and all the social media sites. And up until late 2020, I had an awesome writing (and pretty okay publishing) habit. But, all of that got blown up when I got pulled, hardcore, into app development for the first ten months of 2021.
Within a matter of weeks, my decade-long writing habit was gone.
I was no longer grabbing a notebook and jotting down the thoughts that I had, brainstorming ideas for later.
I wasn’t spending any specific time during the day in my notebook with my pen, working through big problems, or flipping back to the notes I had written before.
I wasn’t even sitting in front of a blank page complaining about writers’ block.
My life was 100% app development.
And at the moment, that was awesome. It was exactly what needed to happen for my business.
A little backstory:
I own a feminist scrapbooking business with a community and private membership site.
My goal is to help people tell their stories through pictures, words, creative supplies, and the bits of life we find along the way.
Throughout 2019 and 2020, 63% of our users were browsing our membership site using the iOS browser. The site is very much built for a desktop browser and does not provide an optimal experience on mobile devices. So, in order to provide the best service for my community, it was time to create an option where people could get everything from the desktop version, right on their phones.
It took me almost ten months, but the ALP app launched in the fall of 2021, and I’m so proud of it. It is legitimately one of the coolest things I’ve ever done, and it’s amazing to be able to share it with the people I love serving the most.
When the app was done, I felt a little lost.
I had just finished this massive project, and it felt incredible, but it was like I almost didn’t know where to go next.
I knew I had to get back to creating content the way I was before app development, but I just didn’t know how to get started again. Everything I tried felt a little too…inauthentic.
When I heard about the October 2021 Ship30for30 cohort, I was a little hesitant at first.
I had just spent a few weeks failing at trying to write by myself, after not writing for almost a year…did I really want to pay someone else, so that I could continue to fail at writing?
But, I had a few friends that I knew were joining in, and I thought – hey, things are always better with some friends around, so let’s give this thing a go.
I had a fun time looking around the classroom before the official Ship30 kickoff date, there was definitely a good amount of material to take in.
But, I was convinced that I was in the right place during the first live lesson.
The guys at Ship30 have so many different writing and publishing frameworks for you to learn, and they take you through them, step-by-step.
Some of the frameworks are going to work for you and your writing styles – some of them are not. That’s totally okay.
You do not have to adopt every single thing that is taught in this class to become a better writer.
You can pick up 10% of what is put out there and still become 10 times the writer you were at the beginning of the cohort.
And maybe you’re thinking, Kristin – didn’t you just want to get back into the habit of writing? Why are you so excited about all these frameworks?
The frameworks are what made it fun and easy to write again.
As someone who teaches other people how to be creative for a living, I’m a huge believer in putting constraints around something in order to let your creativity flourish.
That is exactly what the lessons inside Ship30 helped me do.
Frameworks gave me freedom.
I was able to write more during the Ship30 October 2021 cohort than I had written all year.
Also, not going to lie – I had an amazing time writing up some pretty great handwritten notes during each of the live lesson calls and then sharing them with all my Ship30 friends on Twitter.
Writing these notes helped me to distill the important parts of the lessons, break things down into what mattered most to me, and share how I interpreted what the guys were saying. You can see all my Ship30 notes under the hashtag #KristinNotes on Twitter.
And I’ll be back in this next cohort writing and sharing even more notes!
Finally, in actual tangible, legitimate results – Ship30 helped me to create my most successful email sales campaign ever. Ten emails over two weeks, tons of great educational content, lots of interactive pieces, and amazing conversion rates.
Many of the email campaigns were pieces that I had started as Ship30 atomic essays. Because I was able to test them out first on social media, I knew which essays were winners, and I made a few tweaks, added a bit more content to fill them out, and they crushed it.
And here’s the thing. I HATE writing sales emails. If I had to list out everything that I loved about my business, sales emails would be at the bottom, of at least 500 things. And writing all of my atomic essays made it so much easier. I knew what people would relate to, I knew what they wanted to hear, I knew what to teach them. It was almost like cheating.
I cannot wait to dive into the next Ship30 cohort and start working out my new ideas. Hope you’ll join us!
If Kristin's story resonated with you, click here to hop aboard the next Ship 30 cohort.