Some 3 weeks ago a friend and I went on a walk.

A 40km walk, during one of the top 5 hottest and sunniest days that month, which took us over 8 hours to be more precise.

About 5 hours in—give or take—we came across a 75-ish man (he told us his age but I forgot the exact number) who was hunched over next to his parked car on the side of the road because he had a flat tire.

He seemed to be struggling to change his tire so we quickly went over and asked him if he needed any help.

I’ve never seen a happier man than him at that moment.

Apparently—this is what he told us—he’d been at it for close to an hour (if not more) trying to change his tire, with little to no luck at all. He had medical problems with his heart, was extremely tired, couldn’t even lift his spare tire anymore, and knew no one in the vicinity to come and help him since he lived in another country (we were close to the border).

Even worse.

This was a street with quite a lot of traffic (for the outskirts of town at least) and almost nobody even bothered to ask the man if he needed any help—and those who did didn’t know how to change a tire.

And don’t worry, this story has a happy ending because we quickly changed his tire, offered him some water, and helped him.

Now, while “learn how to change a tire” is definitely good life advice, that’s not my point.

My point is this:

Plenty of people all around you are struggling with problems at all times—most of which will never ask anyone for help (especially not men, let’s face it).

So it’s up to you to 1) reach out to people and offer your help to solve their problems and 2) actually know how to solve the damn problem.

The second part comes from experience, education, and specific knowledge depending on what kind of problems you help people solve.

The first part can be as easy as building an email list and mailing it daily.

For more information on how to do the latter, check out Email Valhalla here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla

One of the best books about writing I’ve read has to be “On Writing Well” by William Zinsser.

One of the chapters, for example, talks about the mistake many new (and sometimes even veteran) writers make regarding their writing style.

They try to write in such a way people instantly recognize their writing.

But what’ll end up happening is that these writers will artificially inflate their texts, add meaningless words, sentences, and even entire paragraphs which not only confuse the reader but also end up boring him.

They throw out the fundamentals of clear and simple writing (if they’ve even learned it in the first place) all to chase some imaginary goal of “building a style”.

First of all, you don’t build a style, you develop it through many, many years of writing. Writing for which the author had to work for, sweat for, and sometimes even bleed for.

Ask any experienced writer about their first experiences with getting a 10-page first draft of some project down to 5 pages—only to have to reduce it down again to 3 pages the following week.

It’s hard and painful work. Often, it even seems impossible.

But that’s the only way for an author to learn how to actually improve their writing.

Then, and only then, when they mastered the fundamentals of clear and simple writing, can the author truly focus on adding their personality, their beliefs, and their “voice” into the words.

Nobody becomes a best-selling author overnight.

Not even best-selling authors.

Will it take a long time? Undoubtedly.

Is it worth it? Well, that’s for you to decide.

I know it is for me.

Even more.

I’ve developed a whole system to make writing just a bit easier, a bit simpler, and a bit more fulfilling, in other words, a system to truly come to love the art of writing as a whole so you’re not forced to bleed behind the typewriter (or whatever modern replacement you’re using).

If you’d like to learn more about my system then check out the following link: https://alexvandromme.com/loving

You may (or may not) have noticed that I didn’t write an email yesterday.

That was intentional.

See, I wanted to test something.

More specifically.

I wanted to test how healthy and developed my relationship and close connection is to my readers. It turns out, it’s quite healthy.

Today, I woke up to a handful of people pointing out that they didn’t receive an email yesterday and they wanted to see if something went wrong (either on my end or theirs).

While a handful of people doesn’t sound like a lot, you must remember: if one person asks it, dozens more are thinking it.

So that’s an easy way to confirm whether I’m taking up “mental real estate” in people’s heads—and apparently, I am.

If you’ve got a medium where you’re keeping constant connection with your audience, then try this “experiment” out yourself. See whether people notice if you stopped tweeting, posting, emailing, podcasting, or whatever else you might do, just for one day.

The results may very well surprise you and you might learn something new about the routine-like relationship you have with your audience.

As one long-time reader once told me (paraphrased), “Your emails are like getting up to have a quick chat with a friendly co-worker at the water cooler”.

And that’s a good place to be.

Anyway.

If you’d like to learn more how you can build a deep relationship powered by constant connection with your audience, especially when it comes to email, then I suggest you check out Email Valhalla.

Click here to find out more: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla

Many tales are told about the Roman emperor Nero.

Such as the story of how Nero supposedly set fire to his own majestic imperial capital. A fire that we to this day refer to as the Great Fire of Rome, which occurred on the night of July 19, AD 64.

Yet it’s likely that almost none of it is true.

That’s the premise of one of the books I picked up up a year ago while paying a visit to the Gallo-Roman Museum.

I don’t exactly remember who mentioned it, but I once came across a rule somewhere mentioning the benefits of forcing yourself to buy at least one book every time you enter a bookshop. It doesn’t matter which book. Just one. The first one that catches your eye.

You’ll learn lots of cool stuff you wouldn’t have otherwise.

It so happened that the museum had a bookshop. And so I had to get myself a book. I couldn’t decide between 2, so I just bought both of them.

Trajan by Nicholas Jackson and Rome is Burning by Anthony A. Barrett.

Both are fascinating reads and I’d recommend them to everyone slightly interested in history or the Roman Empire.

But back to Nero.

He’s commonly been called a tyrant who ruled with ruthless impulsiveness. Yet, for most of his rule, he was, in fact, liked by the general populace of Rome.

The people loved him. He did good things. He entertained the people. He often took part in plays and would sing together with the other performers.

Nero was a liked and popular emperor.

Yet his popularity plummeted after the fire because of all the rumors. Rumors of how he started the fire. Rumors of his lack of leadership and correct behavior. Some rumors stated he himself started the fire, others stated he could be seen singing on his balcony while Rome stood burning for 6 days straight.

Whatever the case was, he didn’t rule—or even live—much longer after that.

Was Nero to blame for all of this? Did he deserve it? Was he actually insane and tyrannical? Was his popularity and gentleness before nothing more than a facade?

We will never know.

But one thing we do know is this: he could’ve used some lessons on personal branding.

You see. Being the emperor of Rome or building your own brand isn’t all that different. There’s a huge importance in maintaining a strong and likable image, building a strong connection with your ‘audience’, and even building your own world to ensure you’re unreplaceable and effectively ‘cancel-proof’.

Perhaps, if Nero knew what we know today, his people would have continued loving him, regardless of whether he caused the Great Fire and executed his family members.

Clearly Nero didn’t succeed in doing so. But that doesn’t mean you can’t succeed either.

And in my humble, yet accurate and proven opinion, there’s no better way to build a good relationship with your readers than by staying in constant connection with them through frequent emails.

You can’t even come close to understanding how powerful this constant connection is until you’ve experienced it yourself.

And if you’d like some pointers on how to get started the right way, while getting paid and building your creative business alongside it, then you might want to check out Email Valhalla.

Click here for more information: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla

I haven’t watched, listened to, or read the news in over 2 years.

Mainly because I find it unhealthy for any one person to be exposed to so much drama, so much negativity, and so much chaos every single day. There’s always some disaster, an accident where people died, or a scandal to talk about somewhere in the world.

That’s not all though.

Not only does 90% of this not even matter (ask yourself how many news items you’ve seen in the last year that still have a big impact on you today, which you wouldn’t have known about if it weren’t for watching the news every day, that you still remember), but a lot of it is propaganda or heavily biased news items meant to, not just inform, but actively deceive or manipulate you as a viewer.

And if you think the news isn’t trying to deceive or manipulate, then you’re an even bigger fool than most.

The thing is, today’s media companies (among others) have become so adept at their craft that it’s damn near impossible to perceive when the manipulation is taking place—at least if you’re not trained in the same craft of entertainment and human psychology as they are.

But, as I must confess, this “no news for me” hasn’t been without some slight disadvantages.

Mainly, I’m unaware of most of the useless, frivolous, yet global news that’s making rounds around the globe, making it extremely difficult for me to “piggyback” of those trending topics to use in my emails, sales pages, advertisements, social media content, books, or anything else I create for a living (a rather powerful and entertaining strategy to use—taken straight from the enemy’s playbook).

Luckily, there exist solutions for this problem. Those solutions aren’t perfect, but they’re as close to a flawless compromise as I could find.

One of these is a popular newsletter I’ve discovered called 1440 which focuses on sending you no-nonsense, unbiased, and trending news items from all over the globe directly to your inbox.

Within five minutes you’re completely up-to-date with most things people are talking about while not (or as little as possible) trying to deceive or manipulate you (which you can confirm yourself by the lack of entertainment) and allow you to form your own opinions by diving deeper into the topics that interest you.

1440 also expressed their interest in wanting to sponsor today’s email.

As always in my sponsored emails, this last section of today’s email is the excerpt the guys over at 1440 prepared themselves. All I can say is to at least check them out and determine if this is something you could benefit from or not.

Anyway, here they are:

===

Seeking impartial news? Meet 1440.

Every day, 3.5 million readers turn to 1440 for their factual news. We sift through 100+ sources to bring you a complete summary of politics, global events, business, and culture, all in a brief 5-minute email. Enjoy an impartial news experience.

Join for free today!

There’s this old saying, “less is more”.

It’s especially true for writing.

Why write big and fancy words when simple and short ones will do? Why waste your time writing 500 words when 50 is enough?

The more you leave out, the stronger your writing.

So it is for both product creation and email writing.

Which is what I focus on in my flagship course Email Valhalla; how to write entertaining emails that make sales and keep your readers reading day after day.

Sounds interesting? Click here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla

People love to talk about publishers like they’re the second coming of Jesus—regardless of market or industry.

But if I were you I’d think twice about getting into the sea with a publisher.

After all, it’s a big decision, and more often than not, working with a publisher isn’t worth it.

For one, on average, across all industries, whether we’re talking books, video games, or music… publishers will take anywhere from 30% to 70% of your total profits.

Sure, the good ones (which are becoming harder to find day after day) will pay you upfront for your deliverable. But that’s not never where people make the majority of their income (if they know what they’re doing that is).

So there’s immediately a huge trade-off here.

Then the question you need to ask yourself becomes, “Will I make more profit, on top of the publisher’s cut, with the publisher than without them?”.

If the answer to your question is either “no” or “I don’t know” then don’t work with a publisher.

They need to be able to show you an entire game plan backed up by reliable figures of previous (and hopefully similar) projects they took on to convince you of their worth.

Even more.

Self-publishing has never been an easier, efficient, and especially lucrative practice than it is today. And it’ll continue to improve and be the better option for 90% or more of creatives out there.

The downside?

You’re on your own and you’ll need to do your own marketing.

Luckily for you, that too is becoming easier and easier by the day, especially when you apply what I teach in Email Valhalla about building a list and writing daily emails that get you paid and keep your readers reading day after day regardless of what market or industry you’re in.

Click here for more information about Email Valhalla: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla

One of the founding fathers of modern-day marketing, and more specifically advertising, is Claude C. Hopkins who first published “Scientific Advertising” back in 1923.

It’s an amazing read which I highly suggest to everyone who even remotely comes close to advertising anything, no matter what, why, or how.

In fact, I’d argue you should read it multiple times in a row. That’s what I’m doing right now, in fact—I’m currently on my god-knows-how-many read-through and I keep learning new stuff.

You can read the entire thing in one sitting if you’d like.

And yes, I know what you’re thinking “But Alex, that book is from 1923, surely that’s outdated and there are better books for me to read right now?”.

I thought so too at first.

But boy how wrong I was.

See, advertising and marketing at their core are psychological disciplines. It’s essentially salesmanship in print as Hopkins described it in his book. And if there’s anything to know about sales & psychology, it’s that people’s psyche doesn’t change. If something used to be true back in Ancient Rome, then chances are it still holds true today.

Sure the medium changes, and maybe even certain ideas, beliefs, and cultural ideals. But the underlying principles everything is based on don’t.

Another fact to consider is that the best way to stand out is to “be different”.

So modern books, teachings, and people who want to “compete” with such old-school legends and more-than-holy scriptures on the art of advertising, by definition, have to do things differently or else they won’t even stand a chance in competing.

But what happens when people want to compete with a near-perfect book (in this case at least)?

That’s right…

You end up with something slightly worse at best and completely and utter bollocks at worst.

That’s the case for every piece of information in every market targeted to every demographic and applied to every medium there is. No exceptions.

Something to think about.

Anyway, I’m not saying I’ve got knowledge anywhere near to the level of that of Hopkins. But I always focus on only taking in the best, most-trustworthy, and effective information from the old-school myths, legends, and pioneers.

Take for example Email Valhalla, my flagship course which teaches you all about writing emails that get you sales, no matter what market you’re in or what you’re selling, and keeps readers reading day after day.

There’s nothing truly new in the course.

No shiny bells or whistles.

But it is one of the only (I only know a handful of others) courses that brings everything from the top dogs who knew what they were doing together and teaches it in a modern jacket and a teaching style that’s uniquely mine and mine alone (that means no-nonsense, no bullshit, no time-wasting, and ultimately memorable and effective).

If that tickles your fancy, then check out Email Valhalla here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla

A few days ago I wrote an email ranting about the current state of social media and the boring, unfulfilling, and downright soul-wrenching game you have to play if you want to achieve any kind of ‘success’ according to most “social media gurus” out there.

That message seemed to have struck a chord somewhere because I received quite some responses.

One of those responses was from a long-time reader (whose name I won’t share for obvious reasons) who felt exactly what I was talking about.

He mentioned how he felt like he “had to” play this social media game to build social proof and authority to get started as a beginner in his market.

Obviously, that didn’t please him. So he asked me, yours truly, what I would do if I were in his shoes instead and wanted to build my business from the ground up when nobody knows my name.

So here goes:

First, realize that social media is a new thing.

Marketing and sales aren’t.

There have been plenty of ultra-successful marketers selling all sorts of products, services, and even experiences for far longer than social media has been around.

Don’t get trapped in this mindset that social media is the end-all-be-all. The only people who want you to believe that are the ones who want to sell you their social media course.

I’m not saying social media doesn’t work—it clearly does.

But it’s not for everyone and it definitely isn’t your only option.

Second caveat:

Realize that social proof, while definitely being powerful and useful, is far lower on the ladder of necessity than you might think.

90% of all the ads you see (if not more) don’t use any kind of social proof. They simply make you aware of a problem you might be having, and then offer you a potential solution to said problem.

If the advertiser did his homework, aka he knows what keeps his market up at night, then the problem will be so close to home you can’t help but pay attention to whatever solution the ad might be offering. And if the solution is positioned correctly then you, the customer seeing the ad, will end up buying it.

Regardless of whether you’ve heard of the product before or your next-door neighbor Nancy also happened to have used that same product.

Once your realize this, that’s when countless doors will open for you.

You’ll realize all you have to do is get your product, service, or better yet, yourself (and a plug to your email list—the most valuable asset you’ll ever build and which allows you to create repeat buyers and die-hard fans instead of having to survive on one-time sales) in front of your target audience while talking about their problems or their interests—regardless of what market you’re in (every single product in the entertainment industry solves the “problem” of boredom—which just so happens to be at an all-time high right now; making it the best time ever to grow your entertainment business if you know what you’re doing).

Some possibilities:

• Run ads on Google, Facebook, Amazon, popular forums, or wherever your target audience hangs out (simple yet effective)

• Get on podcasts as a guest speaker: start small and build your way up. You won’t get on Joe Rogan’s podcast as a no-name but there are thousands of people with dreams of building a big-name podcasts who just so happen to always have a need for guests to interview. Mention what you’re working on and how that could interest their audience and chances are most, if not everyone, would like to talk to you.

• Write blog posts, articles, or press releases for online newspapers, other people’s blogs and email lists, internet magazines, or any of the tens of thousands of media outlets all scattered around the internet (most of which are owned by people who dislike writing articles but want to publish as much content as possible so they can make a living off the ad revenue)

• Message local newspapers, radio shows, or television channels: Most people lead boring lives. So just by building a business or doing something artsy or creative, you instantly become so much more interesting—which is more than entertaining enough for every local media outlet to want to interview you (what’s a better story than the “local celebrity”?)

• Meet new people and keep an eye out for potential joint-ventures: You’re not alone in your market. Use this to your advantage. Work together with other creatives or entrepreneurs. Ask if they’d be interested in recommending you or your products to their audience if you’d do the same for them (or simply pay them to recommend you).

There’s a lot more where that came from, but this should be more than enough to keep anyone busy for quite a while already.

After all, no amount of information will save you if you never get to implementing things.

So get to it.

Start implementing at least one or two of these and build yourself a big email list.

At that point, you might want to master how to write engaging, entertaining, and persuasive emails that’ll help sell your products while keeping your readers reading day after day as well.

For that, consider checking out Email Valhalla here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla

I just returned from a three-day trip with a small group of friends of mine.

It was a lot of fun, a nice change of pace (I didn’t do anything work-related at all—not even checking my emails or how my promo was going), quite adventurous at some points, and especially tiring when we stayed up until 6 in the morning playing board games (that’s not your usual “stay up way too late” culprit, now is it?).

Funnily enough, one of the main things I learned during and still remember from that trip was a funny little word used to describe “the earthy scent produced when rain falls on dry soil” (courtesy of Wikipedia).

Or, as smart people would call it, petrichor.

So, as you may (or may not) know, I just had to start digging for other such scents.

I then quickly learned about bibliosmia, coined by Oliver Tearle, an English lecturer and author, in 2014 and which refers to “The pleasant smell and aroma of a new (or any) book, caused by the gradual chemical breakdown of the compounds used within the paper”.

The hunt was on. I had so many questions.

How many other scents, smells, or even tastes and sounds have been given unique names of which I’m not aware?

When does a scent become unique or special enough to be deserving of a name?

What’s it called when cold piss falls on molten lava?

Unfortunately, I couldn’t answer all of them.

But that’s not the point.

The point is that I got curious. I let my inner child come out and went looking for what some people might consider stupid answers to even dumber questions.

This is the key to creativity. Which in turn is the key to happiness. And that happiness can easily affect a large number of people who just so happen to be connected to me some way or another thanks to the vast network of modern globalization—further aided by my deliberate intentions to share this curiosity, my findings, and my joy with the world; which in turn might inspire a select few people to do the same and continue expanding the range of global network and reach an uncountable amount of people all over the world.

Many people might say entertainment lies at the root of civilization.

And they’re definitely not wrong.

But there’s a real argument to be made that curiosity lies at the root of entertainment, and thus civilization by extension.

Whether this newfound knowledge about the names of certain scents is of any use to you remains to be seen.

What I do know, however, is that just by sharing my findings and curiosity with you, there’s a good chance you’ll go out there into the world with a newfound appreciation for something which in turn will aid your creative endeavours, giving you a boost which might help you become successful at whatever it is you want to do, and ultimately make the world a better place.

And if you’re curious about something else that might help you become successful, then I’d highly suggest you check out my flagship course Email Valhalla, which teaches you all about writing emails that get you sales while keeping your readers engaged and entertained so they’ll keep reading your emails for a long time.

Click here for more information about Email Valhalla: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla