Do you want to grow a profitable content business? If so, join 25,000 readers. I share daily insights about personal brand building, writing online and growing a profitable business. It's for creators, coaches and business owners.
I was plagiarized
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Hi Reader, Chet emailed in to say a guy plagiarized me on Medium. I was plagiarized. I wrote an article about comedian George Carlin’s odd note-taking system a while ago. The article went viral, and Medium paid me a few hundred dollars. (You can read my article here) A few days later, a plagiarizer copied my article into his Medium account. He changed the picture and republished it under his name. When I heard about it, I left him a snarky comment and moved on with my day. I used to worry a lot about plagiarism. That’s not the first time someone copied my work. I found a PDF of my writing books on a torrent site a few years ago. Dozens of sites have copied articles from my sites onto their own. Sometimes, I issue DMCA take-down requests, but I don’t worry much about plagiarism. You see… That article was part of a series of articles and content promoting my course about the Zettelkästen Method for Writers. I earned several thousand dollars and attracted some high-quality students from the launch. That ahem writer copying one of my articles is like taking a single piece from a jigsaw puzzle and passing it off as a finished work. If you’re creating content online and attracting any kind of audience, you’ll be ripped off at some point. It could be a human. Or it could be AI. You can waste hours getting angry. Or you can move on. Whatever you decide, here’s what’s far more valuable: The relationship between you and your audience. No one can copy that. Write on,
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Letters From the Desk of Bryan Collins
Do you want to grow a profitable content business? If so, join 25,000 readers. I share daily insights about personal brand building, writing online and growing a profitable business. It's for creators, coaches and business owners.
I take our youngest son to hurling and GAA football training on Saturday mornings at the local GAA club. For my American readers, hurling is an Irish sport, like stick and ball. We’re from the same town as Paul Mescal. (Google “Paul Mescal GAA”) Because I’m in the midst of a mid-life crisis, I’m also training for a long-distance triathlon in Roth, Germany, next July. So I’ll go for a two-hour run in the Phoenix Park in Dublin. Or I’ll spend an hour or two stuck on a turbo trainer while...
"Great walk bro!" Nothing grinds my gears more than growth gurus preaching generic advice like "Comment for an hour every day and you'll grow your account." Do that, and you'll spend an afternoon commenting on post after post about daily walks! I don't have time for that. I'll wager you don't either. A few days ago, I wrote about a system I created to attract high-quality leads on LinkedIn. This system is particularly effective for coaches, consultants, and business owners. The LinkedIn...
I’ve worked with marketers who hid behind complicated words and terminology for years. They mistakenly believe this type of language conveys knowledge and expertise. The problem? Complex writing is like a maze - readers often give up before finding the exit. (The only exceptions are literary fiction and academic writing.) Savvy writers and content creators know people’s attention spans are strapped. Most of them scan while bored at work or waiting for a train. They’re not just reading. So,...