Writing Archives - Glenn Stovall

Name Your Next Product With This Exercise

How do you come up with a product name? or a business name? Naming products is a hard but learnable skill. There are agencies that provide names-as-a-service. ZinZin’s existence corroborates the idea that naming can be distilled into a repeatable process. When you’re feeling stuck, it helps to have a process. Prolific creation is the […]

The Dangers of Content Platforms

Platforms are a useful tool, but it dangerous to use them as the primary home for your content. If you want to start publishing, you aren’t required to set up your own domain and personal site. There are platforms available now that allow you to post instantly, but I strongly suggest that you set up a site you own from the beginning.

Which Shapes To Write? A Guide to Choosing Content Forms

How you write, what you write, and where you write should change based on your current goals. Your content strategy should be fluid. When setting goals, this is why it’s good practice is to review periodically. Here are some ways you can adjust your writing practices based on what you want to achieve. Pieces of content can serve […]

Blog Posts As Bets: An Expectancy Analysis of Publishing Content

When I shared a story about getting clients via content, I received some feedback I wanted to address, paraphrased here: “The example given about the Angular article seems like sheer luck. There are hundreds of similar articles on the web that have no traction. What’s the real difference between an article that leads to an offer […]

An Actionable Definition of “Content Strategy”

While publishing more is almost always better than publishing less, it would be better not to publish randomly. For years, I fell into the trap of writing was Rochelle Moulton calls “a flea market of ideas.” The only overarching topic was “what Glenn is interested in this week.” Other times I’ve seen companies create content for content’s sake. […]

Case Study: 1 Talk + 1 Article = 2 New Clients

Occasionally you get lucky and catch a wave in your career. Technologies come and go. If you adopt new technology before it crests, you can position yourself as someone proficient with that technology and can set yourself up for some great opportunities. Here’s how it happened in my career once. Why I Learned AngularJS Early […]

How To Improve Documentation For New Users

Documentation has to fill the roles of onboarding new users as well as supporting existing ones. It has a marketing role when people read your documentation to get a sense of how your product works. Before signing up for a new product, I look at their API documentation. Chances are I will need it at […]

Writing Tools: 12 Tools I Use For Publishing Content Today

One of everyone’s favorite ways to procrastinate it to futz with tooling. Well never fear, I’m here to help! Here’s a look at the current stack of tools I use to create, publish, and share content. Evernote – My Primary Tool Evernote is where most of my work happens. I use Evernote to keep research, […]

The Struggle of Marketing To Skeptical Developers

Selling software is an exercise in convincing the buyer that what your software can do is worth the cost, and they can trust you to deliver. It boils down to a comparison; however, when your software is aimed at solving problems for developers, the math gets more complex. Developers buy with time and risk, not […]

What’s The Best Publishing Cadence?

If you’re starting a new blog or other publishing habits, how often should you be publishing? My recommendation is to publish regularly, and as frequently as you can manage it. The most frequent I’ve seen by individuals is daily. Seth Godin is famous for his daily blog, which has over 7,000 posts and counting. Seth […]

Should You Write Longform Articles or A Shortform Series? – Reader Question

Yasawi over on Dev.to asks: “If I have a big topic to blog, Should I make it into a series of blogposts under same title or different title?” This is a great question and one that doesn’t have one correct answer. There are benefits to post large, authoritative pieces of content. These tend to be […]

How Do I Complete Against Other, Better Bloggers? – Reader Question

I received this question from a reader and dear friend, and I know they aren’t alone in feeling this way. I really want to start writing about code + architecture, but whenever I think of a topic I want to write about, I’m inundated with thoughts of “so many people have written about this and […]

How to Choose Your Blogging Platform

There are more tools and channels for publishing content online than ever before, but getting started is also more daunting than ever. It’s because of the paradox of choice. Heightened anxiety caused by more choices leads to analysis paralysis. Tools should be used to enable your work, not deter you from it. If you want […]

Get Value From Content Without Traffic

Here’s a secret about technical blogging: You don’t have to play the “get thousands of page views” game if you don’t want to.

Choose Your Next Article Topic With This Exercise

When I fall out of my writing habit, most often it’s because I can’t decide what to write about. Choosing an article topic can be paralyzing. Here’s an exercise I use to come up with new topics. Afterward, the issue is not that I have too little to write about, but too much. When coding, […]

Process Documentation: The First Step to Eliminating Tedious Work

Looking for ways to spend less time doing parts of your job that you hate? You have three options: Eliminate. Delegate. Automate. I’m a minimalist. I like to take a Marie Kondo approach in business and life. Tasks get on out plate more quickly than they get off, and we don’t always stop to reflect […]

How I Used Writing to Double My Freelancing Rate As a Programmer

When I left my job to become a freelance programmer, I was charging $50/hr in the beginning. I met other freelancers, consultants, and agencies in town, and a few of them charged $150/hr. Even the agency that I had worked at previously billed my time at $120/hr, which means that my level of programming […]