Please check out two important actions for writers at the end of this post.
Dear Friends,
Happy New Year! I want to start this new year with an inspiring post to help you achieve your goals and realize your dreams in 2025. As the majority of this publication's subscribers are writers, aspiring book authors, and established creators, I decided to share my 2024 book writing experience, which exceeded my expectations despite the significant challenges I faced during the year.
I wrote a detailed story about it on Medium, so I will not repeat them here. Either before or after listening to this interactive audio, you can read this article to reinforce your learning, get practical tips, and stay inspired in 2025 to start your dream project today. Here is the link to the article on Medium:
How I Wrote 4+ Books in 2024 Despite an Extremely Busy Schedule
Here’s how passion, focus, priority management, method, mental clarity, and collaboration can do wonders when life is happening.
Upon request, I also shared my Medium and Substack experience in 2024 to give writers new perspectives and a clear roadmap based on unexpected challenges, showing I addressed each challenge in a timely way and turned them into new opportunities, which increased my audience and writing income significantly in 2024. Here is the link to the story on Medium if you want to read it:
What Worked for Me in 2024 and What Didn’t, with Mistakes I Made and Corrected Timely
A quick annual update to inspire my readers and fellow writers for 2025 with transparency, joy, and humility
I believe these two stories can give you unique perspectives and help you create your plan and strategy for 2025. Please leave a comment with your questions, and I will be happy to answer them.
In the previous post, I offered a special deal for my new subscribers. I said any new paid subscribers for the basic deal of a $5 monthly subscription would be automatically upgraded to my $500 yearly founding membership, including all the benefits of the Substack Mastery Boost Pilot initiative in 2025, Plus my personalized mentoring and coaching through ILLUMINATION Slack workspace.
As the post was sent at the end of the month, I noticed that over 60% of my free subscribers missed the deadline of 31 Dec 2024, and now they are asking me whether this deal can be reactivated. Upon this genuine request, I extended the offer until the end of January. As I do every year, my plan is to mentor around 500 proteges. Out of this number, I can include around 100 candidates for more focused coaching to help them achieve their goals and realize their dreams in 2025. I invite you to take this opportunity.
The advanced version of the Subtack Mastery book titled A Powerful Toolkit for Substack Newsletter Mastery was published on 1 January 2025 and is now available in multiple bookstores. However, I will share every chapter with audio files in my Content Marketing Strategy Insights publication. All my books related to writing, content development, and content marketing strategies will be included for paid members.
Here is a sample chapter:
I will upload all chapters to multiple bookstores. However, I will share every chapter with audio files in my Content Marketing Strategy Insights publication.
Here are other books I published in 2024 that might be of interest to you:
1 — Substack Mastery: Insider Secrets from a Content Strategist & Seasoned Author: Learn the Basics, Stay Motivated, Grow Your Paid Subscribers, & Thrive with a Community.
2 — A Powerful Toolkit for Substack Newsletter Mastery: How to Scale Your Newsletters and Reach Thousands for a Successful Writing Business
3 — 4 Pillars of Enterprise Architecture: Achieve Strategic Architectural Goals in the Modern Era with Rigor, Agility, & Technology
4 — Cortisol Clarity: A Practical Guide to Understanding and Optimizing Your Stress Hormone
And a summary book
5 — Substack Mastery for Busy Writers [Concise Version]: Insider Secrets from a Content Strategist & Seasoned Author
I also completed the first version of a new book scheduled for 31 March 2025. It is called Train Your Brain for a Healthier & Happier Life: A Practical Guide to Stimulate, Rest, & Nourish the Brain for Optimal Health Based on Decades of Research & Experimentation in Cognitive Science.
Here is a sample chapter that I published on Medium today:
The Brain Needs 3 Types of Nutrition
As neurons, dendrites, and axons require exercise and rest to survive and thrive, they also need specific nutrients to function optimally for cognitive health.
Quick Poll
Here is an old story I wrote in 2021 that helped hundreds of writers convert their Medium stories or Substack newsletters to e-books.
Now, here are two quick and important actions that can bring you many benefits in 2025:
Action 1 - I noticed that around 8000 writers couldn’t join Slack in 2024, and my email was flooded with inquiries. When I investigated the situation, I discovered that our Slack workspace had 25,000 members. But unfortunately, at least 5000 applicants in 2024 gave inactive email addresses. Slack automation failed. I have no time to send 8000+ invitation emails manually. Therefore, I created a special invitation button here, which you can join with just one click to create your free account. Our Slack workspace is free and moderated by 175+ volunteers. It brings many benefits, such as logging delayed stories, connecting with editors easily, sharing story links in multiple channels to get more views, promoting your Substack newsletters for free, having social conversations about growing your networks, and many promotional channels in which you can promote your businesses.
Action 2 - In 2024, I opened my website to guest bloggers to help them post teaser posts for their Medium stories and Substack newsletter. This is a wonderful opportunity for writers to get more traffic to their content and create strong backlinks. So far, only around 250 guest bloggers have joined and reaped benefits. Again, I noticed that my email had thousands of inquiries, which I couldn’t handle manually. I created a Google sheet, and your applications will automatically captured, and our administrators will give you author access to be a guest blogger on our community blog site. I explained the importance and value of guest blogging for writers on Medium and Substack in a previous article. If you are interested, please fill out the form linked to the end of the application form using the attached button.
Action 3: Please also consider subscribing to our YouTube channel, ILLUMINATION Substack Mastery, as we will publish educational videos and podcasts there. You are also welcome to post your own videos by sending your application here. You can promote your videos and podcasts in Aiden’s publication on Medium.
My editorial team and I do everything from our end to guide our writers. Sometimes, passing my messages is not easy because some writers don’t read my posts, don’t check out our submission guidelines, or don’t even look at the master onboarding pack. Then they complained about why their store was not published or delayed. Some writers don’t even check the private messages left by volunteer editors, delaying their drafts for a long time.
Please review these submission guidelines before sending your first drafts so that our editors can publish them timely. We now support 35,000+ writers, and your diligence can ease the tremendous workload of our volunteer editors. Here are the links:
ILLUMINATION, Curated Newsletters, SYNERGY (Newsletter Booster), Technology Hits, ILLUMINATION Book Chapters, Readers Hope, and Magnetic Newsletter Pro.
We will send our monthly updates from the ILLUMINATION Library for Freelance Writers soon. We have several exciting projects to help our writers in 2025.
Thank you for being part of our exciting journey. I wish you a very happy, healthy, and prosperous new year. ❤️💡🙏🎉
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