What if you could trasform into a writer who gets paid well for everything you write?
Anyone can write (or blog) about something, but very few now how to make a living from it.
Sadly, this is where most bloggers are at, and where most will stay.
It doesn’t have to be like this for you, though.
If you had someone who’s built an empire from writing online to guide you, you’d be getting paid from everything you write in a couple quick months.
I know because this is what happened for me.
That’s why I want to share this interview with my guide, James Chartrand of Men With Pens.
This was a lot of fun, and James shared a lot of great info that I didn’t expect…
…Like despite the huge success of Men with Pens, she wasn’t truly fulfilled. Something had been missing until recently.
James shares exactly what that missing thing was, how she fixed it, and how it will affect you and your writing right now.
Enjoy… (scroll down if you prefer to read the transcript)
More Writing Tips From James That Will Get You Paid…
I had a lot of fun chatting with James and I’m honored to be able to share it with you.
We talked a bit in the end about her ground breaking writing course for business people, Damn Fine Words. This was a no-brainer for me, and I pre-registered the first time she opened the doors last year.
It completely changed my business.
If your business relies on your writing to produce sales, this is a no-brainer for you, too.
Destination Thrive is an affiliate for Damn Fine Words, and we’ll be doing our usual win/win/win routine by giving you half our commission when you register through our affiliate link.
That’s $150 back to you for doing what you were going to do in the first place.
Because James is awesome and loves our win/win/win philosophy, she’s adding another $50 to the $150 we’re giving you.
That’s $200 to make the smart choice for your business! That ain’t bad 
>Check out these comments from some of our previous rebate receivers<
Here’s how your $200 rebate works:
Register through the button below. Forward your Damn Fine Words welcome email to andy[at]destinationthrive[dot]com. Include the email address associated with the PayPal account you want your rebate sent to, and you’re all set.
We’ll let you know we received your info and add you to the rebate list. We’ll send out your rebate as soon as we receive the commissions from the Damn Fine Words crew. Last time it was within 48 hours!!
VERY IMPORTANT: Please direct ALL questions to us at andy[at]destinationthrive[dot]com and ALL REBATES will be issued by Destination Thrive. James has given us her full blessing, but she is incredibly busy making sure all the new DFW members are settling in. I’ve promised her that we would handle everything related to this great offer.
As soon as we receive the commission payments from Damn Fine Words HQ, we’ll send your $200 rebate via PayPal to the PayPal account you specified.
Easy, right?
The Interview Transcript
James: Hi, I’m James Chartrand and I’m from Men with Pens and now from Damn Fine Words. I’m sitting here today talking with Andy Fogarty who used to be something of a blacksmith but has now taken over and created a small online empire. He’s been so kind as to invite me to talk to you today. Take it away, Andy.
Andy: Wow. That was a great intro. Thanks for…
James: That’s my first intro, did you like that?
Andy: I love it. That was awesome. That was awesome. So I want to thank you first of all for being with us here today.
James: It’s my pleasure.
Andy: And being willing to do answer some of the questions I’m…
James: Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Andy: Yes, ma’am. Yes, ma’am. We’ll just kind of dive right into this. I know that you started of as a freelance writer doing stuff online. But I’m really kind of curious what you did before that. I’m always curious to what people did before they made their start online?
James: Well how far back to you want to go.
Andy: You don’t have to give me the at three years old I did this. What made you; I guess what drove you to speaking, you know, maybe a business online and that kind of thing. I mean did you have kind of dead-end jobs or did you have a writing career beforehand. I’m just curious.
James: All right. What drove me to do all this? Poverty quite frankly and the need to take care of my kids. But that’s a story I’ll get to in a second. I’ll back up a little bit. In my earlier years when I was youthful and beautiful, I worked several years at an international company and I was in customer service for about eight years. I also worked in purchasing for three and traffic and distribution for about five.
So I have a good background of all kinds of ways to work in business and I have a good background in communications as well. And they eventually moved the company a little bit too far for my comfort and I decided to take some time off. I got bored with that and went back into horses which is something I’ve always been involved in since I was very small.
I ran a stable so I had to do some management work there. I had to deal with the people who boarded their horses so that involved some customer service as well. And I eventually changed stable and became a trail guide. Which means taken about 12 people out on the wood on horses. Most of them have never ridden before; most of them have huge fears to overcome.
And my job was to make sure that they had a good time and came back in one piece. And I’m please to report that no one ever got hurt on my watch and most people who have huge fears about horses came back saying that was awesome, when can we do it again. So these are all job experiences I have had that I’ve been able to apply and turn my business into what it is today.
There’s not one bit of my past that I haven’t used at some point in my career either for my own purposes with the business or for helping others. But the problem with working with horses when you live in rural Canada where we have really cold winters is that nobody wants to ride in the snow.
And I had dropped my work hours. I had to two kids to feed. I was on my own, had two kids to feed and money was running out, and there aren’t many job prospects out here in the winter. So basically I had used up all of my resources and didn’t know what to do.
And a friend of mine said well you’re a good writer. Why don’t you go look online? There’s got to somebody who would maybe hire you for some writing work. And I did. And low and behold, there was writing work to be had. Being a total greenhorn to this, I had no clue what writing would pay and what was involved.
I didn’t know anything about it so I started from the very bottom. And I would write for $2 an article which, you know, five or six of those you get $8 worth of money and you’re thrilled that you can buy some bread and milk for that week. But you know you learned the ropes. You go up from there and here I am today.
Andy: You know what I really like about that is I could, when you tell me from the start I could definitely see all the little parts that fit into what you’ve created today as far as Men with Pens goes. I would say men. I was going to ask that. I always Man with Pens.
James: People say a lot of things about that business name but boy it’s a good one.
Andy: It is a very good one. But I could see from back then cause you had all the business stuff from working in customer service and that aspect. But then I can also see cause my wife works with horses too and I mean I don’t have anything to do with horses. I fully support her dream and what she does but I’m not riding horses.
James: It’s a love it or hate it thing.
Andy: It is. It is. But I can see how, I’m sure the storytelling aspect and being able to choose your words wisely really played into comforting those people in dealing with their fears and going on long horse rides when they never do it before in their life.
James: Absolutely. I taught as well for a while, taught people to ride. And you have to learn a lot about what to say, when to say it, how to say it. And that’s been invaluable in my business both for the blogging site about what to say to people and for helping clients that come to us. You know how to reassure them or how to get them believing in their goals again. So yeah it’s been quite the experience that I appreciate.
And a lot of people say James you really shouldn’t say this is how you started and you started with nothing. But frankly I’m quite proud that I was able to start with absolutely nothing and built things up because I think that gives people a good vision of what they can do if they have the determination and the will to do it. You really can start with nothing and go places with it.
Andy: Absolutely. It’s not a far-fetched dream. It’s not a one in a million. I think we need to hear more stories about that honestly. You mentioned that a friend had said that you are a good writer. I’m curious when you first got into writing. Is it something that you kind of always did or was there like a moment that said you know what I really like writing, I’m going to write a lot.
James: I’m going to be really really cliché here and very stereotypical and say I’ve been writing since I was a child. But we grew up in a family where reading was very supported. So we always have books from day one. We would read cereal boxes at the kitchen table. It was okay to bring a newspaper to supper and read that as we ate.
So words always were around us. And I was very good at writing little stories and stuff and you know my family and friends would say they love that. When I went to college, I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do so it seemed natural for me to go into something that I was already good at which was English for a little bit. And I did some writing there.
So you pick up stuff along the way and you learn that this is something you enjoy and there’s many different ways where you can use words and language and writing. In my corporate career, I had to write as well in different styles. You had to write letters to client. You had to write memos back and forth. You have to give reports.
So you learned a whole bunch about writing and I think that’s probably another thing you either love it or hate it. I just absolutely language and I’m very thankful that I can have that career today.
Andy: What kind of books where you interested in? Does that kind of change throughout the years?
James: I like fantasy and science fiction more on the fantasy side. I really really enjoy the descriptive way that people can drop you into another world and just free your imagination. And I actually used a lot of that in my career because blogging, writing to other people, you have to be very descriptive.
You have to be able to bring them into your world and help them see what you see. So I found that experience of fiction writing to be really invaluable. And I read fiction constantly all the time. It’s my way to take a break from the hard stuff. You know reading business book is fine and I do that as well and I enjoy it.
But you can only read so much at once before you lose touch with that you’re learning. In fiction, you don’t have to learn. I like the books that you’re not learning everything. You’re trying to solve anything. You’re not thinking about your own problem. You’re just lost in someone else’s world and that’s just fantastic for me.
Andy: Do you have a favorite author?
James: Right now, Patrick Rothfuss. He wrote The Name of the Wind and the Wise Man’s Fear and I swear I have not seen a better author yet.
Andy: If you’re going to recommend one book for anyone to read, what would that be?
James: Oh god, don’t ask me that. There’s so many.
Andy: I know you read a lot. I was wondering if you could pick one out.
James: Yeah. I would have to say The Name of the Wind. It would be something that I recommend to people who enjoy language and who want to learn how to write, how to read words that are not complicated, a story that is not complicated and yet is so rich and developed. I think that’s a really good example for what I consider perfect writing.
And then of course on the business side Robert Cialdini. He wrote a book called Influence which is basically my bible. I love that book so much because it teaches you a lot about psychology and sales and marketing at the same time. And you can use all that in writing as well. And you can really influence people through your words alone so that’s invaluable to me as well.
Andy: You mentioned before you started looking online for some freelance stuff just to pay the bills. What was that aha moment that made you think you know what I think I can do this for a living not just to make some bread money but I can do this.
James: I think it was at the point where I realized it was about six months into my meager career where I realized if I up my rates just a little bit I can hire somebody else to work with me. And I can create more work. I can create more income from that and I can give someone else a job and an opportunity and I can better myself at the same time. And I took that idea and just took off with it.
And at one point I had 30 writers working for me. I’m ashamed to say in a content mill style that’s something I’m not very proud of. But the experience of building up a business and becoming a stable of writers like that learning, how to pitch to clients, bringing it back, learning how to deal with the writers and meeting their needs as well as my own was pretty fantastic opportunity.
And then from there, you get to a point where it’s big and you decide well this is not really what I want to do. I want to do something more meaningful. And at that point I was able to downsize and pick and choose a little bit better.
Andy: Do you still work with any of those writers today?
James: I work with one of them. He’s been with me since the start. He was the first writer I hire and I still work with him today. He’s great. His name is Jordan Richardson and I think he’s fantastic.
Andy: What were the types of project that you worked on? Was it more business related stuff or storytelling or was it just anything? Since you had that many writers you could probably focus on just about anything that came in.
James: We would do articles for SEO traffic and articles for people who would slap that up all over the internet. And it was from anything from how to make peanut butter to how to cure a yeast infection. It was just everything and anything.
Because there’s so much of that kind of information out there, you learn to research very well and you learn how to write stuff so that’s a better and more effective and just reads better overall. Like I said I’m not particularly proud of those moments. But it was good experience that taught me a lot about business in general and how the online world work.
Andy: So was it difficult to learn how to write for the web or is all writing the same? Cause I know you said you did a lot of SEO type stuff. Obviously, there’s a lot to learn there.
James: Yeah. There are vast vast types of writing, very different styles of writing, very different goals, very different purposes. It’s not the same to write an article on how to make peanut butter as it is to write one page of home copy for company who is selling software very very different styles of writing. I can’t really say how I learned to do that. For sure I read a lot.
I would look at what other people did. I would see what worked, what didn’t, a lot of comparison, a lot of trial and error, practicing, reading about psychology and how to speak to people in a way that gets them to take action. All that stuff just came into play and I think I picked up a lot of skills along the way.
Andy: Do you think that someone who is, say I was just a normal guy. I did writing on my own. I didn’t do anything online. And all of a sudden I just decided okay you know what I’m going to do what Men with Pens does. I’m going to do copywriting. Do you think I can do that effectively from the start or do you think…
James: I Don’t.
Andy: No?
James: No. I think everyone is going to have learning curve. I think there are skills that you need to pick up. There are habits you need to break. If you often wrote in college, you would write academic essays. Well these aren’t going to work online. You can’t be Men with Pens if you’re an academic writer.
You have to unlearn all those habits of that style of writing and start to learn to write in a new way, a different way. If you’re going to be a blogger, again the same thing, you have to unlearn what you know and learn new things or rather pick up new skills and bring them in. But it’s not magic. It’s not rocket science.
It doesn’t depend on some inbreed talent. Writing is a learned behavior. All these styles and different ways of applying writing they’re all learned skills. Anyone can do this as long as you know what those skills that you need to pick up are and you put in the practice to learn them.
Andy: How easy do you think, I mean for someone who just wanted to start writing today. They just woke up this morning and say you know what I want to write cause I like writing or I like reading so I’m going to be writing. How hard do you think it would for someone to jump in there and find the right things to learn?
Cause obviously they’re going to go online first cause that’s where everyone goes to learn anything now and how much is good stuff is out there versus how much bad stuff is out there.
James: There is a lot of bad stuff out there let me tell you because that’s exactly what I did. I jumped online. I’m going to write for a living. I’m going to figure out how this work. Let’s go. And I realized really quickly, I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know how to write this type of copy. Like I said a read a lot of blogs. Half of them are wrong. Half of them don’t give you the information you need to know.
There’s a few good resources just like Copyblogger but they don’t go in depth or advance in certain areas. Or there’s just so much blog to read that you can’t really get the information that you need. So you might lean towards a book. There are plenty of books out there how to write copy that sells.
Well it’s not well written book so you don’t pick up what you need to know from there, or it’s not the type of writing that you’re trying to do so you’re reading a book that essentially isn’t what you want to do and it isn’t going to help you. A lot of stuff is overpriced. A lot of stuff is skimpy.
I burned a lot of money on e-books that were just absolute crap. And you know that’s my fault so you don’t ask for a refund for those things. So people if you buy any book that’s crap, please ask for a refund from whoever wrote it. This is your right. You should be able to do this. And at one point I said I want to take but there are not courses on writing for the web.
There’re courses on creative fiction, tons of them, but that’s not writing for the web, that’s not writing for business. There are courses in journalism but that’s not writing for the web that’s not writing for business either.
So that is one of the reasons why I decided to create my own course which is called Damn Fine Words and I release recently and it is about learning how to write for the web.
Andy: That was going to be one of my questions. I know you release that and I was wondering is it a business course for writers or is it a writer course for business owners.
James: It ended up being a cross of both. Originally, a lot of people would ask me James, teach me what you know. James, show me how to write. And for me it was like well how do you teach someone how to breathe. You just do it. But I spoke with Peter Shallard who is very very skilled in psychology at great length about this ad he said it’s learned behavior.
It’s a learned skill. You can figure out a process. You can figure out what you have done to acquire the skill. So I sat down and I said okay I’m going to teach people how to write. First, I eliminated the people who don’t have the proper grammar, punctuation. There’s plenty of college English courses for that. So go take those they’re awesome.
But you know the stuff that comes after once you know how to do the grammar and the punctuation, the writing in an effective way I realized it is something you can put down on paper. But writing in an effective way means that you’re working towards a certain goal. So what comes along is that in business you have certain goals.
You are writing a blog post to get a comment. You are writing a page of web copy to get a sale. Everything is related to what you are trying to do. So as I was teaching and writing these lessons on how to write, it was very very easy to say well this is how it applies to your business and this is what you can change in your business to make this work better.
So half of each lesson teaches you how to have a better business through writing and half of each lesson is about how to be a better writer for your business. It just ended up being a natural blend of the two which I think is pretty cool. I’m pretty proud of how that turned out actually. It was a happy accident.
Andy: I’m very excited about that. I mean there are a million different business courses, online business courses. And you know for the most part everything is the same but it’s like is main component is and create really really good content and relate to your readers. But there’s no how do you do that.
James: Yeah. There is nobody out there saying how. It’s all about well write catchy headlines. Well how? Write a good page of web copy. Well how? How do you write that? Yeah. I’m really proud that I was able to narrow down exactly how to do that and be able to teach people what everybody is telling them to do but they don’t have the resources for. Now there is resource so that’s pretty cool.
Andy: One of my biggest thoughts when I hear that you are releasing this was why now? I mean I know everyone is excited and everyone I know has probably been saying for years you need to create a course to teach people how to write but why now. Cause Men with Pens I mean you don’t need it as far as business goes.
Because everybody already knows that you’re the best. They go to you for everything. So you know why now? What drove you to it? Is it just because so many people were saying you need to do this and it’s a smart business move or you just, what was the driving factor behind it?
James: Actually that’s a question that I didn’t expect people to be asking and a lot of people have asked it. So that’s kind of fun. You guys all took me by surprise with that one. And as you say people have been asking me to do things for long time. I have a lot of people who want me to write a book about my experience.
I have a lot of people who want me to write a fiction book just for fun. And I have a lot of people who’ve asked me teach me how to write. In the first years I was just too busy. I wasn’t thinking about it. I wanted to build my business. In the middle years, my business was rocking so all my focus went to how can I make this business better.
The blog was taking off. I was getting good recognition from that. It was awesome. So I just I didn’t have the mind space or the inclination to start writing this course. In the past year to two years, I’d say you hit that cycle online where every three years something needs to change. And I hit that point as did a lot of my peers.
Copyblogger, Naomi Dunford, Sonia Simone, Chris Brogan, we all went through changes in our business at about three to four year period. And I hit that myself. And it was like well okay. I have the recognition. I have the rocking business. I have the money but I’m still somehow not happy. Something is missing. And part of what I really love about my business aside from the fame and the fortune.
What I really love is having someone come to me and say, my god, you’ve changed my life. Look at what I can do now. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And that is a really validating feeling. It’s a really awesome feeling to know that I made a difference. And it sounds really cheesy but I think you reach a point when all your other needs in life are fulfilled now you’re looking to make some impact.
You’re looking to change people’s lives in a way that benefits them and leaves you feeling like you mattered. What you do matters. And that’s why I think this course came along especially in the past six months. I got really really excited about it, really really excited about writing because I was going to make a difference.
I didn’t care if I had one person sign up or 1,000 people sign up. One person at the very least would be able to say this made a difference and I’m really stoked about that. I’m really please. The money is nice. It’s great. It pays for all the hard labor that went into that. And trust me there was a lot but that’s not why I do this.
And this course would launch even if there was zero people wanting to sign up because one day that one person would come along and I would change their life and that would leave me feeling like I’ve left the mark on the world, great. I’ve done my job. We’ll just hang on for another second while this caller calls me again. Clearly, I’m in popular demand today.
Andy: You are. Yeah, I know exactly what you’re saying about that. I do. Money is nice but it’s not the happiness. It buys the comfort but it doesn’t buy the fulfillment.
James: You know I also learned that when I have left the corporate job because it was a nice cushy job. I had a big big salary for the region. I had six weeks of paid vacation. I had recognition. It was awesome. And then when I left that job and came home, I went to shovel [buck stalls] at a farm. You go from having everything to having nothing and then you realize gees I’m really happy doing this.
I’m really happy sitting here, doing something that makes me feel good. The money was great. I don’t have that now but boy do I feel happy coming to work. I feel fulfilled. And I think this course is giving me that same kind of feeling. I’m really happy coming to work. I’m really happy to be doing this.
Andy: I’m really excited now because you know I’ve signed up for the course. I’m super excited for the course. Now I’m imagining, you know, I’ve always enjoyed writing but it’s always been something very difficult for me. It was just something I did for me in the past. And of course, now it’s a very strong part of my business. But it’s still very very hard for me.
So I was really excited to get in this because I’m thinking okay wow I know that she’s put a tremendous amount of work in this. This is her. I’m learning from her and this is going to be great. But I was imagining sort of making a living from my words which I’ve never really thought of that. How has writing and storytelling, how does that fuel your lifestyle. I mean that’s pretty much built your lifestyle, right?
James: It’s pretty much built my lifestyle. It’s brought me to where I am today and yeah I really enjoy it. But you know it could be writing or somebody else thing could be dog collars. And I mean if their business is dog collar helps them reach the same lifestyle more power to them. Writing is just a tool the helps you get there.
I’m just lucky that the tools that I used to get where I am is also the tool that I enjoy using everyday for the sheer pleasure of it. And you were mentioning that writing comes hard to you. Part of what I wanted to touch on in the course and I think I’ve done very effectively is taking away that hardness and making it easy again for people to write, to feel confidence, to you know stop struggling for five hours to write something that should take an hour or two hours at most.
Or just being able to scribble an email in 30 seconds that they feel good about without stressing over anything. That was a big part of the course. And actually I’m trying to twist Peter Shallard’s arm to make some contribution to the course and add some lessons specifically about the psychology of writing and how to be a more effective confident writer.
Andy: Wow. That would thrilling.
James: Wouldn’t that be cool. Yeah.
Andy: It really would.
James: I’ll have to twist his arm very hard.
Andy: So I know Damn Fine Words is open for pre-registration right now until September 1st, is that right?
James: September 1st I’m going to put the price up. Right now it cost $1,399 to pre-register. On September 1st that price goes up to $1,599 and class is going to start on September 12. I gave people a really nice long lead time. I want everybody to think about what they’re doing and make a conscious decision that this is right for them.
I don’t want anyone to feel pressured into buying this because it’s a fad or a fashion or everybody is talking about it. I want it to be a very conscious choice to improve your business and your writing. So there’s plenty of time to get in. And there’s a discount that helps out. I have a payment, two months payment plan to make it even easier. So I’ve done the best I can to make this accessible for people to get into.
Andy: I think this is a no-brainer for anyone business.
James: I think it’s a no-brainer but I’m bias, so. You know I’ve had people run through the course before it was launched to test it out to make sure that the information I’ve provided is solid, and that they enjoyed it and that they’ve learned something from it. And everybody who’s done the course and who’s gone through the lessons has come back and said this is amazing.
And I can’t ask for a better reward than that. You know putting out something that I know is quality when there’s not a lot of that going around these days. Putting out something that actually teaches you, again there’s not a lot of that going around these days. Putting out something that took this long to develop is something else I’m really proud of because so many people slap things together.
Wow, I’m online. I’m new. I know something. Let’s make a product. Well I took the time to make sure I know my stuff before making that product. So I think it’s going to be really good. I think it’s going to be really beneficial. But of course it all depends on how much people put into it themselves and how much they believed that they can change their business, change their results, be better writers.
A lot of it depends on everybody who’s going to come into this course. And I’m really excited by the people who has signed up because I know that they’re all people who strongly believe that yes they can do this.
Andy: Wonderful. I think that anyone in business period, anyone who’s, like you said, sat down try to write an email and try to write it in 5 minutes or a minute.
James: Yeah.
Andy: I can’t even write a small paragraph email in under 10 minutes. It just doesn’t happen and oppose to a 500 words might take me 4 hours. Yeah. I know. But I know it’s all just learned stuff. There’s just so much stuff that if I just have the right place to go to to learn and from the right person. You know I’m not going to have to worry about that anymore.
So I’m really excited about this. James, thank you so much for taking the time and telling us stuff that we don’t know I might get to hear cause I know you’re a pretty private person. So I appreciate that.
James: It’s my pleasure and I’m really glad like I said that it was you who was asking me to do this call because I respect you a lot and I think you’re doing good stuff. And I think you have a good crowd who might be actually be interested in what I have to say so that’s always great for me. Yeah, thanks again.
Andy: Well thank you. Thank you. Well everybody this has been Andy Fogarty and James Chartand and that is all we’ve got.
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