I Gained 21,000 Followers With These 3 Dead Simple Steps

How I get 1000 a day to read my words

Derek Hughes

Jan 06, 2025

If you want a massive online audience. It’s not complicated.

I started January 2023. Age 51 with no experience.

And I’ve had a wild ride.

The route to success is simple but not easy. I’ve got no fake promises of instant success. But I can give you my 3 steps. These are proven to work.

Follow these for a long time and I promise you’ll end up somewhere good.

1. Become a compelling writer

It takes time to get good.

But unless you giftwrap your ideas in an entertaining way. You may as well go home. It’s tough keeping a reader’s attention. So commit to learning how.

Here’s how to get good. Work on one micro skill each month. Don’t try to do everything at once. Learn from the best. Get feedback from someone you respect. And in 6 months you’ll be an incredible writer.

Here are the first 6 micro-skills you need to learn:

Month 1: Keep it concise

Learn to write short, sharp sentences. Delete the fluff from your writing. This will make you dynamic and engaging to read.

Month 2: Strong words

Changing one word in a sentence can dramatically increase its impact.

Don’t keep using the same words. This produces boring content. Swap weak words for powerful words to upgrade your writing.

Month 3: Beautiful formatting

Make your writing visually appealing. Lots of white space. Vary your paragraph size. Break up heavy text with bullet points.

Easy to read gets read.

Month 4: Use outlines

Strong outlines create compelling writing. Learn to use a variety of outlines.

Month 5: Sexy intros

35% of readers leave in your 1st paragraph. Craft a strong intro to keep them hooked. Tell a quick story. Ramp up the problem you’ll solve. Showcase your credibility.

Access all my frameworks here.

Month 6: Storytelling

Stories bring your writing to life.

But writers make their stories boring. Learn to source good stories and master telling them. This will set you apart from other writers.

Once you have compelling content and can write in a captivating way. You’re only one step away from your dream.

2. Become a useful writer

Your content needs to be worth reading.

Too many writers parrot what everyone else is saying. And wonder why no-one listens. Great writers are great thinkers. Hone your thinking skills so you have something to say.

Here’s my 3 favourite ways to do this:

Go beyond the obvious

Have you noticed the same truths get recycled?

Boring platitudes are useless from overuse. You can stand out by going further than everyone else. Take a common truth and do something with it:

tackle why people don’t practice it
give a specific technique on how to do it
deliver strong evidence that this truth matters

For example:

Creators are always told to tell more stories if they want to be great communicators.

So there’s no point in writing ‘tell more stories.’ No one needs that. Instead, find a way to go deeper:

identify why creators don’t tell stories
reveal research proving the power of stories
explain how to come up with new stories every week

Do this and you’ll become a thought leader in your field.

Say what isn’t being said

Most writers draw from the same small pool of content.

But there’s so much else that could be said. What aspects of your topic are people ignoring? Look at the common themes in your niche. Identify what’s overlooked.

Spot what people are missing.

Offer real solutions for real problems

Readers crave this like a parent yearning for 5 minutes peace.

Consider your reader’s struggles. And offer something to help. Don’t talk theory. Share what works. It’s easy to discuss problems. But it’s harder to solve them.

A powerful tactic is to offer something that’s worked for you. Write fewer ‘how-tos’ and more ‘how-I’. This provides powerful evidence. Boosts your authority. And gives you stories to share.

This is my whole writing strategy:

learn something
try it out
share what happened

Readers find this irresistible.

3. Become a visible writer

How do you get your writing in front of people?

I’ve seen writers make two mistakes with this:

some think build it and they will come (you probably already know this doesn’t work)
others start with this step and ignore the 1st two. Hoping for a quick trick to go viral

Initially, put all your energy into steps 1 & 2 and forget about who reads it. Find something to say. Learn to say it well. Remember this is a long game.

Once you’ve mastered them. It’s time to get eyes on your work. Here’s a few tips that have worked for me:

Write where people are

Don’t start a blog.

You are making it impossibly hard for yourself. Write where people are. The options are endless. Medium, Quora, X, LinkedIn. Pick one platform and learn how it works. For Medium that means publications and tags.

Promote on social

Choose one social platform to promote yourself on.

Post snippets of your writing, celebrate your successes. Post links. Writing short form will improve your writing and gain you new readers.

Titles and images

Your headline and image are key in persuading people to look at your stuff

Don’t waste brilliant writing with a boring title. Aim to articulate a problem and promise the reader something. Look at your metrics to check what works.

Get known with comments

The easiest place to find your ideal reader is in the comments of similar writers.

Say something interesting or valuable will gain people’s attention. I allocated 20 minutes/day to doing this. Don’t self-promote. Be helpful.

These 3 steps are all you need to do. Do them consistently. For a long time. Put them where you can see them. To remind you of your direction. Resist shortcuts (there aren’t any).

Keep moving forward and good things will happen.