Dear Everyone, 👋 I am excited to share that I have launched a new publication on Substack: THE COOKBOOK WRITERS GUIDE Whether you - ✍️ An aspiring author crafting a narrative memoir, - 👨‍🍳 A professional chef looking to translate restaurant mastery into a published book, or - 👵 A beginner eager to preserve cherished family recipes for future generations, ...this guide offers practical frameworks 📐 and creative inspiration 💡. In addition, my weekly posts 📬 will update you on the latest trends 📈, who's writing what and why 📝, and I'll even share stories about my personal culinary journeys ✈️🥘. It is completely free to join 🆓, and I would love to welcome you over there so I can continue sharing craft essays 📄, toolkits 🧰, and practical insights 🌟. 👉 Click here to join The Cookbook Writer's Guide on Substack https://thecookbookwritersguide.substack.com/about 🔗 Thank you all for being such a wonderful part of this chapter 📖💖. I hope to see you over on Substack Warmly, Gwynne 👩‍🌾

Don't be a thought leader. I think everyone who tried to be active there was annoyed by this rule at least once. But with time, I got to appreciate it. Why? Because trying to act like a thought leader/expert was not doing me any favors. The problem with making "definitive guides", "tip compilations", "special secrets" and that kind of stuff is that by doing that I was positioning myself as an expert who has everythinng figured out on my niche. And by taking that position I'm competing with the top players, who unlike me, have much bigger numbers and overwelming social proof to backup their claims. So how do you not do that? You stop being afraid of not being seen as the expert. You position yourself as someone who is figuring stuff out and invite others to figure it out with you. How does that look? Instead of "How to do X", "The defininitive guide to Y", you make "I tried do do X, here is what happened", "My analysis of...", "My reaction to..." "Here is a story about how I...". Being experimental and honest about your journey, while admiting that you're trying to get better and learn something everyday will make you a much more relatable and interesting content creator and community owner. And that's what I try to do on both my communities. Click on my profile if you want to check them out.

Sorry not sorry for the title. I'm closing my Skool Monetization Lab community, and the reason is simple. I give away good content for free, and free members don't act on it the way my paying members do. I'm in my 50s, and I don't have time to waste like the younger "whippersnappers" (I have never written that word before 🤣). For me, time is currency, so I looked at this as return on time. In my paid communities, people have put money in, so they turn up and do the work. In SML, free content gets treated like a free sample. People take it and don't act on it 😏 That gives me a simple rule on pricing: 𝗜𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗯𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗰: a low-priced subscription is the better model, because paying filters for people who will act. 𝗜𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗻'𝘁: stay free. A price on an empty room only leaves you with an empty room. My own traffic comes from YouTube, and that's what keeps my paid communities full. Two more reasons. There are now a lot of free communities teaching the same thing, so it's hard to look different from the one next door. And the same hours in my other communities earn more. I use one test. If I'm not hearing at least one "KACHING" a week, the time and resources are being wasted. SML started as a test, and it worked at the beginning. Then Skool changed the rules. I'm not going to sit and cry about it. I've never been afraid to kill what isn't working, so I'm closing the doors. 𝗜'𝗺 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗮𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗹𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆. 𝗔 𝘀𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗽𝗶𝘃𝗼𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗯𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝘀𝘄𝗲𝗿. Here's how to check yours this week: Add up the hours you spent on it last month, including posting, replying and prep. Then count the sales, bookings or paid sign-ups that came from it. Divide the hours by the sales and you have your number. If you can't point to at least one sale a week, ask yourself two questions. Do I bring my own traffic? Would the people in here pay for what I give them? If the answer to the first is no, the pivot may be as small as changing who you're bringing in.

I'm now also on Substack. Join me, award-winning food journalist, writer and publisher Gwynne Conlyn to transform your recipes, memories, and culinary ideas into a beautifully published book. What I offer: - Bi-weekly craft essays: Sensory writing techniques, developing voice, and finding your book’s unique angle. - Downloadable toolkits: recipe style guides, chapter outline templates, concept blueprints. - Personal reviews of headnotes, chapter introductions, recipe drafts or book proposal drafts, with written feedback. - Personal feedback on developing your unique writing voice - It's easy - just click on the link: thecookbookwritersguide.substack.com/subscribe

When I say becoming magnetic, I don’t mean sitting around hoping good things find you. I mean becoming more aligned with what you say you want. More clear. More congruent. More self-trusting. More willing to move. More open to receiving. More belief & conviction. I want you to pick ONE thing you want to attract this month. Then, all month long, inside the community, I'll help you take steps toward bringing it into reality. If you're ready to learn the science of becoming more magnetic, join me this month in Activate Your Impact!