Peyton’s Interview With Zulie Rane

One of Medium’s most upcoming writers [virtually] sits down with me to talk about how I created my Brand Journalism business, how I charge $1,500 – $3,000 per article, and some of the mistakes I’ve made along the way.

I dish on some massive mistakes I’ve made as a brand journalist as well as some big wins. We get into what clients are really looking for with content and why I can charge so much for my articles. We lightly touch on Article SEO and ways to get more clients.

When I first started writing, no one was doing what I was doing. I took some courses, wrote privately [read: not publishing anything], and figured out the method I have today. I documented all of this–so I wouldn’t forget–and came up with a reliable protocol.

From there, I taught this entire system, which Brand Journalism is only one of many ways to make money, to other people. And this coaching turned into a full-fledged course called 6-Figure Freelance Writer.  After this interview, I privately coached Zulie for three sessions.

Under a pseudonym and a different Medium account–which I highly recommend for client work–Zulie launched 3 articles and 2 ranked in Google within 1.5 months. (The third article was limited by word count from her editor so it never ranked.) She wrote about her findings in a Better Marketing article called:

How to Use Brand Journalism to Make $1,500 With One Medium Post

Pardon the spoiler, but in the conclusion Zulie wrote:

In the end, I can safely conclude that if you love writing, aren’t afraid to jump out of your comfort zone, and are willing to do the work, you can use brand journalism to make $1,500 per post on Medium.

Seeing early success because she’s a fantastic writer and a quick study, I helped Zulie secure one of her first big clients. This was a client that I interviewed and then hard-pitched to take Zulie in. If she plays her cards right, that’s the only client she’ll need as they’re a portfolio company that has dozens of other clients who need content!

Don’t know Zulie? She’s a popular Medium.com writer. She writes on relationships, pet care, and other niches.  I introduced her to Sinem Gunel and now they’re in business together! Enjoy this video from this master interviewer!

So another take-away here is that like-minded writers should work together. Zulie is not a competitor and neither is Sinem. We all write differently, write for different niches, and do different kinds of writing. Everyone would have done just fine without any collaboration: but how fun it is to not do things alone?! And because people like Oprah and Joe Rogan validated the interview model to grow audiences, we all benefit from linking to each other. It’s partly how Zulie grew her channel that got the attention of many influencers. Have writer friends. They’re great!

[Click the image or here to start the video.]

Or, check out my comments/updates and the best 10m of this interview here.

[There’s a spot-on, well-written article about my method that Zulie published on Better Marketing. I coached Zulie for 3 sessions and she ranked 2 of 3 articles to page #1 of Google within a month! Here’s the article.]