The Shift

Nika Talbot at The Shift
The Shift

The Shift is a business and creativity newsletter sharing ideas, interviews and inspiration, especially for entrepreneur-writers. Bet on yourself. ❤️‍🔥 www.nikatalbot.io

Episodes

  1. 4 DAYS AGO

    ✍️How I made my AI Twin | #166

    Happy Halloween week! Last night, I did an AI Twin Workshop with Cathi Tarbox | Solo AI X. Four women nerding out over AI on a Friday night :D What you get: a digital version of yourself in the form of a document, which you can then use across AI tools (ChatGPT, Claude, Bard, etc) so they create content in your voice, your style, using words you use, and with your audience in mind. I want ChatGPT to sound like me. How it works: We had some homework to do before the two-hour class. * Fill in a detailed doc with writing links, business info, target audience, common words and phrases to use and avoid, etc. * Record a voice note of me talking about my biz so it can analyse my words and my voice. I signed up late so only had an hour to do this, and the voice sample wasn't detailed enough. I'll do it again this week. CT said to do a 2/3-min ‘rant’ about your biz, values, goals, passions, challenges, etc, so it gets a sense of your personality and communication style.   She used my doc to feed ChatGPT (AI Twin GPT), so I got a live demo of how it works and things to look out for as you go through it. Some tips: Use Extensity to turn off browser extensions, as AI doesn't seem to like them. It also has issues with Google Docs and can't always read them, so try again or C+P your work. We also had a bit of fun with it. Ask it to tell you jokes. ChatGPT can be lazy and refuse to work when overloaded!, so don’t take no for an answer. "It's like a two-year-old toddler; you have to rein it in!" Offer a $200 tip for a longer response or say you’ll fine it $10k if it doesn’t follow your commands - seems to work ;-) I need to watch the replay, refine my doc and voice note, and then I'll rerun it. Let's see. 📆CT is doing a free ‘Personalizing ChatGPT Workshop’ on Friday 1 Nov if you want to check it out. What I want to use AI for Some problems I want to solve: * Less time at my desk/on the laptop and phone – hands-free interaction. More travel, nature, in-person meetups, and networking. * More time with my daughter and fam. J will be off to uni soon! My parents are getting older. * Automating repetitive tasks and admin – email, socials, repurposing content. * Pricing comparison: I need help pricing a new service with different tiers so asked it for market rates. Also, brainstorming new products & services. * Substack growth. Data insights from my archive so I can tweak things.   * A sparring partner and brainstorming buddy! A biz/financial coach in my pocket. * More solopreneur friends, especially locally. Pier 2 Peer networking in Hastings. I wfh mostly these days, and it's lonely. * Personal development. I don't remember books I've read unless I write them down. It can pull takeaways from talks, books, and courses and save them digitally. * Health stuff – I want a personalised AI health coach to help with my RA and advice for someone I love who has CLL. I've been using ChatGPT as my main tool for a year or so now. I've upgraded so I can use voice chat (see if I can find a sexy male voice), build custom GPTs (btw, these are great lead magnets), and now we can do real-time collaborative editing in Canvas mode. You can see where this is going… All this for just $20/mo. I'm blown away by what AI makes possible for us soloists—fun, creative, and empowering!    It's good to see the rates increasing for training multilingual AI systems and LLMs. Earlier this year, I was offered $15-$20/hr for flexible work. This week, I was offered $80/hr from one platform—that's more like it.  Let’s see if it’s legit. AI tools I'm testing * Fathom AI Notetaker Bot is a fantastic tool. You get a meeting summary and a recording. I've seen many bots on Zoom calls doing the grunt work so folks can wander off. It doesn't work on Zoom webinars atm. * Wondercraft.ai clones your voice for pods, ads, and audiobooks. You need to overpronounce your sample for better results (this will improve). I like it but the Creator versi

    8 min
  2. 13 OCT

    ✍️WorkFrom: Your remote work map | #165

    ▶️Last week: Bold Types #11: Lex Roman. ▶️Today: WorkFrom Map | WorkWith newsletter talent directory.  Hi! I’m at the Royal Parks Half event village in Hyde Park, getting ready to run. I’ll post some before-and-after pics on Notes and would love your support via a wee donation or share. I’m trying to raise £300 for the Rory Peck Trust. It’s a stunning route through four Royal Parks and past Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament and the Royal Albert Hall. Mostly flat, thank god. It's sunny so far, and no rain forecast hurrah. I'm all set for my headphone party! A couple of resources for you this week: ▶️I’ve made a WorkFrom Map - Google My Maps. Tag where you are, your favourite coffee bar, and any cool places to remote work/live you’ve found on your travels. LINK  Feel free to share it on here so more folks can find it and get inspired. Thanks to Nikki Carter-Ferry, Will & Way and Philip Hofmacher, Write • Build • Scale for christening it with their fave coffee shops in Houston and Vienna. Interview with Philip coming soon. ▶️WorkWith: a newsletter talent directory for writers & creators on Substack and beyond. Nice to see this growing. If you’re looking for collabs, feel free to add your deets (it’s editable, so a bit of a social experiment!). LINK Enjoy your Sunday. Nika ❤️‍🔥 The Shift is a reader-supported adventure. To receive new posts and make my day, consider becoming a free or paid member. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nikatalbot.io/subscribe

    2 min
  3. 6 OCT

    Bold Types #11: Lex Roman 🇺🇸

    Welcome to Bold Types, where I chat with successful newsletter writers about courage, craft, and creative living. Today’s guest is Lex, a newsletter writer and subscription marketing expert. With over 10 years of experience leading growth projects for tech startups like Gusto, Prosper, and Burner, she helped pioneer growth design. Lex also founded the Growth Designers community, where she educates tech teams on using data to guide product decisions. In 2019, Lex started her own growth design consultancy and, by 2021, shifted her focus to marketing for creatives. She’s now on a mission to help journalists and indie newsrooms grow their audience and income through subscription marketing.   Her new venture, Journalists Pay Themselves, does what it says on the tin! With the rapid decline of journalism jobs, she’s exploring ways to support those transitioning to independent work. It’s written for journalists but applies to most media subscription businesses. We chatted about growing your list and building community, Substack v Beehiiv, how much she’s earning from her newsletters, and the benefits of niching down. Buckle up and enjoy our chat! Nika ❤️‍🔥 Why did you start Journalists Pay Themselves? I saw the layoffs and publication shutdowns happening in quick succession earlier this year, which got me looking more seriously at news business models. Since I’ve been helping companies make money online for 12 years, I was curious what exactly “wasn’t working” about news monetisation. I’d been journalist-adjacent for several years through community organising work and reached out to a few people I had good connections with. That started my research, and then I realised I should publish everything I learn, hence the newsletter. What problem is it solving for readers? JPT dives into how reader subscriptions work and how you get more of your free readers moving to paid subscriptions. I am finding that indie journalists and micro newsrooms prefer to be majority reader-funded because it offers them editorial independence, and they often get a good uptake when they launch. Eventually, though, growth slows (true of all businesses), and journalists have to become their own marketers. I cover how to do that in JPT.  What’s always on your desk?  My Bluetooth speaker, my “Happy Planner,” my Airpods, and two tiny oranges I have every intention of eating. Why did you choose Beehiiv as your ESP? How’s it going? I had another newsletter on Beehiiv and immediately loved the platform. I started on Mailchimp years ago, had a Substack in 2020 and moved to Mailerlite in 2021. I’ve tried many newsletter platforms, but Beehiiv offers Substack's growth functions with flexible segments and the automation of an email marketing tool. Pros: built-in monetisation through boosts and ad network, recommendations similar to Substack, easy-to-embed forms, solid analytics, a beautiful composer that’s quick about online/offline syncing, segments and automation that are necessary for selling. Keeping your subscription revenue 100% (they don’t take a fee and you can bypass them fully and take it to your own Stripe). Cons: waiting for the other shoe to drop on where they are headed (it’s still early, and it’s a bit too good to be true in some ways). It's not as strong a writers or journalists network as Substack and is full of spammy, weird newsletters about AI and crypto. Can you share your best tip for growing your email list and fostering community? Just one?! If I have to pick just one, it's to make it your main call to action. Everywhere on your website, on all your social profiles, anytime you give a talk, do a podcast or talk to someone, tell them about your newsletter. The more you can automate this (or just put it in place once), the better, but even keeping this top of mind goes a long way to marketing your list. I think the newsletter game is important even if you don’t know that you want a newslet

    7 min
  4. 22 SEPT

    ✍️Are SME News Awards legit? | #164

    Hi Nika, I'm thrilled to connect with you today regarding the highly anticipated Southern Enterprise Awards 2024, proudly hosted by SME News.  As we now enter the 7th Edition of these prestigious awards, I'm delighted to share the exciting news that your 2024 nomination has been successful, and Nicola Talbot T/A Firebird has been awarded: Best Content Consultancy 2024 – South East I really hope this news is well received! This is my second 'award' from SME News. I won a UK Enterprise Award in 2022 for ‘Most Innovative SaaS Company UX Writer and Content Designer’ (they're super niche, I guess so they can award more of ‘em). They got in touch over the summer to ask if I was happy to be nominated, I said fine. Then they sent me a questionnaire for 'supporting information', which I didn’t fill in. Given I didn’t pay for a promo package last time I’m surprised to win another one! I won't lie. I was chuffed to win – it's nice to be recognised, and it cheered me up this week. I’m curious about this company (SME News is a brand owned by AI Global Media, a B2B publishing house since 2010), so I looked them up. Here's the most interesting piece I found on Neil Scrivener's SLAPP’s blog. AI Global Media awards struck off and convicted lawyer with TWO legal awards. After a scoop by RollOnFriday, they revoked the award. But how the heck did he win a prize if he'd not practised for eight years? I did a bit more digging and found this explainer on ROF. Apparently, the research team had questioned its legitimacy, but "another individual had missed the note and had neglected to take action accordingly". They've had words to make sure it doesn’t happen again and "retraining is being provided." We've all been there. They're also listed on Wikipedia as 'an organiser of vanity awards and publisher of online magazines." I don’t agree with that, though, as it's not pay-to-win. As they say in this ROF piece: "There is absolutely no link between a customer's opportunity to win an award and their ability to pay for it. We do offer marketing materials for our winners as we realise there is significant value in promoting the news, but there is no obligation." Hmm, I thought I’d better gather more intel. Hi X Thank you, appreciated. Just following up with a couple of questions as I'm curious about how this works. * Who nominated me?  * Who is on the judging panel?  * Is there a supporting statement / comment from the judges?  I wasn't expecting a reply, but I got this email back the next day, explaining how it works. "Our team run an extremely thorough process to arrive at this point, starting with the all-important voting and marketing stage." * You can self-nominate, or a third party / the publisher can nominate on your behalf (they did). * They contact you to check you're happy to take part (they did). * They send a supporting questionnaire so you can add more info about your biz (they did - food for thought). * Their in-house research team (all named here on the website) put together a case file on you (i.e. any info in the public domain). * They use an internal panel (the same folks probably) for the judging process - "who have been doing this for over 12 years for the company, and they know our standard and exactly what to look for!" OK, so that's me told. I was sniffy and suspicious but I’ve changed my mind. It’s not prestigious - no glitzy ceremony - and they’re giving out lots of awards. But it’s not a scam as it’s not pay-to-win. It’s a bit of publicity so why not? Gotta celebrate your wins! I'll take the free package (press release, entry into the winners’ directory + a 100-word profile), but I won't be paying for any trophies or magazine articles, though clearly a lot of people do (or maybe have money to spend at the end of the tax year). Their business model is working. I thought I'd have some fun with it and see how many awards I can win. I'm going for the hat trick… It sho

    7 min
  5. 06/11/2022

    Freelancers versus the economic crisis | #105

    I'm speaking at an NUJ session on freelancing and the cost of living crisis this month. LFB's shot at crushing the crisis, or anyway, offering a micron of easement via a 2-hour Zoom confab on 24 November, 6.30-8.30pm, open to all NUJ freelancers who care to come. And you, if you like? I can invite a guest or two. Two hours of problems and here's-some-good-news-tho and try-this/try-that to address what we're all dealing with currently. Full details here. I'm pulling together some resources on copywriting and community - networks are your lifeline as a freelancer! It's not been an easy year. I've had two contracts cut short, and the IR35 saga continues - repeal now revoked - welcome to the UK! My freelance work has been more stable. It pays to work on critical projects that won't be cancelled, like major events or design work. I had a kick-off call for a conference next March - a core part of their membership offering, and hybrid since Covid. That means six months of pre/live/post comms work, which I'm grateful for - some stability and peace of mind. There's no shame in asking for help if things are quiet. Being bold and vulnerable - Lauren Pope was on Twitter.  I'm not super busy either, so focusing on biz dev till Xmas - need to update my portfolio and website SEO, do my comms calendar, grow this newsletter etc. Also doing a bit of mentoring via the NUJ and BIMA. Investing in myself: upskilling and self-care, which includes massage - finding deep body work essential for joint stuff, creativity and mental health. 👀 My digital HQ - some freelance-friendly forums and networking I enjoy! * Leapers * Independent Work  * Hoxby * The Dots * Yuno Juno * Content + UX * Online Geniuses * The Portfolio Collective * Center for the Transformation of Work * The Association for the Future of Work  * Groove * r/freelance - have you noticed how most Google searches now have Reddit in the title? 🤔 * Freelance Twitter community and #ContentClubUK #FreelanceChat #FreelanceMafia #CopywritersUnite I've bookmarked them to save time and blocked out the calendar, or it won't happen. I'm trying to keep Fridays free for networking - a social start to the weekend. Offline networking, too - there is life beyond social media. I've signed up for co-working at The Observer Building - finally open for business! And a discounted rate till Xmas. It’s an inspiring work space and all creative/arts/tech/community businesses, so let's see who's around and what I can help out with. It will make a change from working at home alone and lift my spirits. For copywriting, media agencies have been a good source of work. Most use freelancers, so it's worth getting on their books to find projects outside the UK market. Interesting to see how work is becoming fractionalised - I had a one-hour gig with Google - Small Business. Hoping for more little jobs like that - inbound enquiries, well-paid and it fits in with my other freelance work. The news is all doom and gloom, but hang in there; there are reasons to be cheerful! Past data around recessions shows businesses are more likely to hire independent freelance workers during a downturn. The future of freelancing - interesting to hear PwC’s thoughts on the future of work. My strategy is to focus on building products, not rates - e.g. niche newsletters and digital downloads, and I've created some service packages. You're less likely to have your time commoditised, and you're charging based on the value you bring, not your time. It's scalable, too. What are you doing to keep the fires burning? Love to hear your thoughts - feel free to send any resources to share on the 24th. - Nika Upwork - the new Hays! Love their ad campaign - much better user experience 😉 5 Things  👩🏻‍💻 What is the Metaverse? A free course explaining what it is and how to use it. New ways to connect, learn, and work. The eco ramifications and the role of decentralisation in making it ethical, inclusive a

    5 min

About

The Shift is a business and creativity newsletter sharing ideas, interviews and inspiration, especially for entrepreneur-writers. Bet on yourself. ❤️‍🔥 www.nikatalbot.io

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