Writing for Your Wealth

You’ve heard of evergreen trees before, but what the heck is “evergreen content”? And why should your writing have anything to do with it?

What is evergreen content?

We’re talking about the articles, blog posts, books, newsletters, etc. that–much like the trees–never go “out of season.” They cover topics that are as true today as when you wrote them years ago. And they’ll still be true in five or ten years.

If you’re a writer, I’ll assume you’re a reader, too, so chances are you can look at your bookshelf and find some examples.

Here are a couple of examples from my own shelf:

David Schwartz’s The Magic of Thinking Big (first published in 1985)

Strunk & White’s Elements of Style (1959)

George Clason’s The Richest Man in Babylon (1929)

As you can see, all these books are still available at Amazon. Why? Because they’re as true today as they were the day they were written.

You don’t necessarily need to write blog posts or books that will be true a hundred years from now, but there’s a lot to be said for writing content that will continue to be valuable to readers for years to come. Let’s take a closer look at a couple of the reasons to make evergreen content a part of your portfolio:

1. Evergreen content never or rarely needs to be updated

If you write on the latest and greatest in trends and gadgets, your blog posts might bring in great traffic today, but what about five years from now?

Who out there today is Googling whatever mp3 gadget came before the iPod? (If you’re like me, you probably don’t even remember what came before the Ipod.)

If you write books on technology, or the latest trends and fashions, chances are you’ll have to revise the book several times in the years to come. The material may become obsolete altogether, leaving you with a book that will be of no use to anyone after its initial print run.

Evergreen content, on the other hand, rarely (sometimes never) needs an update. And if it does need an update, it’s probably not a big one.

As an example, one of my early sites was on installing swimming pools. While technology does advance in this field, it’s nothing like the tech industry. The articles I wrote three or four years ago on choosing materials and installing a backyard swimming pool are still true today. Chances are they’ll still be true years from now.

What this means for me is that even though I’ve moved on to other sites and haven’t updated that one in more than a year, it still makes money for me every day.

And that takes us to the other big reason to write evergreen content:

2. Evergreen content never stops earning you money!

As long as you’re willing to keep putting time into promoting your content, it can keep earning you money for years and even decades to come.

Why spend your time building up a site or writing a book that has a limited shelf life? If you want to build wealth with your writing, evergreen content is a must.

If you self-publish (which you probably want to do if you intend to turn your book or books into a full-time income), you can keep your titles in print indefinitely, but if the content is no longer applicable for the modern reader, then there’s no point. However, if you wrote several books over the course of your life, and invested time in building a brand and becoming a recognized authority, then those books could become a part (or even all!) of your retirement plan.

Let the stock market go up and down and newspapers spin stories of economic woe–you’ve built assets that will continue to make you money as long as you promote them. And become well-known enough, and the world will promote them for you through word-of-mouth. The three books I mentioned above were all recommended to me by someone else, someones with no relation to the author.

So, what do you think? Is it worth making evergreen content a part of your writing portfolio?