Writing for a Living: 11 Facts Learned From Years of Self Publishing

Writing is a good job if you land in a high paying writing position. Unfortunately, there are many writers who are not paid well and their working conditions are atrocious at best.

Also, many writers end up writing content for someone else and not what they want to write. This is why many want to be self published writers.

I have been a full time self published writer for more than two years and have been lucky enough to earn a little from it.

Here are a few things that should consider if you want to embark on a self published writing career:

Note: These tips were inspired by my own experience in self publishing my own writing content and from collated information from online articles and forums.

1. Ways to earn as a writer

2. There is a glut of writers

3. Writing for your yourself versus for others

4. Videos are overshadowing blogs and websites

5. Financial success can take a long time

6. Writing books profusely

7. Blogs are a hit and miss thing, write profusely

8. Consider many income streams

9. Writing for the market

10. Writing what interests you

11. You would make a lot of missteps in the beginning

Final Words

The Details:

1. Ways to earn as a writer

There are many ways to earn from writing and copywriting. This is especially true with the age of the internet and the democratization/breakdown of such institutions as schools, newspapers, entertainment and so on:

1. Traditional and new media:
Although traditional medias (did not begin with the internet) have been slowing down for years and even if new medias (began with the internet) also slowing down today, there are still many opportunities for writing for them.

But don’t expect a full-time writing job especially with new medias, many writers today are hired on a freelance basis although some develop to full time freelance positions.

You could write for news agencies, blogs, websites, and even surviving paper based magazines and newspapers.

2. Content mills:
They have a reputation for being ”Sweatshops”. In case you don’t know, sweatshops is a derogatory term for businesses where the working conditions of poorly paid workers are so hard and unhealthy.

For writers in content mills, their average pay is usually USD 0.02 per word. The pay includes the rewrites the writer has to make to pass the quality control of the content mill.

As you can see, writing for content mills won’t make you a millionaire and is not even worth minimum wage for writers living in developed countries where the cost of living is high.

However, for writers living in developing countries, USD 0.02 per word is already a big amount, that is why many people living in developing countries write for or wish to write for content mills.

However, many content mills usually look for writers based in developed English speaking countries. This is because most English writing writers in developing countries can’t match the English writing skills of natural English writers from English writing developed countries.

Content mill writers usually write for news agencies, blogs, websites, and even surviving paper based magazines and newspapers.

3. Your own blogs and websites:
You can also create your own blog and website and write for yourself. Domain name and web hosting is very affordable these days that even a person of modest income can create their own.

You can monetize your blog or website via ads, affiliate marketing, sponsorships, selling digital products and merchandise, to name a few.

Alternatively, there are free blogging and writing platforms such as blogger and medium where you share your income with the platform.

4. Your own ebooks, books:
You can write your own novels, short stories, poems, non-fiction, literature and other media and sell them on online book platforms such as Amazon’s Kindle, Kobo, Apple Books, Google Books, Draft2Digital and so on.

All you have to do is to write a book and share your income with these book publishing platforms.

5. Your own videos, podcasts:
Videos and podcasts have become the most popular forms of digital content. If you are a writer and you have time to do videos and podcasts, it is highly advisable that you do so.

Many writers today who besides writing, also produce videos and podcasts to make them more visible to potential readers who are almost surely also consuming video and podcast content.

6. Courses:
It would be a waste if you don’t produce a course after a certain period if you are a writer. Knowledge acquired based from actual experience is a much highly sought after product especially if you are successful in your field on endeavour.

The same goes for a writing career. It would be a waste not to sell a course based on your knowledge as a successful writer.

Courses as products are so popular these days that even fake and unsuccessful writers are selling courses. Beware of these fake people.

7. Seminars:
If you really have time besides your writing career, you can conduct seminars and live events based off your knowledge in writing and the writing business in general.

You can even cooperate with other writers and conduct writing industry events where you organize meetups between buyers and sellers of written content.

8. Merchandise:
Besides selling digital content related to your writing content, you could also sell physical products related to your writing content.

For example, you can sell mugs and t-shirts decorated with your writings. Quotes, snippets of your best writings would make good products to sell.

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2. There is a glut of writers

Although the mere number of businesses hiring writers might indicate that there is a tremendous demand for writers, nothing can be further from the truth.

This is because despite the tremendous demand for writers, there is way more writers than the writing industry can absorb.

In fact, almost anyone can call themselves a writer and apply for a writing job. This is especially true for such businesses as content mills where at the most, writing skill and/or experience is all that is needed.

Also, as previously stated, if you are targeting businesses located in developed English speaking countries, be advised that these businesses tend to hire writers from English speaking countries as well.

This is bad news for writers who want to earn in dollars but are located in non-english speaking countries although their second language might be English.

This is also the reason why many writers are paid so low by the businesses that hire them. This is because these businesses have plenty of writers to choose from should their current writer stop working for them.

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3. Writing for your yourself versus for others

Every writer has a dream of writing for themselves, writing the content that they want to write. Though this might become a reality in your career eventually, it might not be true in the beginning.

But there is no one stopping you in writing your own content. Of course, the problem is money. There are people who don’t enjoy working on their job, but do it nevertheless for money’s sake.

The same is true for writing, not many writers enjoy writing content dictated by someone else. But there is also nothing stopping you from writing the content you want in your free time from work.

So, treat writing for someone else as a rite of passage or as a job only. Write for yourself on your freetime. This arrangement might be tiring and inconvenient for you, but it is the best arrangement.

Writing for yourself can be unprofitable for a very long time and you can only survive by doing other jobs which actually pay you. Many writers are actually stuck in this scenario.

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4. Videos are overshadowing blogs and websites

In this age where people are spoilt with digital content, more and more people in some countries are reading lesser and lesser. This includes such countries as the USA.

This is because instead of reading a book for example, people would rather watch the movie about a book or listen to its audiobook instead.

A very good example to this would be in Google Search where there are searches which return not only a list of written articles related to a keyword, but also YouTube videos related to the keyword.

In some instances, even the top search results in Google Search are composed entirely of YouTube videos.

What can you do about this? You can start applying your writing skills to making videos, podcasts and audiobooks.

If you must know, writing for videos, podcasts and audiobooks is way different from writing something made to be read. This is because you must consider the visual and audio message your words have on viewers and listeners.

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5. Financial success can take a long time

Except for a lucky few, many writers take a long time before becoming financially successful, if ever they reach this stage.

For example, multimillionaire writers Stephen King and George R. R. Martin starved for years trying to become successful writers.

This is why it is not advised to go all gung-ho in becoming a self-publishing writer. This is especially true if you have a family that is financially dependent to you.

There is even a running joke as to why writers are able to write for themselves: because they have rich partners who support them financially.

It is advised that you become financially stable first before you become a self-publishing writer. This might mean working on a job or business while writing part-time.

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6. Writing books profusely

Before George R. R. Martin became famous with his Game of Thrones fantasy novels, he wrote other novels which turned out to be duds.

This might surprise you to know, but he wrote in other story genres like horror and science fiction besides fantasy.

Writing is a business and your writing content like your books are your products. In almost all businesses, not all of their products would be liked by consumers.

The same goes for your books. Not all of your books would be bought by consumers. In fact, for most writers, most of their books would not even financially break even if they do indeed sell.

That is why you need to write as many books as you can. For example, Stephen King is known for writing 2,000 words a day without break. He doesn’t take a break for his birthday or even on occasions like Christmas.

This is an example of how prolific you should be if you want to be a successful writer. If well established multimillionaire writers like Stephen King works this hard, you should too.

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7. Blogs are a hit and miss thing, write profusely

The same thing goes for blogs and website writing. Not all of your blogs and website writings would be profitable. In fact, a majority of you blogs and website writings won’t make you any money.

This is the reason why like writing books, you should also write as many blogs and website writing content without sacrificing writing quality.

For example, referencing Stephen King again, he writes about 3 books a month. This does not include the articles and other reading materials he writes on the side.

Also, there are bloggers who only started becoming successful after writing hundreds of blogs. According to blogging experts, it would take about 6 months of continual writing before your blog starts to take off.

But the strategy: “Write more to succeed more” just makes sense. Sales have always been a numbers game.

When you’re posting your content online, you are in effect advertising your writing content that you want to sell. You might be a writer at heart, but you’re also a salesperson when you post your content.

Writing more content means having the ability to sell more writing content. This is as simple as it gets.

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8. Consider many income streams

As already stated, writing is just like any business where you have a product that you intend to sell for a profit.

In this case, your writing content is your product. A good rule in business is to make a product for the least amount of money, but for the highest profit.

If you have not yet realized that you’re a businessperson besides being a writer when you sell your own content, it’s now time to do so.

As a good businessperson, one way of getting as much money as you can from your writing content is to convert it to as many product formats as you can.

For example, your blog content could be made into a book, a podcast and/or a course. Snippets from your blog can be turned to posters, or designs for your merchandise and so on.

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9. Writing for the market

One thing that you should not do is to write based on your whims alone. As repeatedly said, writing is a business and your clients read the content that they like and not the ones you like.

If you haven’t being doing SEO (Search Engine Optimization), it’s now time to do so. I guarantee you, if you do SEO, you would see a definite increase in your customer base.

Don’t be ashamed if your detractors call you a sellout. Your detractors don’t understand business and are probably not making good money in their jobs or own business.

Ask yourself this: “Would I continue to spend my time and money writing if there is no one reading my writing and I am making no profit off it?”

This question should make you realize that writing is indeed a business that you have to spend a lot of your time and money on. Would you spend a lot of time and money for no reward?

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10. Writing what interests you

This might seem to conflict with item 9 above, but it does not. This just means that you are writing for the market as well as for your own interests.

It would be very unfortunate of you if you are not writing for the market and not writing something that interests you.

But you might say: “What if my interests does not match market interests?” This just means that you haven’t fully analyzed your writing business.

Maybe you’re writing for something that is trendy but you have no interest in. Of course, your work would be inferior and people would not likely read what you write.

In summary: Write what interests you that the market is also interested in. You could analyze this by doing SEO.

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11. You would make a lot of missteps in the beginning

If your blog, website, videos, podcasts, books and so on seems to be failing during the beginning, don’t be disheartened immediately.

It is jus natural that you would have a lot of missteps in the beginning. Even your best early research could not prepare you from the ever evolving industry of writing.

For example, when I first began writing books, I followed the advice of writing what I wanted which turned out to be my misstep.

Later on, many so-called online writing professionals popularly advised newbie writers to write low content books.

If I hadn’t done plenty of research before writing books, I could have followed this advise which would have sunk my book writing career.

As you can see, there is no better teacher than actual experience, although the benefits of a thorough research before entering an endeavor cannot be underestimated.

Don’t be afraid of allegedly missing out on opportunities, a slow start but coupled with plenty of research in the long run is better for your writing career.

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Final Words

Don’t be fooled by the abundant demand for writers. There is indeed a lot of demand for writers but there are much more writers than writing jobs.

But don’t be disheartened by this. The competition might be fierce, but just like any business, the best writer cum businessperson rises to the top. So, be a good writer with good business skills.

This means writing for the market that coincides with your writing interests. Also, convert your writing content to as many formats as you can to maximize your earnings.

Lastly, just like any business, it takes time to master your writing business. You would make many missteps, but the important thing is to learn from your mistakes quickly.

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