Anyone else out there write for a living? How do you cobble together a paycheck? Here’s my experience.
Although I do not yet have a book published, I do make a modest living as a writer, which is something many writers hope for most of all. For this, I am grateful.
I began as a trade publication writer and editor. In this role I got a lot of experience cutting the fluff, researching and writing on topics I knew nothing about and also rewriting press releases into usable news snippets.
From there, I was able to move into marketing writing, basically because as an editor, even in trade magazines, I understood what editors wanted. So I wrote PR and articles for businesses.
At the turn of the century, I moved quickly to doing this online, as it is where everyone moved their reading and researching. We started a company, my techy husband and I, with me writing and him doing the web marketing piece of things. Because, wouldn’t you know it, Content is King online. This all led to my current work — writing blogs, web and social media content for clients.
I do my fiction writing hobby / work (called a hobby to maintain sanity in such a slow moving field / called work to remind myself that it must be a scheduled work activity to succeed) 2-3 hours a day. The paying writing work is 4-5 hours a day.
There it is. I write for a living. I could not support a family on my salary, but I could support myself. I hope to always write for cash and with any luck the fiction can bring in something someday. Although I have no delusions that it alone will provide the full living wage.
Tell me your experience writing for work.