career

Can You Be A Professional Writer?

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(This is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

Yes, you can be a professional writer.

Every now and then I have a discussion with someone who wants to be a professional writer. I’ve decided to compile my advice to help clarify it, and of course, make it easier for people that ask me that question.

Where does this come from – since my writing is more of a side thing? It comes from:

  • Knowing professional writers.
  • Knowing people wanting to be professional writers.
  • Researching writing careers – I had considered a change I didn’t make.
  • My own experience in writing and researching it.

So let’s go!

CAN I BE A PROFESSIONAL WRITER?

Yes, you can.

WAIT, THAT SEEMED EASY

Yes, because there are many, many ways to make a living at writing. The question is more “which path as a professional writer fits you.” Most people miss the kind of obvious ones.

OK, WHAT’S THE OBVIOUS ONE?

The obvious writing career is writing professionally in areas like being a Technical Writer, develop Marketing content on websites, and so on. There’s a huge variety of them out there – and I keep finding more over time.

Then there’s writer-adjacent jobs like Editor, etc.

If you do a look on any job site and search for things like Writing, Writer, Editor, Publishing, etc. you can find quite a few ideas.

OH. SO IT’S WRITING “JOBS” LITERALLY?

Yeah, exactly. There’s lots of them out there. If you don’t want to do corporate stuff, you can find them in government, education, non-profits, etc. Just keep digging.

Again, these are jobs basically with “lots of writing.” So, you can make a living at it – some people do very well.

NICE. SO LET’S TALK THE CLASSIC “I WRITE BOOKS FOR A LIVING” JOB?

A lot of people think writing careers are just “I write books.” They’re not. In my experience a lot more people do “writing jobs” to use their writing skills. In fact, those are great jobs to do to prime yourself or support yourself on a writing career.

Now as for the whole “Write Books For A Living” type job, basically as a kind of freelancer, yes it can be done. It’s just very challenging and too many people miss the amount of effort it takes or how long it takes.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN?

A lot of successful authors, those with the big hit book or series that pays the bills, didn’t just suddenly become a success overnight. They laid a foundation, often for years.

Even if you do create a sudden mega-hit, the lead up to it will take years, if only to write the thing and make contacts.

SO HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE?

Based on what I’ve seen, if you decide to become an author that makes a living writing books, it can take years if you’re also holding down a full-time job. A decade is not out of the question.

It’s probably a lot faster if you can dedicate yourself full-time.

There’s plenty of books out there on authors. Chris Fox’s books are the ones everyone recommends (and even he doesn’t make all his money with books, but he sees to be having a blast)

SO I NEED TO WRITE FOR TEN YEARS?

No, not just writing. Writing is part of a writing career. You need to:

  • Write books.
  • Get books edited, get covers done, etc.
  • Get them published in a format people will buy.
  • Market them.
  • Market yourself with websites, newsletters, etc.
  • Set up ads.
  • Constantly improve your craft.

You can see how the more time you have the more chance you can pull it off.

SO IT’S A SMALL BUSINESS?

Pretty much. If you land a publishing deal that helps, but even then expect a lot of work (and contracts). But yeah, you’re running your own business – and even if you swing some sweet deals it’ll still be like that.

But hey, you get tax writeoffs and such if you do it write.

BUT AT LEAST I CAN WRITE WHAT I WANT

Maybe, maybe not. The thing with people who make a living writing, independently, is they seem to find a market, build a market, or target a market. If you just want to do “whatever” then the chance of succeeding is very low.

I’M GOING TO NEED TO THINK IT OVER, AREN’T I?

Yes. If you have a specific vision for your writing, then you need to do good marketing and try to find your audience.

On the other hand if you’re open to “writing whatever sells” then it’s probably more likely you can succeed. You’re going to compete with other people doing the same thing, but there are many “same things” to try.

LET’S SAY I DECIDE TO INVESTIGATE THE MARKETS, WHAT DO I DO?

Well, the Fox books are good. You can often find lots of advice online online and books on Amazon. There’s honestly so many you’ll probably want to search for reliable sources yourself.

Then you want to write like crazy.

ANY OTHER ADVICE?

Do your research, stick with it, and connect with as many authors as possible to learn.

Steven Savage

Beware The New Age Of Job Spam

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

Lately I’ve been receiving a lot of phone calls and emails about job opportunities, and I’m not alone according to my friends. I’ve begun to realize a lot of this is due to technical changes and business changes – ones that it’s important as a sort of Geek Career Person to warn people about.

Now before I go into just what I found, a note that this isn’t bragging. I’ve been in IT for decades, my resumes have been sent all over the country for twenty years, and I’m in a ton of databases. I’m also in my 50’s, where people are experienced, start to retire (less competition), or die (also less competition). It works in my favor – except for that whole “aware of my own mortality” thing.

Now, onward – let’s walk through what happened and what I found.

THE SITUATION

So last six months or so I started getting hit up by a lot of recruiters. This wasn’t like previous experiences where it appeared to be people “raiding” California for talent that got tired of paying rent so high you could buy a gaming rig once a month. This was the usual combined with lots of samey emails, odd calls, and weird inquests that didn’t always seem to relate to my skillsets, often from companies I never heard of.

I didn’t think about it much, until some caller noted she was in a different time zone – one that didn’t fit the area she was listed as calling from.

So I began digging a bit and looking into all those emails.

WHAT I FOUND

First, the emails I was ignoring anyway looked real spammy – cut and paste jobs, search and replace issues, and sometimes repetitive. On top of that there were mostly companies I didn’t recognize.

Secondly, the emails didn’t seem to give a damn where I was. I mean, yeah I’ve seen people try to raid Silicon Valley for talent, but this didn’t follow any identifiable pattern. Previously I could note trends in what states were hiring, but this was more incoherent.

I also began looking at how to unsubscribe from them, and that was the real revelation. A lot of the unsubscruibe links sent me to the same kind of software setup – clearly different companies, but all using the same mailing list software.

Finally, I recalled how many people had mentioned they had me in a database, or saw me on Dice, or LinkedIn.

That’s when it came together for me.

WHAT’S GOING ON?

At the most basic, it’s a helluva easy to set up a consulting type company, get requests, spam out inquiries, and try to get people. So now plenty of people are doing that and outsourcing globally, at rate I’ve not seen before. And it’s annoying.

Specifically it looks like:

  • A company get set up anywhere in the world then route calls through a phone number in other countries. That explains the weird time zone issues I was getting from calls.
  • A company can use existing software out of the box to set up all sorts of HR and mailing systems. Then you can easily mail things out to people without thinking.
  • There’s all sorts of databases out there, and companies can fill them or just purchase data. Pretty sure some of my old resumes from fifteen years ago are sitting around somewhere in digitized form.
  • Dice and Linkedin and other sites are easy for dedicated people to scrape, especially if you have settings that allow people to see you’re looking, show information, etc.

So we’re now at the stage where you can basically spin up a consulting company or modify an existing one to pretty much run as a spam system. Sure, it sounds like it’s inefficient, but if you can throw out leads to a ton of people, you only need a small percent of responses. It’s pretty much like advertising.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

So what’s the takeaways from this for my fellow job seekers? I have a few.

  • First as always I recommend people always ask what the next stage of their career is. It may well be “more of the same,” but a review now and then is good. I evaluate my skills and plans once a month.
  • If you’re at all concerned about job stability, you should have a regular job search going on, from once a week to once a month.
  • Job searches by now are going to need to be selective. So be aware of who you’re applying to.
  • If you’re looking at temp or consulting companies, research them before applying. Build a list of reliable companies over time (and share them) so you know when trustworthy leads come in and you build good relationships.
  • If you have specific companies or organizations you want to work for, then I’d apply at their websites specifically. Now and then, do a “deep dive” and go back through listings to apply to past jobs, not just new ones.
  • Be careful how you set yourself up on job sites, LinkedIn, etc. You might be accidentally asking to be spammed.

Hope that helps. Let’s see how this evolves in the future, because I’m sure there’s more changes to the job market and technology to come . . .

Steven Savage

Monetizing Fun

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

After writing about how we destroy fun and how we sometimes monetize fun inappropriately, I’d like to address this question:

Is it Healthy to Make Money At What You Enjoy?

It would seem that this question is obviously “yes”, but it’s an uncomfortable one. I’m sure many of us have known people that turned fun into a job, many of us have done it ourselves, and it’s not an easy situation. Forget if you can make enough money, the stress the loss of joy, etc. can be enough of a pain.

It’s an uncomfortable question – could the idea of enjoying our job, of profiting from fun, be a bad one?

Let’s sit with that one for a moment. Go ahead, think it over.

Now that you did that, my answer is “yes, it’s OK to make money at what you like, but as long as you stay aware of your situation”

When you realize you can monetize fun, I’m bang along side it as long as you’re aware of the situation and pay attention. Check in with yourself when you start down this path, and check in reguarly and review where you are. I do this every month to every few months, often when I feel like my fun/work balance has gotten out of balance.

Here’s the checks you want to make:

AM I DOING THIS FOR A GOOD REASON?

Are you trying to monetize fun for a good reason? Will it advance your life and that of others? Will it make you happier? Will it, logically, make you enough cash to be worth it (if you care about it)?

Check in with yourself reguarly if you’re doing this fun-for-money thing for the right reasons, it can change. I’ve found cases where I was doing certain projects out of habit – not for any good reason.

DO I KNOW THE VALUE OF WHAT I’M DOING?

There’s two questions to ask when it comes to the value of fun:

  • Do I know how much value my fun-for-money brings me or can bring me? That helps me understand if its worth it financially (and for the sacrifice of making fun more of a job).
  • Do I know the value of my fun without the pressure to monetize it? That helps me decide if its worth monetizing or I just want to hang out and have fun.

Know the value of what you’re doing both in money and personal fulfillment. Check in reguarly, because it can change . . .

CAN I SWITCH IN OR OUT OF MONETIZING MY FUN?

Can you turn your “hobby-job” back to just a hobby? Can you, when you want, turn that “profiting from fun” switch back on? Can you just take a break?

Keeping this fluidity is important. It lowers the chance you’ll trap yourself, and helps remind yourself you have options – so you don’t feel trapped. Sometimes, after all, the worst trap is just thinking you are.

Personally, this question helped me realize I just like to write. I’d be doing it no matter what.

DO I HAVE AN ENDGAME?

If you’re going to monetize your hobby, you’ll want to ask what the endgame is – when would you decide to not do it or decide you fulfilled your goals. Could it be “funning” your way to a new job? Being a paid author? Publishing so many books? Doing it until you die as you like it?

Have an idea of your long-term goals, even if your long-term goal is “just see if I still wanna do this.” When you have an idea of an endgame it lets you evaluate your progress towards it and prepare for transitions that may come when you reach that end state.

However, having an endgame also lets you know when to stop. Maybe the endgame won’t work and you change it. Maybe it’s not worth it anymore. Know what you want if only to know when it’s no longer a good idea.

ITS OK TO MAKE MONEY AT FUN – IF YOU CHECK IN

So, go ahead, make money at your hobbies. Just make sure you have checkins to on these subjects to see how you’re doing on your goals, motivations, status, and so on. Be ready to make changes depending on your finding, and give yourself the freedom to do so.

This way you’re able to adapt and change and be happy – be it from making money, having fun, or a balance between the two.

Steven Savage