Business, Connection, Consistency

Making Money as a Writer: How to Get Started

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By Kent Sanders

We’ve been working our way through a series on Making Money as a Writer. Today, we’re going to do a quick wrap-up of this series. I’ll also give you a couple of pointers to help you get started and not feel so overwhelmed.

In this series, we’ve talked about ten ways to make money as a writer:

  1. Book Sales
  2. Freelance Writing
  3. Ghostwriting
  4. Editing & Publishing Services
  5. Speaking
  6. Coaching
  7. Courses
  8. Products
  9. Membership & Masterminds
  10. Affiliates & Referrals

These aren’t the only ways to make money as a writer, of course, but these are ten of the most common ones.

Now that you’ve heard about them, what’s next? How do you get started?

While you may want to eventually make money with all of these income streams eventually, you can’t put them all into practice right now. I suggest that you reach for the low-hanging fruit first—meaning the easiest options. For most writers, that is probably going to be doing freelance writing or ghostwriting, plus getting some book sales.

If you’re getting started with making money as a writer, I’d recommend the following course of action over the next 90 days. Choose one, two, or all of them.

  1. Start working on a very short book you can complete and publish in three months. Shoot for about 20,000 words or 120 pages or so. A short book will validate you as a writer and give you immediate credibility.
  2. In the meantime, tell people in your network that you’re building a writing business and you’re available to write blog posts, social media posts, podcast show notes, or other short-form content. Create a sheet with your pricing options and make this easily available. Do a bit of work for free in order to get a testimonial and referral, then build on that momentum as you get more paid work.
  3. Become an affiliate for a couple of products or services that you love. Then, start promoting those to your email list and other places. If you don’t yet have an email list, it’s time to get started. I recommend ConvertKit.

If you get to work immediately and take consistent, daily action on just these three items, within three months you are almost certain to have some income from writing. It will be slow at first, but keep at it and you will succeed over time.

Today’s Question: Which of the three steps I’ve mentioned are you willing to commit to over the next 90 days?