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. Affiliate marketing

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.

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

The post Making Money as a Writer: How to Get Started appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

As a former college professor, courses are honestly one of the things that come most naturally to me. When you spend seventeen years thinking about curriculum, lesson plans, and assessment day in and day out, it becomes second nature.

But chances are pretty high that you are NOT a teacher by trade. And that’s perfectly OK, because you just need to know that you can put together a great course! One of the keys to putting together a great course is to figure out the specific objectives you want the learner to achieve by the end of the course, and then work backwards from there to give them the information, experiences, and learning activities to take them there.

But it’s not just about the information in a course—it’s also about the marketing. Because if you don’t have marketing for your course, you probably won’t have sales. Marketing is a giant area that I don’t have time to get into right now, and to be honest it’s not my area of expertise. But suffice it to say that if you are going to be successful with courses, or anything business-related for that matter, you need to become comfortable with marketing and learning how to do it more effectively.

From a business standpoint, courses are a fantastic addition to your streams of income. Readers and learners value courses at a much higher level than books. You can take the same material you have used for a book, translate it into a course, and charge much more for it.

If you enjoy teaching and putting together material in a way that helps other people experience transformation, courses are a great way for you to add value to others and increase your income.

And by the way, if you are interested in learning how to build and market online courses, I highly recommend you connect with my friend, Lucas Marino. He is an expert in these areas and has developed some courses to help you. Check out his website at https://www.marinotraining.com/.

Question: Do you enjoy teaching? If so, have you ever considered developing online courses?

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