Freelancing is writing for hire. This is opposed to writing because you’re a staff member of an organization or have writing responsibilities as part of your overall job. When you freelance, you are getting paid to write a specific piece (or pieces) of content. It can be a one-off piece or part of an ongoing contract.

Many writers make fantastic money creating articles, blog posts, and other content for an endless array of different industry and special interest publications. My freelancing experience has been in a few basic areas:

1. I’ve written a few articles for traditional print magazines and journals.
2. For several years, my primary side business income was writing podcast show notes for a few clients.
3. I wrote lots of articles for The Good Men Project, a large online publication with millions of views per month. (However, I was paid as an editor, not a freelancer.)
4. I wrote lots of “pillar post” content for a ministry-related website for a year or two. (A “pillar post” is a long article—typically a few thousand words—designed to be an authoritative post on a topic. It’s also usually packed with keywords and phrases designed to maximize SEO—search engine optimization.)

Freelancing comes in all shapes and sizes. However, I don’t want you to get overwhelmed by the possibilities. Instead, stay focused on doing a few things well. Here’s how I would recommend getting started if you want to write for publications:

First, set up a blog and start writing there on a regular topic. You need to build your writing resume and show potential clients, publications, or magazines that you have some writing chops. Plus, writing regularly on your own blog is a good way to develop SEO and begin building some authority around your topic, whatever it is.

Next, write for free in some publications, such as The Good Men Project, which accepts articles on lots of topics, both by men and women (as long as it pertains to men or manhood). I would suggest writing for places that feature the same kinds of content or topics you write. The more your writing is online, and the larger the publications you write for, the more your credibility within that topic will grow.

Once you have one of these two things, then begin pitching paid publications. Be sure to strictly follow their guidelines. Editors are very busy people who will generally ignore you if you don’t play by their rules.

If you want to write for clients—doing regular blog posts, for example—you will still need a blog. And I’d also recommend writing for publications if you can, even if it’s for free for a while to build up your writing resume. But then you will want to connect with potential clients on an individual basis.

One final tip when it comes to freelancing: I strongly suggest that you don’t refer to yourself or promote yourself as a “freelance writer.” The reason is that freelance writers are a dime a dozen. Give yourself a more authoritative and specific title, such as “Content Writer for the Automotive Industry” or “Business and Personal Development Writer.”

Better yet, combine it with other titles such as Author or Coach. Titles mean something, and the way you refer to yourself is the way people will think of you. Don’t ever just call yourself a “freelance writer.” And for goodness sakes, please don’t use the “Open to Work” badge on your LinkedIn profile… it just screams that you are desperate!

Like most of the areas we’re discussing in this series, freelancing can take a lot of different forms. But don’t be afraid—just take the steps I’ve outlined here and you will make quick progress.

Question: What specific topics or industries interest you the most when it comes to freelancing?

The post Making Money as a Writer: Freelance Writing appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

In short, what I’m doing with these two episodes is giving you an example, but also a plan for starting your writing business on the side, then growing it from there to hopefully a full-time business. This isn’t a step-by-step plan—that’s an episode for another day. Rather, these are points from my own journey of building a freelance writing and ghostwriting business the last few years.

So, in this post, I want to dive into ten tips for getting started with your writing business.

1. Go in the direction of your gifts, not your passion.

Now, I understand this will be a little controversial. The conventional wisdom is that you should follow your passion. But that’s actually bad advice, because you may not have any talent in the area of your passion.

For example, I may be passionate about the violin, but I’m never going to be world-class at it. However, my friend Ashley Rescot is a professional violinist. She has the ability to make money with her gift, but I never will. I’d have to work extremely hard at this stage of my life to even be average.

I heard this insight about following your gift, not your passion, from a Steve Harvey video on YouTube and thought it was simple and brilliant. If you have a gift in an area, you’re already ahead and you’re probably already passionate about it. What are you naturally good at? That’s a wonderful clue about your direction.

If you’re listening to this podcast, obviously you’re at least interested in writing. And your interest tells me that you at least probably have some giftedness in that area. But here’s a little secret of having a writing business: success in this area is not really about just being a great writer—it’s very much also about networking

2. Choose a niche that has good income potential.

This is a big reason why I chose ghostwriting, because it pays a lot better than say, writing podcast show notes. The key to all this is choosing the type of writing that is perceived by people to be higher-value. Some types of writing are more valuable to people than others. So, a lot of this equation is doing something that has a high value to it.

However, if you’re starting from scratch, you’re going to be doing lower-paying types of work like podcast show notes, probably lower-paying articles, and so forth. But that’s OK… you just need to get moving and build from there, then you can move into niches that pay better.

3. Don’t confuse people by doing a bunch of different things.

If you want to successfully overlap, you need to have a clear niche you can communicate to people. This is a big theme Sean McCabe talks about in his Overlap book. Basically, people are going to put you in a box anyway, so you need to define whatever that box is going to be.

A huge mistake people make with side hustles is that they try to do a bunch of different things that are unrelated. I did this also. In the span of a few years, I was doing part-time ministry, podcasting, selling on Amazon, consulting, and networking marketing, just to name a few things.

If you want to develop writing as a side hustle, you need to tell people clearly what you do. Put this on your social media profiles, tell people about it, put it in your email signature, and so forth. Don’t make people guess. You need to be extremely clear about it.

If you want to do writing and you don’t know what your niche is, I would suggest you call yourself a “business writer.” This covers a lot of different areas, and it positions you as someone who helps business leaders. That’s a very solid place to start if you want to get into client writing.

4. Take ownership of your career trajectory.

Let’s be honest: a lot of writers are simply passive. They don’t know what they want. They’re too nice and they’re just waiting around for someone to give them an opportunity.

I want to encourage you to be assertive and to take initiative in building your writing business. (And by the way, even if you’re only writing for yourself, and you’re not doing client work, you still are in a writing business if there’s money involved.) No one is going to just hand this to you.

Now, this is a bad example, and I know that full well before I say it. However, I’m going to mention it anyway and I trust that you’ll know what I mean. One of my favorite TV series of all time is House of Cards on Netflix. I know there are issues with Kevin Spacey, who plays the main character Frank Underwood. I also know that Frank Underwood is a lying, scheming, murderous sociopath. I’m just going to get that out of the way, ha!

All that said, the one thing I do admire about his character is that he knows what he wants, and he doesn’t stop until he gets it. I’m not suggesting you do anything illegal or immoral, of course! Please don’t hear me saying that. I’m just saying that it’s OK for you to be assertive and to know what you want out of life.

Here is something that has really helped me: instead of thinking of myself as a writer who happens to have a business, I think of myself as a business leader who happens to be a writer. That shift in perspective can really help you.

So, take ownership of your life and determine that you are going to keep pursuing what you want in your quest to build a writing business.

One more thing on this topic: many people, especially those who are more timid, worry that taking initiative and building a business is somehow selfish. Nothing could be further from the truth! When you build your business, when you’re happy, and when you’re more financially successful, you can help more people at a higher level.

I would argue this: if you want something in life, and you have a dream, and you know it will help people… then you are selfish if you don’t pursue it. You are selfish if you are choosing to play it safe and not run toward your dreams.

If you have a family, your dream needs to be put into the context of your family. You need to build it on the side. It needs to serve your family and make their lives better. But don’t use your family as an excuse not to build a side business. You can start out very, very small on the side and then grow it from there. That’s how I did it, and how almost everyone else does it also.

5. Take the next logical step.

Now, what do I mean by “take the next step”? What I mean is: ask yourself what the next natural thing to do is, and then do it. It’s just that simple.

Let’s use ghostwriting as an example. When I thought that might be the direction I wanted to go in my business, I had no clue where to start. But I did know someone who did: Nick Pavlidis. So I interviewed Nick on my podcast about 3 years ago and had a great conversation about it. Then the next natural step was buying his course, and then going through the course and putting into action all the things in the course.

Now, you may not have a podcast, but guess what? If there is someone who is doing what you want to do, then get in touch with them. Shoot them an email, comment on their blog posts or social media posts. Make a connection somehow. If they have a free guide on their website, read it and then take action. If they’ve been interviewed on podcasts, listen to those and then do what they teach you to do.

Oftentimes, we get frustrated and stuck because we get paralyzed by too much information. The easiest way forward is to decide what you want, then find someone who is doing that thing, and do what they tell you to do to get started.

Many times, the difficulty is not that we don’t know what to do… the difficulty is that we simply don’t follow through and take action. So, just take the next logical step in the journey. That will empower you to take the next one, and the next one, and more after that.

6. Be consistent in your efforts.

A lot of people give up because they are putting in a lot of time and effort but not seeing immediate results. That’s OK because it takes time. Everything takes time to build, especially when you’re overlapping a new thing with your current thing. But you’ve got to be consistent.

Something that really, really hurt me was that I got sidetracked with a bunch of things like networking, marketing, selling on Amazon, applying for a bunch of jobs I had no business applying for, and trying to be a business consultant. I wasted a lot of time going from one thing to the next instead of sticking with my writing and building my writing business.

So, don’t give up. Just keep putting in the reps and making progress day by day. When I took Nick’s Ghostwriter School course, it was October 2019. I talked to my first prospective client at the end of December, but they didn’t sign until May of last year. So that was about 8 months later. I was getting a little frustrated, honestly. But once I got that first client, things started happening quickly from there.

It’s important not to give up and lose heart. You’ve got to hang in there, especially when you’re doing something like ghostwriting where your clients are making a pretty big investment.

7. Remember, it’s going to take a while.

This is related to the last point, but I’m reiterating it here just to emphasize the fact that this is usually not a quick process. We are so used to everything being instant in our modern world that we get frustrated when there aren’t quick results. It took me 5 years to build this from nothing. It could have been faster if I had been more focused and consistent. It would have also been faster if I had chosen a specific area and put myself under the leadership of a mentor who was succeeding in that area.

I would say at a minimum, it will take a year or two to get things moving and really build up your income if you’re focused and consistent. I have always had my goal to build a side business into a full-time business, so I just kept my eyes on the prize.

8. Accept the fact that most people won’t understand what you’re doing.

This sounds harsh, but I stand by this statement: most people are content to remain in their misery because it’s familiar. As they say, better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know. What do I mean by this? I mean that most people would rather stay where they are and not take a risk or do the work of building a side business, even though they are unhappy and don’t have a great future in their current job.

Knowing this, just accept the fact that when you build your thing, some people will discourage you and a lot of people just won’t get it. That’s why you need to hang around positive thinkers and other writers who are building a business… for example, the Daily Writer Community. (Had to put a plug in for that!)

I had one person in my extended family the last few years, who kept telling me I should try to get a job at my church. My church has a large staff and a couple thousand members, and I know this family member was just looking out for my best interests. But I just nodded my head and smiled whenever they would say this kind of thing. I didn’t want to go back into church ministry—I had been there, done that, and that’s not the life I wanted for myself, no offense to anyone who does want that or feels called to it.

And by the way: a little side note for those of you who ARE involved in ministry, but you want to make a change. God still loves you, and it doesn’t make you any less of a Christian to want a different kind of job. It really doesn’t. It’s OK to want a change because ministry is exhausting. You don’t need some big spiritual reason to make a change. You don’t need to couch your feelings with vague spiritual language such as “I feel God is calling me to a different type of ministry.” It’s perfectly OK just to say, “I don’t like doing this type of work anymore. I want a different job, I want better income, or I want more freedom and flexibility.”

I know this goes against everything you’ve been taught as a pastor or Christian leader… but you don’t necessarily need to have a “ministry.” It’s OK just to have a job or a business. In fact, the best for your spiritual health, and your family’s sanity if you’re struggling, might be for you to consider a change or a different type of work.

If this discussion has made your ears perk up, I have one simple question for you: do you want to be a pastor? It’s a simple yes or no. You shouldn’t have to hesitate. You already know the answer. If the answer is “yes,” then continue being a pastor. If the answer is “no,” then start figuring out what you need to do next. I highly recommend something like ghostwriting because you already have a lot of the skills required.

One more thing, then I’ll stop this rant and move on to the last couple of points. In the Christian community, we have a bad habit of making everything so complicated with all these spiritual and personality assessments, and the vague language of calling. I’m not saying those things don’t have their place, but when it comes to your career or vocation, I believe the only two people who can give you the ultimate red light or green light are God and your spouse. You shouldn’t make a major change without feeling like you have clarity from God and your spouse.

Once you have peace and clarity from those two, it doesn’t matter if others don’t understand. Especially in the church world, there are a lot of expectations around pastors and ministry, some of it good, and much of it is unhealthy at best. I would encourage you, if you want to build a side business and then make it your full-time thing, start small, get the blessing of your spouse and guidance from God if you’re a person of faith, and then take action. Many people just won’t get it, and that’s OK.

OK, side rant over!

9. Don’t let any one person control your future.

This really gets to the main reason we start a business in the first place: so we can have freedom. The dangerous thing about having one employer is that they can get rid of you at any time. You can say what you want about having a great employer or a great job, but the balance of power is absolutely always in the employer’s favor because they are the ones paying your salary.

The beauty of building a side business is that now you have empowered yourself with another income stream. As that grows, you have less and less reliance on your employer, which is a beautiful thing. Now don’t get me wrong—this isn’t a rant against employers. In fact, I would argue that when you have more than one stream of income, you are a better employee because you have less stress. You make better decisions because now you’re not doing everything with the perspective to just keep your job. You’re hopefully there because you enjoy the work and want to be there on some level, even though you’ll be on your way out eventually.

There is a lot of value in having a side business that generates income, so that if your employer lets you go, you’re not totally high and dry. It really is a great feeling. In fact, my goal at my college was that I would be able to have a successful side business and could release the college from the burden of paying me. I know they are always looking at finances and budget, and my goal was to be able to bless them by stepping away so they could save money.

But back to the point here, which is not letting any one person control your future. When you have a writing business, you have multiple clients, so not any one person can sink your business. And that’s a wonderful thing.

10. Use your current job to help you develop writing and business skills.

It is tempting to look at your day job and your side business as two completely different things. And perhaps for you, they are completely separate industries or types of work. However, I would encourage you to look for ways in your day job to develop writing and business skills that will benefit your side business.

For example, you can get involved in leading training, copywriting, marketing, doing presentations, proofreading, making sales calls, creating blog posts or podcasts, and lots of other things. All of those are skills that translate to any other business, include your writing business. The cool thing is that it will help your current employer if you volunteer to help with some of these things, and it will help you as well. Everybody wins.

In the entrepreneur culture, there is a big tendency to be anti-job. There are a lot of gurus who tell people to ditch their 9-5 and so forth. But you shouldn’t quit until you’re financially ready and you have a clear plan in place for your new business. In the meantime, there are a lot of things you can do in your current job to learn skills that will apply to your side business—and also add more value to your employer in the process.

I think the goal is to make yourself so incredibly valuable to your employer that they will have a hard time replacing you. I figure, you are going to be there 8 hours a day anyway, so why not have as much fun as you can, add as much value to them as you can, and also learn some great skills in the process?

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I hope this has been a helpful couple of episodes talking about the Overlap Principle. Building a writing business on the side doesn’t have to be super complicated or stressful. The main thing is to figure out your next step, take action, and then keep going, as you build it up over time. That’s how I approached it, and that plan worked very well. I know if I can do it, you can do it also.

The post How to Use the Overlap Principle to Build Your Writing Business, Part 2: 10 Tips for Getting Started appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

As you probably know, I recently stepped down from my full-time teaching position to do writing full-time. The bulk of my time is now spent working on projects for clients, since I’m a ghostwriter. But I also spend about a day and a half each week working on this podcast, writing my own material, and also leading the Daily Writer Community.  

I’ll do an episode pretty soon about the details of why I quit my teaching job, but for now, I wanted to mention this to set the context for this post. One of the most fascinating aspects of making this announcement recently is that a lot of people have congratulated me on making this leap to doing my business full-time. And many people have expressed something like, “It’s so great to be chasing your dream!” 

While I definitely appreciated these kind words, they also bothered me quite a bit. Here’s why: I don’t understand why it should be considered rare or unusual for someone to chase their dreams or be able to arrange the kind of life they want. I don’t feel I have done anything all that spectacular or brave. I simply made a decision a few years ago to start building my business toward this direction, and then stuck with it. That’s pretty much it. 

However, as I have spent some time reflecting on this major change in my life, it occurred to me that I’ve followed a very simple principle as I have transitioned into several different roles in my work life over the last 25 years. And I want to share that with you today, along with how you can put it into practice to build your writing business, or whatever other ventures you might eventually want to pursue. 

It’s simply called “The Overlap Principle.” In this post, I want to share what that is and also share my story of overlapping careers a few times to arrive at my current business. Then, on next week’s Sunday post, I’ll share some specific tips for overlapping in your own writing business. 

What is The Overlap Principle? 

The Overlap Principle is essentially the idea that you don’t just quit one thing and then start something new. Instead, you overlap the two things. You have your main job or gig, which is paying the bills, and then on the side, you start building your new things. This is also commonly known as a “side hustle.” 

This principle is definitely not original with me. In fact, to be totally honest with you, I never knowingly set out to use the Overlap Principle, so to speak. But since my late 20’s, I have always had a side gig of some kind going. I’ve always been thinking of the new thing I want to do or build, and then I’ve started doing it—in a very small way at first—but then gradually built it big enough that I could transition totally into that new direction. 

People have been doing side hustles probably since the beginning of time, but with the advent of online business, they have taken a huge new turn. It’s far easier now to build a business on the side or pursue whatever other interests you have, because we are all connected. 

All that said, I first became aware of this specific framing of the side hustle idea called “Overlap” a few years ago when I read an excellent book by entrepreneur Sean McCabe. His book is fittingly called Overlap, and you can get it here. If you want the print book, it’s only available in hardcover, and it’s $39. I know that’s expensive, and I wish he had it in paperback, but even still, it’s worth every penny and then some. If you’re interested in building a side hustle, it’s an essential book. 

In this book, Sean teaches you the specifics of how to overlap your day job with your side hustle. I’ll let him speak for himself, but in this post, I want to share with you my story of how I have been overlapping careers for a long time, and how you can get started.  

My Story of Overlapping Careers 

I’m 46 now, and I entered the full-time workforce when I was 21. In reflecting back on my work life, I have noticed a distinct pattern over the last 25 years. 

The general pattern is this: I do something for a few years, get pretty good at it, then get bored and start something on the side that is adjacent but distinct from the first area, and eventually I move into that new area. Then the pattern repeats itself. 

Here’s the story of how I went from being a worship pastor to a ghostwriter. 

In 1992, I went to college to be a preaching pastor. I felt a distinct spiritual calling to go in this direction, but truth be told, I wasn’t that excited about preaching. I was decent at it, but what really got me excited was music. So even though my college degree was in preaching, right after graduation I got married and we moved to a church in northern Illinois, where I was the worship pastor. 

This was a fantastic church and we had a great ministry there. However, after about 5 years of doing this, I became restless and a little bored, so I started working with interns and even taught a course for the college where I had graduated from. I found that I really liked teaching and training. I was overlapping my worship ministry job with teaching. 

Success in the teaching area led to a full-time position with my college. When I was 29, we moved back to the same school, St. Louis Christian (where I just left). I led the music and worship program, which involved overseeing several adjunct instructors, teaching a bunch of courses, and coordinating our Chapel services, which happened twice a week.  

To be honest with you, it was exhausting. It was exciting for the first few years, because I still had a lot of energy and was willing to go above and beyond to make things really worked for students. Plus, our college was really growing during that time, so we had a lot of students—at least by our standards.  

But there came a time in my later 30’s when I just hit a wall. It was literally like someone flipped a switch and I wanted to immediately get out of worship and music ministry altogether. At that time, I had been heavily involved in it for 20 years—since I was a teenager in high school. I had basically lived and breathed worship music and worship services since that time.  

By the way, just as a side note, there is a reason that you very rarely see worship leaders older than 35 or at the maximum, 40, in growing churches that use modern music. The reason is that it’s emotionally exhausting to produce those creative and excellent services week after week for years on end. But I digress… 

Now, I have to stop here and give massive credit to my college. I expressed my desire to our Academic Dean that I wanted to try some new courses related to storytelling, film, writing, and media. So slowly, over a period of a few years, these were approved and integrated into my teaching rotation, and I absolutely loved doing them. Students also responded really well to those courses because I made them fun, and I was personally excited about them.  

So for 3-4 years, I was gradually decreasing my involvement in our worship and music program, while gradually increasing the courses in communications. Eventually, the college hired a new worship professor and I was able to fully step into a newly-created role of Professor of Communication Arts.  

I have to tell you, it was a really fun day when my Academic Dean asked what I wanted my new title to be. I was going to go with “Professor of Communications” but that title “Communications” is traditionally used to refer to programs that focus on journalism and related areas. That’s not really what I was doing, so I just made up the term “Communication Arts” and we went with it. 

Now let me share a couple of side notes and then I’ll get back to the main story. It’s true that I was bored in my old role as a professor of worship and music. But there was another reason I wanted to diversify the kinds of courses I was teaching: I wanted to make myself more valuable to the organization. My thinking was that it was better to be a generalist who could teach a bunch of different courses than a specialist who only focused on one area. That proved to be a very wise decision, especially at a small college like ours where the budget was always tight and you never totally knew if your contract would be renewed from year to year. So, I thought of this as a way to help ensure my value to the college. 

The other thing I did, and you’ve probably noticed, was that I was actively creating and proposing these new courses. I also recruited students for these courses. At least for my college, it’s very rare for professors to recruit students for courses. Normally students just signed up for whatever they wanted—with advising, of course. Teachers rarely marketed their courses to students, so to speak. But I took it upon myself to talk to students about the courses and why they should take them. This helped boost the enrollment for those courses, which only made me seem more valuable to the organization. 

OK, back to the main story. So, it was around 2015, and I was shifting into this new role of Professor of Communication Arts at my school. I definitely enjoyed it. However, my salary was very close to what it was 10-11 years earlier, which was obviously a big concern. It was very rare for us to get raises, and the only way to make extra money as a professor was to teach extra courses or take on a side job or side ministry of some kind.  

Most of our professors had some kind of side ministry, and I did this a few times, as well. You could definitely make extra money, sometimes pretty decent money. But the major problem with this arrangement was that it took you away on Sundays from your family, unless they joined you. You sometimes also had to travel quite a ways to preach or lead worship at a different church where you might have a part-time ministry. 

That was an option, but I always hated doing this because it tied up your weekends. For those of you who aren’t familiar with ministry culture, this was kind of the attitude: “We’re doing this for the Lord, and we should be willing to basically put everything else second so we can do ministry and not be compensated very much in the process.” It was very much a lifestyle where ministry was your life—it was a higher calling type of thing, and not just a job. 

Now, I don’t want to argue the finer points of spiritual calling and all that. That’s not my point here. But I want to say that I’m independent enough that I really disliked this whole way of thinking. Especially after being in this system for over ten years and working at a church for eight years before that, I was pretty tired of feeling like I was locked into someone else’s schedule and priorities. In my early 40’s—just a few years ago—my whole attitude was, “I still want to serve God with my gifts, but why can’t I do it on my own schedule and get paid decently for it?” 

I remember around this time, I was in a local convenience store and I saw a sign where they were hiring assistant managers. The starting salary was slightly above my contract amount at the college. I had this light bulb moment where I realized things were not going to be better for me and my family financially, and I had to start making some changes. I was grateful for where I’d come from, but I needed to start charting a new direction, especially since our enrollment was declining year by year. 

So, in 2016, I started doing freelance work. I was fortunate because I had already published a couple of books, and the courses I was teaching also coordinated with communication skills. However, that honestly had very little to do with getting started in client work. The real thing that got me going was that I hung out in an entrepreneur community online, and I connected with a podcast producer who knew I was also a writer. He had a client who needed podcast show notes.  

I started doing more and more client work the next few years, in addition to producing my own podcast. It continued to grow, and a couple of years ago, I got into ghostwriting books, which is a higher level of compensation than typical freelance writing. It grew to the point where my side business was making more than my day job, at which point I could make a transition. 

I also want to add that since 2014 or so, I’ve also had a side hustle of creating my own content through books and podcasting. So, I’ve essentially had two side hustles the last few years: my own content and client work.  

Last November, I decided to start my Daily Writer Community in addition to doing the podcast on a daily basis. In essence, I was doing a double side hustle for probably six months and made income from both things. I don’t necessarily recommend that, but, in my case, there was a lot of cross-pollination between the things I was doing for the college, my clients, and myself. It all involved content and writing.  

When it came down to it, there was no future in what I was doing at the college, but there was a very bright future in what I was doing for clients and my own content with the Daily Writer. It was a very simple decision in that regard. At that point, the only issue was just putting money in the bank as a buffer when I made the leap, and also ensuring that my client work was steady enough to realistically continue to support my family. 

So, that’s my story of overlapping a few different times, all the way from my college years, through being a worship pastor, then a worship professor, then a communications professor, then a freelance writer, and now, a ghostwriter with a side hustle of the Daily Writer, which involves my own content, podcast, and community. 

I’m also just now beginning to dip my toes into the waters of product development for clients and for the Daily Writer. I’m talking with some manufacturers and distributors about things like card decks, calendars, journals, planners, and other kinds of products. This is all a very new world for me, but I feel like a kid in a candy store because you are only limited by your imagination. 

Well, that’s my story of using the Overlap Principle. That gives you some context for how this principle plays out in an actual setting. Next week, I’m excited to share ten tips for overlapping as you develop your own writing business. 

The post How to Use the Overlap Principle to Build Your Writing Business, Part 1: My Story appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.