Advice for making a career as a writer, and how I became a writer

It's possible to make a career as a writer at any age, if you're willing to do the work.

Last week, the teachers at my daughter’s wonderful school filled out their own “first day of school” plaques. And just like the kids’ plaques, theirs had a spot to note what they want to be when they grow up. About half said a writer or author.

Everyone who loves reading wants to be a writer, it seems. The job has a certain cache. Something about being a writer signals that your ideas are important enough for other people to care about. And, of course, there’s the hope that you’ll hit it big, become famous, and make a ton of money.

Almost no one is making a good living as a book author. Median book-related incomes are well below $20,000 for almost everyone who publishes a book. That doesn’t mean all is lost. In fact, blogging, journalism, and freelancing are all a lot easier than book publishing, and you can break into them easily if you have a bit of talent.

For over a decade now, I’ve made a very good living as a writer. It is both harder and easier than you think. Harder because making a career as a writer requires exceptional organization and productivity. Easier because once you establish yourself, success requires only that you sit down each and every day to write.

This is part of a series I call Reasons for Hope. This is a departure from my usual political content, a chance to explore less stressful themes and maybe inspire a few readers. This is also my most-asked-for topic, and as a writer for more than a decade, one on which I happen to be an expert.

How I built my writing career

(if you’re not interested in this, scroll down for my career-forming tips)

Freelance writing is the most viable way to make a good living as a writer—and, arguably, the only way that will work for most people. In this model, you work for many different clients, publishing on multiple platforms. It means you can’t get fired, since there are multiple people seeking out your work. And it allows you to cobble together multiple projects to earn the income you need. Your productivity is the only limit on your potential earnings.

This is a career I fell into mostly by accident.

It started back when I had just finished my philosophy degree. I didn’t really think I wanted to be a professional philosopher, but I also didn’t know what I was going to do. I had done a lot of activism, and was starting to get more involved in medical advocacy.

I got into a fight with a doctor about their inability to understand needle phobia as a real condition. In a fit of rage sprinkled with science, I wrote a guide to needle phobia, then uploaded it to a content mill, Associated Content.

It took off. So I started writing more. Their rates were astoundingly low—not even close to enough to even pay a bill, but the prospect of getting paid for writing was great. I started to make more and more as my work became popular, but was still earning very little.

Then Yahoo bought Associated Content, and started paying me a little more. I also started writing for Demand Studios—another abusive content mill, but one that allowed me to build my portfolio via contracts with clients like Legal Zoom.

I was, at the time, also working as a paralegal, so I wrote quite a bit about the law.

Eventually, I realized that I could get my own clients. So I started seeking them out.

Within a year, I had a full-time roster of clients. A handful of those clients are still with me today, though most have been replaced by better clients.

There have been several breaks along the way: big contracts, viral posts, media interviews. But ultimately, it was slow and steady. And my earnings were significant. I have now, for 10 solid years, made an exceptionally good living as a freelance writer.

Now, I’m building my career in a different direction, focusing on my Substack. Though I still have a number of freelance clients, I am now my own biggest client, and am earning most of my living right here. It’s pretty great—the happiest, freest, and most lucrative moment of my career.

Tips for becoming a professional writer

Know why you want to be a writer

Do you want to make money? Are you seeking admiration? Do you want people to respect your ideas? Spend some time reflecting on your true motivation, then let this guide your decisions.

If money is the goal, then getting as many high-paid clients as possible is the best path. This often means not having bylines, and taking on work that might not be particularly interesting (ad copy, anyone?) If it’s admiration you seek, you might get it from a few viral blog posts that never earn a dime.

Be honest with yourself about who you are, what your goals are, and what you’re capable of committing to those goals.

Writing is a skill, not magic

We have this weird cultural notion of writing as somehow magic. It’s a gift you either have or you don’t.

This is false. Good writing shares certain characteristics, no matter what sort of writing you’re doing. And while some people do seem to have a bit of a knack for it, good writers share one thing in common: lots of practice.

Yet aspiring writers, convinced of their gift, often end up very defensive. They don’t want to accept feedback. They don’t want to explore how to improve.

A brief thought exercise: Imagine you’re a fast runner. You’re not in the Olympics or anything, but you’re faster than is typical.

You try out for a track team, and you run really fast. Then, you refuse to accept coaching. “Nope, that’s it,” you say. “I did a great run and I don’t need feedback to disrupt my creative process.”

Defensiveness about writing is just as foolish.

Everyone can improve their writing, but this requires a critical eye—often your own, and occasionally someone else’s.

Take a writing class. Hire an editor. Re-read your own work. Solicit feedback from knowledgeable friends.

Always be improving. Your competition certainly will be.

Be a writer, not a Writer

I know a lot of people who identify as Writers.

They go to conferences and writer’s groups. They talk endlessly about what it means to be a Writer. They judge most writing and most writing projects as beneath them.

Perhaps that’s why they almost never write, and why none of these Writers seem to actually be making a living as writers.

Writing is a job. If you want to get paid for it, then you need to do it every day. Most writer networking is a waste of time. Other aspiring writers can’t give you work. And they probably have very little to teach you about success. They’re just wasting your time with self-congratulatory meetings and workshops and conferences.

You don’t need a mentor or a writing seminar or a system.

You need to write.

Get to work.

Make a regular daily schedule

Freelancing is not going to work if you have to do it without childcare, or fit it into an already exhausting day. You need a regular daily schedule, with clear writing time carved out. As you begin to make money, your writing time should be your work time. Treat it as such by ensuring you have childcare, a comfortable office, and anything else you need to feel like you’re working.

Writers write

Social media is filled with memes about writers doing everything but writing. For reasons I’ll never understand, the notion of the writer who never writes is prominent in the zeitgeist.

The sole characteristic necessary for being a writer is that you have to write.

Don’t waste your time on networking and business cards and reading about writing and talking about writing.

Fucking write.

Writing is the only way to get good at writing. And if you want to make a full-time living as a writer, then you have to be a full-time writer.

I realize this sub-point is basically just a repeat of the last one, but I needed to repeat it twice, because so many tropes suggest that writing is about anything and everything other than the lonely business of sitting down and producing words.

Don’t bill hourly

Hourly billing incentivizes slow work.

Clients don’t want to think you’re making more money than they are. It’s a weird feature of human psychology. And in late capitalism, people really don’t want to believe that the people they hire are making good money. When they do, they don’t want to pay them.

When you bill hourly, clients can estimate your earnings—and they’ll always want them to be lower.

Bill by the word or project instead, thereby incentivizing yourself to make more money through more productivity. Then you can allow your clients to think whatever they want about your earnings, and even cater to their desire to see you as struggling and impoverished.

Get good at speedy writing

If it takes you days to write 1,000 words, it’s going to be very difficult for you to make your living full-time as a freelance writer. This industry pays by the word (or project). So the slower you are, the less you will make. Depending on the client and topic, I write anywhere from 1,000 to 3,000 words per hour. For most folks, this is not an attainable goal, but 500 words per hour definitely is.

Writing is a skill. As with any other skill, you should be improving with time—and part of improving means writing faster. Develop a system for speedily pounding out good content, and watch your earnings soar. Some simple strategies:

• Write about topics you already know.

• Quickly outline using headers before you start writing.

• Write with empathy. Too often, writers focus on the structure more than they think about what the audience wants to read.

Particularly in the early days of your career, you may need to accept lower rates. You can still make decent money if you work quickly. For example, $.05/word is a rock-bottom rate most writers would balk at. That makes jobs at that rate more accessible to novices.

If you write 500 words an hour, then you can earn a respectable rate of $25 an hour. But if you rev up the productivity, you can earn $50 or even $75 an hour. That’s pretty good for a beginner. And the more you practice, the faster you will get.

Build your reputation

You get good clients by doing good work. A lot of writers refuse to work for free.

In the early days, before anyone has any reason to hire you, working for free may be the only way to get your name out there. A personal blog. A Substack. Being paid a pittance by a startup. Accepting a challenging but poorly paid gig with a big-name company. These are all great ways to build your reputation, if you do good work.

Once you get going, you should never work for free, since doing so undermines writing careers for all of us. Pride, though, will thwart your writing career before it starts. Play the long game and consider the value a particular assignment might have for your reputation.

Edit your own work

After you write something, step away from it—ideally for days. Then revisit it with clean eyes and a very aggressive red pen. Editing your own work familiarizes you with your most common mistakes. It forces you to improve upon what you initially produce each and every time. And it reminds you to be humble, because there is always room for improvement.

I’ve made a living as a writer for 15 years. I will re-read this piece and find errors. I’ll miss some, too. And each time I re-read it, I’ll find ways to make it better. The process of improvement never ends.

Know the universal basics of good writing

Some writing rules are fine to break. I love starting sentences with conjunctions, and I’m never going to stop. It’s sometimes stylistically fine to make a sentence longer than it should be, to break the rules of punctuation, to experiment.

To break the rules, though, you must first understand them. Moreover, some rules really should apply in almost all circumstances. These basics of good writing are almost universal:

• Limit your use of adverbs. Adverbs are characterizations that offer little value. There’s almost always a better way to convey what you hope. Consider “She angrily wrote a note” versus “Shaking and hyperventilating, she scrawled the missive she planned to send him, pausing only to think of the vengeance she sought.” In more formal/journalistic writing, adverbs undermine objectivity. They make you seem excessively emotional and less reliable.

• Make your sentences as short as possible—and no shorter. Wordiness is the enemy of good writing. The more words you use, the less likely it is that someone will read them all. Eliminating wordiness helps you sharpen your message and intensify its emotional impact.

• No passive voice. “The decision was made…” “We were contacted…” Nope. Passive voice is needlessly wordy and unaccountable. It makes your work more opaque, and will annoy your readers. It is almost never necessary.

• Know your reader. Why are they reading this? I constantly have to fight with clients who want me to write 500 word advertisements. I remind them that people want to read stories, not ads, and that the fact that something interests you does not mean it will interest someone else. Consider your reader’s state of mind and write with empathy.

Be a pleasure to work with

People don’t want to work with condescending assholes.

Fake-writer culture is extremely pretentious. Other people aren’t good enough, smart enough, thoughtful enough.

Actual writers are profoundly empathetic, because the cornerstone of good writing is the ability to understand another person’s state of mind.

Employed writers are nice, because the industry is competitive and clients will quickly replace you with someone who doesn’t treat them like garbage.

Be as independent as possible

The real benefit of life as a freelance writer is the exceptional independence you retain. If one client fires you, you have lots of others to fill in the income gap. If you need a day off work, it’s easy to take one. Your independence will make your workday easier, too, since you won’t have to spend time in meetings or on other busywork.

Some important ways to maximize your independence:

• Always have an updated resume, a great portfolio, and a website. This makes it easier to apply for jobs, and to promote your work.

• Avoid busywork. Set clear boundaries with clients about the amount of time you’re going to spend in meetings. Remember, as a contractor, you are legally entitled to set your own work schedule; if your clients control too much of your schedule, you might actually be an employee.

• Don’t be too dependent on any single client. It’s better to have smaller contracts and more clients.

• Seek out recurring work. Regularly scheduled blogging and long-term relationships are incredibly valuable because they reduce the amount of time you have to spend looking for work.

I’ve been steadily making my own transition to even greater independence by devoting more of my time to feminist work on Substack. I encourage you to join me here if you’re just starting out! And if you like my work, I hope you’ll support it by becoming a free subscriber, or by upgrading to paid (which offers access to a private support group, extra content, and more).