Getting Prepared For A Writing Career

One of the first things you will need to do is to take this seriously as a real business and get prepared. There are many different things you can and should do to get prepared to start your own business. One of the most common mistakes people make is to think they need a lot of money to get started. While money is very helpful when starting a new business, it has also been the downfall of many large and would-be successful businesses. You can begin a writing business with literally nothing so don’t let money hold you back.
The second common mistake is treating this like a hobby- something you can do here and there in your spare tie between your “real” job, the kids and other responsibilities. If you treat this as a hobby, that’s all it will ever be for you. Until you begin to treat it like a real business, it will always be “that thing you do in your free time.”
Almost everyone I talk to interesting it writing for the Internet for a living is full of excuses. You’ll hear me say often in this book, “Excuses won’t make you money.” If you find yourself hiding behind one excuse after another, your first step is to take accountability and don’t give in to the excuses. This should be your new mantra:
Excuses don’t pay.
When it comes to excuses, there are plenty to go around. People give excuses not to write, excuses to miss deadlines and excuses to not be serious about their writing. They turn assignments in without following the directions and have a load of excuses why. There is also a great deal of excuses for why work is late, delivered in the wrong format or sometimes just not delivered at all.
Sometimes:
• Computers explode
• Family members die
• Writers pass out
• Writers have to be rushed to the hospital
• Writers go into labor
• Power goes out
• Internet goes out
• Dog chews power cords
The excuses just keep on piling up and still… life goes on and work must go on as well. Of course, real life happens. It’s happened to me and it will happen to you. However, it’s easy to spot early on the writers who consistently provide excuses. I prefer not to work with people like this. Most clients will prefer not to work with people like this.