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Do you really enjoy writing? Some individuals feel it's a
painful and painstaking experience. But, if you love to write,
and believe others could enjoy reading your work; then consider
starting home-based writing as a part or full-time business.
Steps
- Start your business naturally. Perhaps working
part-time with your writing business while keeping your
full-time job. Decide when to write full-time; make sure
you maintain enough savings to carry you through months
of lean times. Writers, no matter how successful, should
always have a financial safety net, other income, an employed
spouse or a "crazed" parent.
- Get a good word processing software program; you
can even download a quality word processing program for
free, such as OpenOffice.org writer, as other word processing
software can be quite expensive.
- Get a printer, a telephone, voice-mail, and internet
access with email: all of these, and even more, are
vital.
- Do a little bit of marketing and prospecting and actually
selling your product and "yourself" everyday. You can
not succeed or even exist as a paid author by just waiting
for your day to dawn... It already did!
- Search for new writing leads every day. Don't
count on just one or two sources of income. Diversify your
outlets and publishers until you get a salary with a no
compete clause, as you would in local news publishing or
some advertising writing.
- Tell everyone you're a writer, when someone asks:
"What you do for a living?" Realize that the world's
a lot smaller place than it seems. Your hairdresser's brother
or an in-law might be the acquisition editor at Simon &
Schuster or at a newspaper, tabloid or magazine...
- Deliver on time. Meet your deadlines! Yes, real
publishers are engaged in business -- not nonchalant
guessing or wishing games!
- Work "toward" perfection, but not "to" absolute
perfection. Expect editors to make demands for changes or
just reject your work with little or no explanation.
- Get contracts in writing, before releasing your
work for publishing and so you require, not just hope for,
a paycheck -- because verbal agreements are just "fluff
or puff" talk with no cash value, not enforceable.
- Make the first move, you are the originator, the
idea person and innovator, but you must accommodate and
cooperate, even if you become the strategy maker, publisher
and boss of the company.
Tips
- You don't have to write the next great American novel
to make a living as a writer. You can make a living preparing
newsletters, collection letters, and resumes for people
and businesses.
- Advertise your services at colleges and universities.
Students (and teachers) always need help in manuscript preparation.
- Develop your writing skills in technical writing, legal
transcription, and/or medical transcription: you can be
serious if only temporarily. You can then offer your services
to software companies, law firms for compiling reams of
documents, and doctors (maintaining well written records).
- The thesaurus is your best friend. The thesaurus helps
you to choose words that mean what you mean to say.
Warnings
- You're not an actor in a movie communicating with frowns,
winks, nods and shrugs... although you could write all of
that into a dramatic creation.
- Expect proofreaders and editors to do some changes, corrections,
deletions, but not much nurturing or mentoring unless you
have unusual or great abilities.
Article provided by wikiHow,
a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest,
highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and
find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How
to Start a Home Based Writing Business. All content on
wikiHow can be shared under a Creative
Commons license.
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