8 Tips to Become a Writer | Wow Writing Advice

Being a writer and making a living from wow writing is a dream for many. All of us who love writing aspire to pay our bills with our hands. But doing so is more complicated than it seems. To jump without a net into this world is dangerous, as many aspects are unknown. In this article, I want to explain what it is to be a writer and give you some tips on making a living from writing.

Can you make a living from writing?

You can make a living from anything. You could even sell fairy dust and, if you were good at it, you could make a living from it. So, can you make a living from writing? Of course, you can. Just don’t expect it to be easy.

One problem I often find with people who want to be writers is that they tend to think that this will be the end of the line. If you’re going to be a writer, forget everything you’ve read about Rowling, King, and Meyer. Bestsellers are isolated cases. The most normal thing is that your first books go unnoticed.

To make a living from writing, you need to work hard. You have to sit down every day, write and publish. In the age of Amazon, where more than 1,000 books are published a day (on the low end), succeeding on the first try is as difficult as hitting a full house on fifteen.

The best thing you can do for your writing career is to publish books consistently. You can do it on your own by posting on Amazon or managing your books’ publication on your own. You can try to print with publishers. Or you can do both and take advantage of the best of both worlds.

What do you need to make a living from writing?

Well, some of these things wouldn’t go amiss:

• Know how to write (obvious).
• Planning.
• Dedicate time every day to your writing.
• A computer.
• Be a great reader (or an average reader, but you have to be a reader).
• Have a lot of patience.
• Be tenacious and don’t give up easily.

How to be a writer

According to Stephen King, there is only one way to be a writer: writing a lot and reading a lot. I would add one more: managing frustration very well. Because yes, being a writer is often frustrating.

And it’s not frustrating because publishers don’t publish you or because you don’t get selected in contests. It is because it is tiring, it is lonely, and, almost always, it seems that you move in a kind of limbo in which you pay for the sins of your past lives by being invisible.

To be a writer, you need to have ideas (we all have that), know how to turn those ideas into words (that’s a bit more difficult), and make those words meaningful and “potable” (this is much less common).

Why do I say this?

There is a common and silent idea that spreads over those who start writing, and it is that “you only need the talent to write.” Or worse, you need to know how to write (in a society like ours, we all know how to write).

Again, I’m going to go back to Stephen King. In his book As I Write (a book you have to read if you want to be a writer), the King of horror says that talent is as common as salt on the table. For King, what differentiates the amateur writer from the professional is thousands of hours of intense work.

So, if you are not willing to work, forget about it and do something else. On the other hand, if you are ready to mortgage your life and sell your soul to the key, go ahead.

Here are 8 tips to become a professional writer that I hope will help you.

Write

Of the millions of tips for being a writer you’ll come across, this (and the next) is the only one you should heed.

Writing is like a muscle. Unless you’re a natural talent, to develop power, you have to train. Usain Bolt said that the difference between him and other people is that he spent four years preparing to run nine seconds, while most people quit after a few months because they don’t see results.

Writing has learning curves. We all know how to write right out of school, but not all of us are writers. Just as we can all run, but we are not Usain Bolt. To be a writer, you have to train, and there’s no better way to do that than writing.

I would tell you that you have to write every day, but since I’m not a robot (surprise, I’m a person like you!) I won’t do it. Because I know it isn’t straightforward. There are hectic days, absorbing jobs, family, plans, and basic needs like rest. Plus, there are tricky situations, bad breaks, and a hundred other things that take you away from writing.

What I will tell you is to write a lot. Do it whenever you can. Force yourself from time to time if you have to. Do it consciously, look at your most common mistakes and try to fix them. Write a novel, write short stories, get out of your genre and explore new characters and situations.

Read

Reading is also part of the writer’s training. If you’re into soccer (or any sport), you’ve seen coaches make their players watch games of their rivals. It’s a way to learn, learn new tactics and improvised plays, to see how an individual player moves.

If you want to write, you have to know what you’re doing. You have to know your trade. You don’t become an electrician without knowing, at least, that the inside of a wire can hurt. You don’t become a professional marksman without knowing which part of the rifle the bullets come out of.

Read a lot. Unlike writing, which requires effort on your part, reading can offer you a moment of peace. It’s a refuge after a busy day; it’s a moment of calm when you have a lot of work to do.

Read a lot. Read good books to see what you have to do and read bad books to know what you don’t have to do. Read books in your genre to learn the recurring themes, tropes, and characters, and read books in other genres to see different styles, other languages, and other surfaces.

I write horror, and I love reading King. However, my favorite reads are far removed from horror. I love to read contemporary novels. I love Carver’s characters, Steinbeck’s style, and Kerouac’s lyricism. Reading everything will help you create your style, first by imitation and then by internalization.

Training

Would you become a heart surgeon without having studied medicine? Would you become a commercial pilot without having gone to flight school? Would you become an illustrator or painter without artistic training? I’m sure you wouldn’t, yet everyone has the feeling that they know how to write… I guess it’s just rocket science.

But what about writing?

There is no formal training that does not exempt you from your responsibility as a writer, which is none other than to train yourself. Even if it is on your own. On the Internet, there are hundreds of blogs by writers, editors, and publishers offering advice. There are excellent writing manuals, and there are also courses (in the same platform of MOLPE, you have master classes of renowned writers) and schools for training writers.

Training is important. The writer needs to know very well what his tools are. He needs to understand how literature works, its structures, characterization, dialogues. Many of these frameworks and paradigms are internalized through reading, but we don’t know how to use them consciously, which is why training is so necessary.

Writing needs something called “deliberate practice.” That is, you need to be aware of what you are doing. It would help if you looked at what you’re doing right, what you’re doing wrong, and look for ways to improve. Otherwise, the writing stagnates, and over time, you lose muscle.

It doesn’t matter what you think you know. It doesn’t matter that you’ve been writing since you were in the military with a spear. There’s always room for improvement. Put aside that writer’s pride and ask for help.

Product Development

Yes, to be a writer you should know something about product development. What they now call product manager.

Do you know what one of the main functions of a product manager is? Finding the target audience for the product under development.

One of the main questions I get asked is related to just that. “I don’t know what my target audience is. How do I know?”.

The answer is as simple as it is complicated: by listening and analyzing.

First of all, it’s a good idea to abandon specific stagnant thoughts of the type: “a book is not a product, it’s a work of art.” If you think books are works of art, I have some objective evidence on my Kindle that specific works of art look a lot like garbage.

Books are products because they require prior development. From the title to the cover, everything must be focused on pleasing your audience. Until now, you have been as lonely as the next man, but you write the book for others, never for yourself. Having a clear idea of who your reader is and what they will make things much easier for you.

If you are also a freelance writer, much of your time will be spent producing your product. So, all the more reason to know what you have to do.

Marketing

I find the paradox amusing. Everyone rants about marketing in their blogs, which is marketing at the expense of marketing. I always say the same thing, and nobody forces you to do marketing. You can skip marketing. Then you won’t sell books and blame it on sursum corda.

There is nothing wrong with marketing. It doesn’t insult you. It doesn’t look down on you. It doesn’t beat you up. On the contrary, it offers you a series of tools to get more visibility and sell more. Marketing has always existed. The Catholic Church has been an expert in marketing, managing to place its book as the best seller in history.

No matter how good your book is, if you cannot reach your readers, it won’t do any good. Even if you plan to send your manuscript to a publisher, you’ll have a better chance if you know how to sell it. To make a living from writing, you need to develop specific marketing skills and keep up with emerging trends.

You need to know how to plan a launch, set monthly and quarterly goals, review the results and adjust them. Or, if you prefer, get someone else to do it for you.

Get training in marketing if you want to be a writer.

Objectives, planning, and time

Believe it or not, writing a book requires some planning. This will change depending on whether you are a map writer, a compass writer, a writer of both, or a shipwrecked drifter. Either way, creating some essential planning can help you finish a project.

I am a complete disaster when it comes to organization. I’ve tried every single project management and planning app in the world and, every time, after two or three weeks, I abandon them — all except Trello.

In your case, it could be an Excel sheet. It doesn’t matter. What is important is that you learn to plan and organize your time — both for writing and reviewing the project and promotion. Learn to set dates and work with them. Remember to set SMART objectives to measure and know when you reach them and when you don’t.

Promote yourself

It goes hand in hand with marketing. I think this is the part that most people who “despise” marketing hate. When we promote ourselves, we feel like a flea marketer. That’s valid. I get it. I’ve been there. But honestly, what’s wrong with being a flea marketer? They are honest people doing their job.

That doesn’t mean you have to spend all day promoting your work on Twitter, either. By now, looping your book with the sale link should be obsolete (unfortunately, it’s not).

To promote yourself well, you need to have marketing skills, but you can do it without bothering anyone. You have many tools at your disposal:

• Email marketing
• Blog
• Guest posting
• Podcasts
• Youtube channel
• Social media
• And a lot of other ideas that Ana tells you about in the podcast.

Promotion is an essential part of writing because to make a living from writing. You’ll need to generate income. Nothing sells without promotion, not even food. Imagine a book.

Be patient

Yes. My last piece of advice is to be patient. Patience and tenacity. Making a living from writing is a long-distance race. With very few exceptions, you won’t make a living from your first book, you’re second, or even your third or fourth. To make a living from writing, you have to create a readership base to know you.

Every book you write and publish has to increase your reader base. Every book you publish will surprise new readers who will dive into your other works to get to know you. Ana says something authentic in almost all her talks: your new books, pull in the old ones.

It’s like when you discover a new band on Spotify. The most normal thing is that you go and look for all their greatest hits.

Writing is a very lonely job. It is also challenging, painful at times, and almost always thankless. As if all this were not enough, along the way

y, you will meet unpleasant people who will try to trip you up, envious colleagues who will try to harm you, publishers of dubious quality, and honesty who will try to take advantage of you and impertinent readers.

There is nothing you can do about this. It goes with the trade. That’s why you need a great deal of patience if you want to survive your first year as a writer. Don’t despair and keep on typing.

Conclusion

These eight tips will help you on your way to making a living from your writing. Of course, they are not the only ones, and I doubt they are the best. They are simply the ones that have worked for me (that’s why they are the only ones I can give you). If you have other tips you’d like to share with everyone, please feel free to do so in the comments.