Exactly What Keeps You from Reaching Your Top Earnings as a Writer?

And how to fix the issues

Photo by Emily Morter on Unsplash

I surveyed a solid group of Pen2Profit subscribers to find out what they feel gets in the way of writing success.

The question:

What are your biggest challenges or frustrations when it comes to making money as a writer? (Respondents could select all that applied to their writing journey.

More than 60% of respondents chose these issues as their main concerns:

1. Finding clients/opportunities

2. Knowing how to price their work

3. Marketing and promoting their work

4. Writing tight

5. 40% said staying consistent with their work process

Not surprisingly (to me, anyway), 0% said overcoming writer's block. In my experience, many writers who complain about writer's block are dealing with a lack of organization and a lack of connection or engagement with their own process or topic. Writer's block seems to be a catch-all excuse for other writerly problems, but I'll talk about that in another post.

This survey convinced me that most writers, whether they are novices, intermediates, or experts, face the same hurdles, and those hurdles relate to turning a writing pastime into a business—at least a micro business.

Writing tight

Let's deal with this one first. Reader retention and convincing prospects to become buyers depend on tight writing. We are all content skimmers to an extent because we're all really busy. If you write luxuriously, slathering words everywhere with no concern for time, you're providing an undesirable reader experience.

That's not to say you have to write in a staccato rhythm. It means you need to practice until you understand the difference between developing a personal, relatable, interesting voice and bloviating (look it up—it's the perfect word to express a complicated concept in one word). Words like "bloviating" convey a feeling along with a definition.

The following exercises are a foundation for your tight writing practice. Don't read them—DO them.

8 Specific, Actionable Exercises to Make Your Writing Better—No Matter What Level Writer You Are

You have read 10,000 times about writing tight. But have you received any clear, actionable guidance on determining what that means and how to implement it? Start here.

Choose an activity ( or any number of them; the more, the better). Don't read them and think, I know all that. I promise that until you diligently do the exercises, you do not know all that.

Instructions:

Look up any terms you don't feel 100% clear about. Work with pen and paper, as this engages both your brain and body, creating something akin to muscle memory. When finished, you'll own the concepts—they will become part of your process.

1. Write a paragraph on how to do something without using any helping verbs. Then you'll remember what helping verbs are and how they weaken your writing voice.

2. Write a paragraph without using action verbs. This is reverse psychology. Strong, tight writing depends more on active verbs than passive. You need to own the difference.

3. Make a list of 10 verbs and give each an adverb. Adverbs are often lame. This exercise helps you see why powerful verbs and solid context eliminate dependence on sprinkling adverbs willy-nilly.

4. Make a list of 10 adverbs—give each a verb. Same idea as the previous exercise, making you intuit the problem from both directions. Consider the difference between She violently and loudly slammed the door and Bang! Her parting comment.

5. Make a list of 30 compound nouns formatted correctly as a compound word or hyphenated word. Almost every writer needs to look these up as they use them. It isn't arbitrary; spelling is spelling.

6. Describe how to start a car without using prepositions. Prepositions and prep phrases are major bloats that are not easy to correct. This exercise prompts you to pause and consider word choices. You need prepositions, but not nearly as many as you use.

7. Write a persuasive paragraph without conjunctions. You might have to look up a list of conjunctions to add additional words to your toolbox. The goal is to stop hanging thoughts together with conjunctions. Rhythm is a key indicator of good writing—sentence structure needs color and variety.

8. Make a list of filler words you use and tape it to your computer. Filler words weaken your writing and bore your reader like

Just

Really

Very

So

A little bit

A bit

Kind of

Sort of

That

In order to

Due to the fact that

The fact that

Actually

Basically

Essentially

Fundamentally

Perhaps

Maybe

Pretty (as an intensifier)

Quite

For all intents and purposes

At the end of the day

In my opinion

I think that

It is

There is

There are

And the all-time most misused filler word, THAT! To understand the problem, read Walden University's Guide to That.

NOTE: I'm not saying never use these words. I'm saying understand them, know how they harm your prose, and own them when you use them.

Keep your results and do the exercises again in a few weeks to see how you've shifted your habits. Writing tight means using the fewest words possible to convey your compelling message effectively. Without exception, when I finish a piece, I edit out 25% of the words. I did it with this story.

Go thou, and write tight.

Those other major challenges

I write on these topics often. Here are links to some strong articles to get you started. Find the rest in the Pen2Profit directory.

Finding clients/opportunities: On Publishing, and Freelancing (this is a free link to a Medium story).

Knowing how to price their work: Set Realistic Prices (free link)

Marketing and promoting their work: Flex Your Marketing Muscle

40% said staying consistent with their work process: Make Writing at Home Work for You

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