Don't Put All of Your Writing Eggs in One Basket

Most writers I know want to make a living as a writer. Most of those don’t quite make enough to call it a living. Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don’t. I’m always supplementing my writing with side gigs and that’s usually enough. I used to supplement a full-time accounting job with writing as a side gig, so I’m pretty happy the tables have turned. I worked a long time for this.

How long? Let’s just say that the world wide web was more of a world wide dream when I started. This is relevant because I have a little story to tell about the early days of writing online.

Once upon a very long time ago (over 20 years), there lived a website that paid writers a dime every time someone clicked on a link and read an article. This is a good deal, the writers thought. Maybe we could make a living with this new-fangled technology and stop having to pitch magazines and wait months by the mailbox for replies and rejections. And for a while, things went swimmingly. The writers wrote, the readers clicked, the website paid.

But, dear readers, this is a fairy tale with a moral to the story. It didn’t take long for the writers to figure out how to make that goose keep on laying golden eggs without feeding the poor thing. They set up link farms and private discussion boards and clicked on each other’s articles without reading them, and stopped trying to bring in new readers because that was a lot more work. The company realized what was happening and tried to close the barn door, but it was too late. The horse was already out and the goose starved to death.

If you thought that little tale was pure fantasy, I’m going to pop your bubble in the same way the dot-com bubble burst. I was there. It happened. Much has been written about the dot-com bubble over the years, and most of it has focused on the tech and retail companies that bloomed and withered, but that was also a heyday for writing on the internet. Those companies had so much money they paid for almost anything, passing out dollars per word and stock options as rewards like they were lollipops. Until they ran out of money.

Now, the demise of the dime-a-click website wasn’t entirely the fault of the writers. Everyone was out to make a fast buck and the company’s business plan consisted of throwing shit at the wall to see what would stick. They weren’t the only ones. A lot of websites wanted writers to provide content and paid in varying degrees. They tried to pivot with the times and survive the popping of the bubble, but most of them aren’t around anymore. Remember Suite101? No? There you go.

This brings us to the present. Software and algorithms have come a long way and are much savvier and focused than that dead goose of a company from times of yore. That’s a good thing for the gazillion writers who have signed on to platforms with dreams in their hearts and hopes in their pockets. What might not be so great is that they’re often pinning their hopes and dreams on one or two platforms.

The moral to my story, in case you missed it, is that nothing lasts forever. Yes, it’s a cliché. It’s also true. Some bigshot writers are dominating platforms and making bank, but for the rest of us, we need to branch out if we want to make a living, not to mention be successful.

Don’t Put All Your Eggs in One Basket

There’s a reason that clichés stand the test of time. They’re catchy, corny, and hold enough truth to keep us repeating them. If you want to be a working writer who can pay the bills and more by the power of your pen alone, you need to write for multiple baskets.

Platforms: Medium, NewsBreak, Vocal, HubPages, Wattpad, Substack, Patreon, Ko-Fi

Freelancing: Fiverr, Upwork, iWriter,

Job Boards: BloggingPro, FlexJobs

Jobs: Linkedin, Craigslist

This is nowhere near an exhaustive list, and it’s not even a particularly good list because I’m not offering opinions. That’s another article. Every site has its pros and cons. The point is to get you to do some research. There are also content companies and spec work sites out there that may or may not work for you. You probably don’t want to stretch yourself too thin, but find a balance.

There are online magazines and old school print magazines that pay freelancers and fiction writers.

There are multiple ways to write and to publish, and expanding your offerings can cushion the blow if a site goes down the tubes. It’s happened before and it will happen again. Nothing stays the same. Not ever. Prepare yourself and protect yourself, because no one else will.

And you’ll also be too busy to complain when one of your platforms changes its rules or algorithms or payment plans or whatever. Don’t be one of those people.