How to Make Real Money If You’re a Writer

The story for most everybody interested in “becoming a writer” is at times poignant, sad, tragic, funny, improbable, enlightening, surprising, and/or (hopefully) inspiring. I’m not exactly going to tell that story here. But I am going to let you in on a secret that isn’t really a secret: You aren’t likely to make a lot of money publishing as a freelance journalist or story writer or poet. But honestly, for “writers,” what’s in a name?

It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t always fun. My wife sometimes got a strange look in her eyes when I told her what my next gig was possibly going to be, but I had a 35-year career as a professional writer and I hardly ever called myself one until I had been producing work for nearly twenty years.

I don’t mean to be a Negative Nigel. Nor am I advocating you walk away from your dream before you realize that you’re still living with your parents and can’t seem to hold on to relationships. But we’re talking about money here, and making it consistently because you‘re good with words and sentences and paragraphs and know a little something about grammar and punctuation.

People who say the goal is to get rich and work one day a week (or whatever simple math they‘ve manufactured), are truly full of beans. It’s always about hard work and struggle doing what you love. I guarantee that Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk work harder than 99.9% of the rest of us. The same is true of, say, Stephen King and J.K. Rowling.

On the right path

I had wanted to be a novelist from the age of eight, but I also understood how tricky the world of publishing is. Somehow, after graduating from college in 1980, I managed to get poems, journalism, short stories, book proposals, and partial novels rejected by a plethora of publishing houses and magazines across America. Boo hoo.

In the midst of all that, I also got a masters degree in an interdisciplinary field combining engineering with economics and public policy. I ended up having a long career in various capacities as an environmental consultant, analyst, and planner for the public, non-profit, and private sectors.

Over three decades or so, I wrote grant proposals, feasibility studies, annual reports, multi-year strategic plans, field research papers, grant reports, handbooks, manuals, business plans, white papers, pamphlets and brochures, articles for technical journals, op-eds, and a whole bunch of memos and important emails.

During my early days, I worked for an established consulting firm based in our suburbs. After about five years, I branched out to begin working independently. Sometimes I acted as a sub-contractor on management consulting teams catering to big state and federal government projects. Sometimes I took a contract position running a mission-oriented non-profit. Occasionally, I won project bids and hired others to work with me solving interesting environmental and energy problems for businesses and government. Most years I managed to earn enough to carry half the burden of our household. It was never easy getting paid on time, but that’s the price of freedom and independence.

I wasn’t brilliant or a big-time entrepreneur by any stretch of the imagination. I wasn’t a quantitative genius and didn’t have an engineering degree or a PhD. And I was absolutely, 100% not a go-getter, glad-handing networker with astounding levels of energy and good vibrations. I was basically just a competent (sometimes pretty good) writer who could out produce most others on the fly.

Consulting as an artistic discipline

Consultants tend to have almost as much room to be independent thinkers as artists do. Plus, they often get paid to travel, regularly collaborate with others, and get challenged out of left field all the time. In addition, at least for me, I was often asked to speak at conferences and business meetings. I learned the hard way to overcome my fear of public speaking. That never would have happened if I had stuck to a more straight and narrow writing career.

I have a huge portfolio of published work in a very large box somewhere in our house. I wrote more than a dozen major reports for government agencies with my name on them (along with my co-authors’). The project I’m proudest of was the first EPA study on computer recycling business opportunities in North America.

I also wrote handbooks and manuals for corporations and state government on numerous subjects connected to recycling and energy efficiency — sometimes leading edge subjects like computer recycling. Some of the stuff I worked on was boring and mind-numbing. I know that, but I can’t remember a whit of detail about that category of things.

Eventually, experience and expertise in my chosen fields gave me credentials to write freelance articles for national environmental publications. In the late-1990s I was offered a position as a contributing editor for InBusiness (once one of the top sustainable business magazines in the world). I eventually became a columnist for Talking Writing magazine as well.

An important thing to understand here for any inveterate writer is that a lot of folks in the consulting world just aren’t very good writers. So if you actually know your way around sentence construction and paragraphs and aren’t afraid to keep your work somewhat dry and direct (although a little flair can be appreciated by the few people who will actually read your reports and studies) there’s a great challenge waiting for you, and a good living — maybe even a super great living depending on how you commit to it all.

All the way to the other side

Ten years ago I finally shifted gears professionally and committed to working full-time on creative fiction projects of my own. My coming-of-age novel, Old Music for New People, was released by small press publisher The Story Plant in December 2021. I’m working on my second novel for them right now.

Over the past few years, I’ve also published a number of short stories and flash fiction pieces online and in print publications. Since I’m no longer attempting to work as a consultant, I also have a lot of fun experimenting with weird ideas and essays at several blogs I started years ago. I’ve also published here at Medium on and off most of that time and even occasionally post a story that’s a home run.

I see a lot of folks trying to “make a killing” writing independently in the digital world — or at least trying to figure out how to do that. There’s no question you can get your words out there if you’re good, and even create a bit of notoriety, but making a solid, consistent living in a world that often calls writers “content providers” really is a very dicey endeavor over the long haul (I’m talking three kids, funding for daycare through college, a mortgage, two cars, health insurance, and the occasional kitchen or bathroom renovation–– maybe even a vacation or two every decade).

There are actually many ways to be independent and keep your hand in as you see fit (writing whatever interests you). A lot of those ways don’t get called “writing” but it’s in fact a huge part of the job. Certainly that’s true for many lawyers and communications specialists. It’s true as well for mid-level executives in large companies. You can also work your way into an administrative position in government or non-profits where writing skills are prized.

From what I saw in my consulting career, writing is a skill that only other writers actually see well and understand. And yet, those who can write succeed almost anywhere if they stay committed and understand that everyone needs them (even when they don’t know they do).

Just one word of caution: Be careful with editorial suggestions and criticism of others’ work in whatever field you’re in (unless they specifically want you for your editing abilities). Writers should never rock the boat with their superpowers if they want to put food on the table and rent a lake house every now and then.