Why Many Writers Throw In The Towel After Trying Content Creation
The world of online content creators isn't easy and is highly competitive. What should you do when nothing seems to work? How about examining where you publish and why it's not working?
What's your process, and how is it working out for you? Are you enjoying writing and finding success as an online content creator? Or are you writing, struggling to find readers, and not feeling very successful with the endeavor?
Let us explore the second option. What makes someone a successful content creator, allowing them to cut back on the nine-to-five or even eliminate the usual grind? Why haven't you been able to do the same?
Online content creators are a dime a dozen, and writing platforms aren't easy to navigate. The problems are plentiful, and the solutions aren't easy. When considering the platforms you use, have you looked at their tone or vibe?
What's the tone of the platform? Platforms for online content creators suffer from the same issues as newspapers and broadcast news. You don't own them. They aren't operating to represent every voice, and they're only going to push those stories that align with them. It's them that create the problem.
Identifying Problems With Content Platforms
- Values and opinions of the CEOs and management. If your tone and voice don't align, you aren't going to get far. That covers politics, activism, criminal justice, societal change, cultural issues, dating, religion, and life.
- Timeliness. Publications requiring approval before your work goes live don't always keep up with the timeliness of your work.
- Lack of readers. While some publications will quietly push you, others, and the content platforms they're on, will bury you.
- AI. AI was meant to assist the human experience, but in a highly competitive world, people attempted to use it too much.
- Where to publish? If you enjoy writing, you'll dabble in different genres and styles until you find a niche, or until you decide not to. Some with a niche do well, depending on the niche. Others struggle.
- Life and experiences. People like to read real stories, but if you're not a world traveler, expert, or skilled at something unique, you might not have as much to offer.
- The subjective side of writing. Writing is an art form, like painting, music, or photography. As such, some platforms have contests that you could enter with the best-written piece and still not win, despite being within the rules.
In a world with plenty of readers, you find an audience. Finding an audience is the most crucial key to successful content writing. This is why many of the talented content creators I met through VOCAL and MEDIUM are nowhere to be found. Overly subjective contests that not everybody can win have made writing contests less desirable.
It was destined to happen. Any contest that lacks a clear path to winning loses the interest of competitors. The lack of competition makes it less believable. It's akin to the Publishers Clearing House Prize, a prize from a company that filed for bankruptcy this year. Who's still playing that?
Why is it that artistic types are so one-sided? That includes platforms led by artistic types? If your worldview doesn't align with theirs, you're facing a form of censorship. They're not being run by businessmen or women, as evidenced by forever in penny stocks status of a couple of platforms.
Yet, you continue to write, because something in you won't give up on the dream of writing and earning a living doing so. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's up to you, the writer, to figure out how to turn a dead-end proposition into something to be proud of.
Conclusion
These are the top seven reasons why content writing doesn't work out for everyone who tries. It's not an all-inclusive list. But once you get past these issues, if you have some skill with words and are willing to do the work, you might have better luck.
About the Creator
Jason Ray Morton
Writing has become more important as I live with cancer. It's a therapy, it's an escape, and it's a way to do something lasting that hopefully leaves an impression.
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Comments (6)
I am 75 years old with a degree in Nursing, Business, and Journalism. I publish music, stories, and poetry. I write because i love to write and produce music. I worked in the film and music industry in Hollywood. I am no one's competitor and do not want to be. Expression and art and other similar things. I was born that way as Lady GAGA says. i do not enjoy being around a bunch of business people. I am a progressive Californian empath. I like VOCAL. I like THE UNSEALED AND SUBSTACK. Whatever floats your boat!
A lot of how i feel here Jason. I came in ready to create waves...but now i just write to please myself. I subscribed and read a lot of stories, but most of the popular kids just ignored me. So i concentrate on the few generous souls who are here not only for themselves. I agree with a lot of what Misty says as well. The need to concentrate off Vocal after your ink has run dry here,
I wouldn't say I threw in the towel. I moved on. I began writing right here about 4 1/2 years ago. I never shared my work before. Nobody ever read it. I allowed my husband to read something and he pushed me to start sharing it. He saw something I didn't. I won and placed in challenges, we all know that. We all also know my reasons for sort of leaving this platform. I pop in from time to time, but will never pay for a membership again. Jeremy and I didn't exactly see eye to eye. But I also left because it was time to go. Vocal was a stage for me. It's where I dipped my toes in the water, gained confidence, a few friends and learned a great deal about the craft of writing. I never made much money off reads (less than $50 total). My money came from those wins and top stories, LOL. I recently left Medium too, because it was time to move on. For a time, I was pulling down some good coin, but algorhythm changes and honestly, my lack of desire to write anymore changed that. After almost 1000 stories, I just found myself out of words. Not completely, it's just I'm doing other things. I've written a novel that's seeing some decent success. I've been featured in Chicken Soup For the Soul. I'm working on novel #2, while doing the dreaded publicity stuff for the current one (podcasts, etc). That leaves me very little time for other things and no time to give back by reading the work of creators I enjoy, like yourself. Something had to give, and my babbling online was it (you know, aside from comments, LOL). These platforms did exactly what they were meant to do for me: they gave me a launching pad. For that, I will always be grateful. But just like a child outgrows middle school for high school, I outgrew day to day content creation. As for others getting into it, I'd say this; you get out what you put in. Write well, touch people, but also, read the work of others, comment meaningfully, form those relationships. It goes a long way toward building an audience. Some creators are in for the quick buck and it shows. There are no quick bucks, building an audience is work and you need others to work with you. As for niches, I've never had one. Nor did I feel the need to have one. My life is a specialized niche unto itself in some ways. That said, I can see the value for some. AI pisses me off and that's all I'll say about that. But really, from someone who's low key "made it" in the world of writing, the biggest things creators can do to gain an audience are: 1. Write things people want to read. Write from the heart. Write well. Write. Don't plug in some prompt into AI. Write it yourself. Don't be afraid to be imperfect, we all are. 2. Read. When I came to this platform, I sucked hard at fiction! And what is my novel (you know the one that has topped an Amazon best seller list)? Historical fiction! Why? Because I read a shitton of brilliant fiction here and learned from all of it. Read what others are writing, read what intrests you, but read. Again, you get what you give. You want to be read, you gotta get your read on! 3. Engage. Comment meaningfully. And no, I don't mean, "Nicely done, thank you for sharing" Everybody sees through that. Leave a thoughtful comment that shows you've read and given some consideration to the story. That leads to a reply and suddenly, a conversation, and a follow. Rinse, lather, repeat. Those are my thoughts. Sorry for the long comment, I do go on so. But I enjoyed your piece and look forward to catching up on your stuff now that I have more time.
For me , I get discouraged by plagiarism
Which begs the question: What if I don't want to write for commercial success but simply because I believe I have something to say? Ah, let's face it, even assuming that's true it would still be nice to have someone who wants to read it. (And it'd still be nice to win every once in a while, too.) In other words, more sage counsel, Jason.
Well written, Jason! I used to do extremely well with Vocal up until about a year ago. I feel as though I am one of the voices being buried. I am often left off the leaderboard when the data (that Vocal has set) shows as evidence that I should have been on the board. I haven’t complained about it. But it happened again and this time I have contacted them with the data and the proof. I feel that if they’re going to set the criteria and the data then they need to follow it. I do have another platform that I have been looking at over the past month or so And I am very much considering taking all of my work from here over there.