Tuesday 12 January 2016

How to Tell the Difference Between an Amateur Writer and a Successful Writer (And This Alone Can Significantly Increase Your Income)

“Wooden Figure” by Marcus74id FreeDigitalPhotos.net
 So what’s the difference between an amateur writer who’s making no, or little, income from their writing and a successful writer who publishes one book after another, has thousands of blog followers and earns all their money from their writing?

Well, it’s a secret that not many people know, but it’s so obvious when you can see it.

And the best thing about it, is that even though you might be making this mistake yourself, you can turn it around instantly and it won’t cost you a thing.

Do you know what it is?

It’s attitude.

Amateur writers act like amateur writers. They act as though their writing isn’t good and that no one will want to read it.

They think that what they say isn’t important and so they don’t update and add content to their blogs very often because they don’t have many subscribers and so they think it’s not worth it.

So how can you change that?

Change your attitude and start acting like you’re a successful writer already.

Even if you only have a few subscribers to your blog, don’t let that put you off from writing and posting regularly.

And even if you’ve only written one book and it hasn’t sold well (or not at all) don’t let that stop you from writing many more books.

You see, successful writers write a  lot of books and they blog regularly to their thousands of subscribers.

And you need to do the same.

If you haven’t sold as many books as you would have liked and you don’t have many blog subscribers, how differently would you do things if your book was selling hundreds of copies a week and you had 10,000 subscribers to your blog?

Would you do what you’re doing now and never write another book? And would you do other things instead of writing posts for all your subscribers to keep them interested in your work?

If you’re not making as much money as you’d like to from your writing then change your attitude and start acting like you’re already where you want to be.

Act like it’s already happened. Act as though you’re earning thousands from your book sales. Blog as though you have a huge number of subscribers with more signing up every day.

Fake it till you make it.

Act like you’re already there.

Once you lift your attitude you’ll lift your game and start doing great writing, like you should be doing, and guess what?

As soon as you begin to act like a professional, people will start treating you like one.

You’ll have a shift in your work ethic and you’ll start writing every day, like you should be doing
already.

So if you want to turn things around today, start acting “as if” and start writing.

You already are the successful writer you want to be.

But you just don’t act like it.


2 comments:

  1. This post contains a lot of great encouragement and I agree with almost all of it. I do wish, however, that "amateur" was not equated with "unsuccessful."

    I'd like to remind everyone of the origin of "amateur." From oxforddictionaries.com: Late 18th century: from French, from Italian amatore, from Latin amator 'lover', from amare 'to love'.

    Granted, the second definition says "amateur" is synonymous with "unskillful", but that's an unfortunate cultural twist, in my opinion.

    I believe there are many writers who write for the love of it, rather than trying to make a living at it. I'm not willing to say they are all lazy and unmotivated. What are we to say about Emily Dickinson?

    Although I agree with most of the post, I'd also like to disagree publicly with this statement: "Successful writers write a lot of books..."

    Please don't think I'm commenting to be snarky. I'm a subscriber to the blog and, as I said, I like a lot of this post. I just wanted to say that different folks have different definitions of success, and that one can be an excellent writer and still be an amateur by choice.

    It's also unfortunate that "professional" is usually seen as the opposite of "amateur." Surely most professional writers love what they do, the only difference being it's their job (Also, I'll bet that there are some writers who get paid for doing some writing they do not love).

    Thanks, Ruth, for doing all you do to inspire writers, and thanks for tolerating my standing on my soapbox. Any thoughts?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey David, No need to apologise for giving your honest opinion, after all, it's not against the law to be wrong. :)

      But seriously, I understand completely what you're saying about using the word amateur and successful (professional).

      My blog and my website are all about making money from writing and those who don't publish, don't make money.

      There are many people who are excellent writers, as you say, but they never try to make money form their writing, and there are others (lots of people) who say they want to be a published writer yet they never actually write anything or are too scared to "put it out there" and publish what they write.

      And publishing is so, so easy these days.

      But that's not to say that anyone who keeps writing and keeps publishing their work will keep making money. Only good writers will earn money and bad writers won't.

      Sadly, there are also many people who want to write professionally, but their writing isn't good, and these people need to realise that, just like I know that I'm no artist, in fact, my children could draw better than me while they were still toddlers. As they got older they'd entertain their friends by asking me to draw a dog or a duck so that they could laugh at it.

      Using the word amateur isn't a derogatory term, in my mind, it simply means the opposite of a professional. One gets paid for what they do and one doesn't, kind of like amateur dramatics. These people are good but they just don't get paid for what they do, but it's a great place to start.

      I just think it's great when people with great talent move from amateur (not trying to earn money for what they do) to professional.

      I'm sorry you thought that using the word amateur was derogatory, but I didn't mean it that way, I simply couldn't think of another word to use. Perhaps I should have consulted my thesaurus.

      Glad you're enjoying the blog, my ramblings, and for taking the time to get in touch.

      Delete

Share Your Comments