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Making Money as a Writer: Introduction · The Daily Writer

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Daily Rider Podcast, where we bring you tips and inspiration each day to help you build habits for writing success.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: For more resources, including your free Daily Rider Starter Kit, visit DailyRiderLife.com.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Today we're going to begin a series on making money as a writer.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: And this is actually a series that we did at the beginning of the year, but I've had so many conversations with writers about money and business lately that I've decided to actually share this series again and make some updates to it because I want to help you see the possibilities for increasing your income through writing.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now, making money is a topic we're all interested in, of course, but how do you do it on a practical level?
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: And what are your options as a writer?
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think the answers might surprise you.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Let me begin, though, with a quick story.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: I worked as a college professor for 17 years before getting into my business full time a few years ago.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: And during all those years, the faculty at our school were all contracted on an annual basis.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: And we never knew from year to year if we were going to get a contract for the next year.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I hated being in this position, not knowing if I would be employed over the long term.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: And some years we wouldn't get our contracts until the middle of May, and the fiscal year started in June.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so I hated this annual uncertainty that would creep around in my heart and my mind every mid-April.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: And the question wouldn't be resolved until late May, usually about whether I would actually have a job.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I never truly felt like my contract was not going to be renewed.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: There were never any signs the whole time I worked at that school, there were never any signs that I was going to be let go or anything like that.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: But I never really quite knew.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, anything can happen at a workplace or a college or any organization, anything can happen at any time.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I just never really knew until I got that contract if I was going to actually be employed the following school year.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you have a day job and you're working on writing as a side hustle, you can probably relate to this.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: Even though you might like your day job and you might feel secure, the reality is that your job can be taken away at any given moment.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: There's never any true security when that security lies in somebody else's decisions.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you're already working as a part-time or even full-time writer.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: And if that's the case, my guess is that you like to make more money as well.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: So no matter what your situation, this series is going to give you some options for increasing your income and your different income streams as a writer.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: So writing is the hub of what you do, but it's just that.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a hub.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Just like the hub on a bike wheel, writing is the center of what you do, and income streams are like the spokes that emanate out from that hub and they support the broader wheel.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: The spokes are what support you financially.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: The more spokes you have, the more security and stability can you have.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine trying to ride a bike with the hub of the wheel and it literally has one spoke?
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that wheel is going to collapse in about 2.8 seconds, probably faster than that.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: But yet that's how many riders approach their career.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: They have literally one stream of income, and when that feels threatened or when it's taken away, they really are in a bad spot.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't want you to have that.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want you to have that experience of worrying all the time.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: Where's the next paycheck coming up from?
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Where's the next income coming from?
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to develop different income streams and ways to support yourself financially, aside from just writing.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: There are all kinds of things that you could do that emanate out like spokes uh from your writing.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: And we're going to get into those in this series.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Specifically, we're going to dive into 10 different income streams that you can develop as a writer.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not going to be able to go into a lot of detail on each one, but I want to give you a feel for how many different options there are to using your writing skills to create income.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now, to give you a little sneak peek, here are the 10 ways to make money that we're going to be talking about in this series.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: They are book sales, editing and publishing services, coaching, memberships and masterminds, freelance writing, speaking, courses, products, ghostwriting, and affiliates and referrals.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, as I look at that, uh the order of those is actually a little different than what it's going to be in the series, but that's what we're going to cover, even though the order that I just said is actually a little bit off.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now, these are only the tip of the iceberg, but they're many of the most common ways that writers make money with their skills.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I hope that you're looking forward to this series, and I hope that you're going to start considering how you can begin putting some of these income streams into place in your own business.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: So here's today's question: How motivated are you to explore new possibilities for creating income as a writer?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you're really motivated because if you are, and if you're willing to put in some work and put in a little brain juice along with it, I promise you you can increase your income probably faster than you imagined.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, I want to give a big thanks to today's sponsor, which is Plotter.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Speaking of income streams and making money as a writer, one of my, in fact, my my newest sponsor for the show is Plotter, and I'm absolutely thrilled to have the team from Plotter as a sponsor for the show.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Plotter is the number one visual book planning software for writers that helps you plan books in the same way that you think.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: If you've never used Plotter, it's really, really cool.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to encourage you to check it out by going to plotter.com, that's P L O T T R dot com to start a free 14-day free trial.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: When you do that, when you go to their website, you're going to see that they have this really cool visual interface that lets plotting be the creative process it's supposed to be.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the most awesome things about this amazing resource is that it's not just for fiction writers.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Plotter is also a great tool for non-fiction authors, podcasters, speakers, and basically, if you're creating content, it's going to help you organize your material and your story points.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because whatever content you have, there needs to be a story element to it.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I told you a story at the beginning of this episode, and in most episodes of this podcast, there's a story element to it.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Everything we do has a basis in some kind of story for the most part.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: And Plotter is going to help you do that much, much better no matter what kind of communication you do.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: So check it out, plotter at plottr.com, and you can start your free 14 day trial there.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: Give it a shot.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think you're really going to enjoy it.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, my friend, as always, thanks for listening, and I'll see you next time.