How I kickstarted my writing career on the side
It was last month (October 2019) when I started my writing career and I have already landed three clients for freelance writing. I recently set-up my PayPal account to accept international payments and received my first set of earnings.
I am excited about what’s coming next for me.
But it wasn’t always like that.
I always liked writing but somehow deferred working on it for the longest time now.
I made all sorts of excuses to convince my mediocre self against starting and always went back to live paycheck to paycheck, getting up every morning, stuffing my backpack with the same lunch boxes, travelling in the crowded suburban trains and rushing to the office to mark my entry before 9:30. Yes, my office has a late coming policy.
That’s my life.
It’s not that I don’t like my job. I am an Equity Research Analyst and I like working on stocks. I love helping people make money in stocks and make some money for myself on the side too.
I like the job because it allows me to continuously learn. Each day I am studying a company, reading a lot and making investment decisions. It screws up my mind sometimes, but that’s what I love about it. I would have been unhappy if I had to do something mundane.
However, as every other writer, I dream of becoming independent, have some more time for writing and ultimately work on my own terms, anytime and from anywhere. I also want to earn enough to make a living and save enough to keep investing in stocks.
Am I asking for too much?
I guess not. It is doable if you ask me. I just need to put 100% of my free time in writing.
That’s what I have started doing now and I am getting the results.
I will also be sharing how I got started later in the post. Keep reading!
Why couldn’t I do it earlier?
I my earlier attempts, I would buy a domain name, set-up a wordpress blog and put a post or two, thinking, people would come by themselves finding my blog.
Guess what?
They came. A total of 10–20 people read my posts in a month. One of them left a spammy comment too.
As always, I would then console my mediocre self, telling him it wouldn’t work.
To make this exercise easier for me, I bought a long-term hosting plan a long time ago. Thanks to the plan, I have a minimum bill on my credit card every month.
The Problem
As Steve Jobs once said, “about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.’’
My earlier attempts were surely half hearted. I would not go beyond a post or two, and give up.
It was a bit of self-doubt too. I would never go about promoting my posts thinking what would people think I’m doing. What if they don’t like it? What if they make fun of me?
It was easy for me to give up especially when nobody knew about this little thing of mine. Even when I failed, nobody knew I did.
I am also a lazy man. It takes a lot to get me moving. That laziness also kept me away from the hard work that I needed to put to take this thing off the ground.
What changed
I came across a blog post while browsing internet one day. A story of a blogger who started in 2015 and gained a popular following writing about personal finance. It hit me hard on the head because this was exactly what I dreamt of doing (writing about personal finance) and it was around the same time (2015) I put my first couple of posts on my dead blog.
I read a few more of his posts the same day and a few more in later days. I was astounded to see all my ideas were there on the blog. This guy had the same ideas and he executed it, while I did nothing. He got rich following his passion while I worked to make someone else rich.
I noticed two things. First, this blogger was not too good in the first few of his posts but he improved later and second, I realised there was enough demand and had I just persisted, I would have been at least mildly successful.
It was exactly when I kicked my lazy ass. I got off and made a plan for myself. A plan to jumpstart my passion. A plan which does not allow me to stop. And, a plan that was executable.
The Plan
As I still have my day job and I am also married, I cannot devote more than 40 hours a week on my writing.
I calculated that I spend 20 hours a week watching Netflix and doing some other unproductive things that I could cut to free up time for writing stuff.
I started watching videos and tutorials, and reading books to improve my writing skills and learn a thing or two about content marketing. I spent my commute time listening to podcasts by famous bloggers and copywriters.
I convinced my wife to not bother me when I am writing. She did not listen to me at first and kept poking me while I was writing. After a point, I stopped paying attention and she obliged. She also helped me get a client which I will write about later in the post.
I bought a new domain wealthypocket.com, set-up a blog and wrote four articles on stock market investing.
In the meantime, I registered myself on every freelancing portal I got my hands on.
How the plan turned out
In the first few days I posted my articles on my blog. I answered a few related questions on Quora and pasted the link to my blog posts there. I got some traffic, few upvotes and decent number of views on my answers.
There was not much activity on my freelancing gigs, just a few appearances and clicks.
I kept myself busy doing and learning new things about writing, blogging, SEO and social media marketing.
In ten days after registering I got my first client from Fiverr. I got another from UpWork the following week.
Unexpectedly, an email landed in my wife’s mailbox from a recruiter through naukri.com (India’s biggest online job seeker portal). This recruiter was looking for a freelance writer to write on finance topics. My wife, no matter how much she was annoyed by my renewed love with my macbook, forwarded the email to me. I followed up diligently and got that job.
Whatever I wrote for these clients, they loved it. They respected my ideas and appreciated my initiatives on delivering high quality content. I get paid more than what I ask for from them.
All three of these clients have regular writing assignments and it can be a long-term arrangement if I keep on delivering.
But now, I have started dreaming of something bigger and I won’t stop this time.
I will save my other plans for my future posts. Stay tuned for more.
Advice for someone who is on the fence
“You simply lose 100% of the bets you don’t take”.
If you are also deferring to do something about your passion, start right now. Bring out at least minimum viable product. You can always improve as you go. And that will be completely fine.
Don’t wait for the day with perfect sunlight and perfect breeze. That day will probably never come.
And, once you start, don’t let initial setbacks demotivate you. Think of it as the feedback.
It’s a loop.You do a thing, get feedback, you improve on it, get more feedback and keep going until you become successful. You won’t believe how enjoyable this process is.
So, wake up, kick your ass and get going.
Thanks for reading
Cheers!
