Yes, Writers Can NOT Focus on Audience-Building (And Still Earn Well)

On enjoying the writing process while earning from it.

I’ll be flying to Iceland for a writing event, where I won a scholarship, in a few days. More details are in the article below. Photo by Shy via Pexels.

I want to share a comment from one of my previous articles that I believe captures a concern many writers here share:

Screenshot provided by Author.

Let’s break this down.

First, there is the pressure to aggressively market your work, especially when you are starting out with no real audience. If you post on Substack or your blog when you have zero audience, you are likely to get very few or no readers. This makes many writers feel compelled to try every social media hack they read about.

But if you are like me, you mostly dislike self-promotion.

Second, there is what I call “low engagement hell.” Many new writers quit after seeing little or no traction on their work. That may be acceptable if writing is not your passion, but if it is your dream career or something you have always wanted to do but procrastinated for life, work, or other reasons, then quitting is not an option. Writing is already damn hard, and it is even harder to earn from writing, yet I am still here because it is what keeps my…