All About Risk & Being a Professional Writer

Video Transcript

REBECCA SATO: Hi. I'm Rebecca with ExpertVillage.com. And we were just talking about if you can make money as a writer and, of course, the answer is yes, you can. But let's talk about how that works and how you make money as a writer. First of all, it's kind of like a lot of different things and, of course, it's different for everyone. And I have to generalize because I don't know everybody's individual market and situations and skill level and experience. So I'm just going to generalize. But writing is like a lot of things where greater the risk, greater the reward. And so you kinda have to determine for yourself where you fit in in that comfort line. When I say greater risk, greater reward, I am talking more about speculative writing whereas--where perhaps, you're putting a lot of time and energy into writing a novel and so you have to come up with characters and you have to [INDISCERNIBLE] the premises. In a lot of cases, people who aren't writers don't understand that coming up with ideas takes a lot of work and time and energy, especially if you're going to do a good job and especially if you're a perfectionist. It's not like you're just throwing ideas at random. You're thinking about it and you put a lot of thought and energy into these characters and these situations and what you want to have happened in the story you're trying to tell. So that kind of thing is obviously a greater risk because you might put a lot of energy into it and not even making a penny. But on the other hand, if it does do well and it does get picked up by a publisher and it does end up signed and you could make millions of dollars theoretically. So of course, you're never going to make millions of dollars off of--I shouldn't say never but it's rare that you can make millions of dollars off of other type of writing such as if you wrote some copy for a pamphlet. You're probably not going to make millions of dollars off of it, but it didn't take so much time or energy. So that's what you need to be aware of. If you want to make money as a writer, a lot of writers will do the stable jobs that are lower reward but lower risk. When I say low reward, I'm not talking about you're not getting paid but you're just not making millions, right? And you can still make a decent income. You can still make a very decent income writing with low-risk type contracts where you know you're making the money and you know what you're doing and then the time frame and all that. So it's kind of--just be aware of that, there is a balance. You can make a lot of money writing either way, but you have to know what you're comfortable with. Are you willing to dedicate three months of your life to get started on a novel that might not go anywhere? Well, you alone can determine that.

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