2 Career Entry Points for New Writers That Won’t Bore You to Death

Time to take that first step?

Wondering how to make a career in writing? There are several entry points into writing: content writing for clients, creating sales pages, writing product descriptions — sigh.

Do we really have to start there?

I’ve done almost every kind of writing you could name in my career, but two entry points stand out.

They’re available to new writers and, as a bonus, won’t make you want to tear out your hair in boredom!

To make use of them now and future proof your career, you just need a little creativity.

A bit of weird, honest, funny, or nerdy helps too!

Enter at your own risk of clickbait

For 10 years, most of my work involved writing services pieces for magazines. You come across service pieces everywhere.

They get a bad rep for clickbait titles at times, but if your service piece delivers what it promises, it can be super useful for readers and a great entry point into writing.

They often have titles like:

• 8 Ways to Get Your Kid to Stop Picking Their Nose
• Every Dating App You Need to Delete This Summer
• How to Quit Reading “How to” Pieces and Actually Do Something

I churned out hundreds of those. And yes, one was about nose picking!

The topics for service pieces are as varied as we are and you can pick your favorites — from cricket to crosswords, fashion to fishing — which makes them fun to research and write.

In the last few years, writing work has shifted slightly. But it’s nothing we can’t handle!

AI can write service pieces — use your human advantage.

You’ve probably heard about AI writers, and maybe it got you worried.

• Can I still be a writer?
• Is AI taking over the writing industry?

Yes and no.

AI is already being used to write news reports, Op-Eds, and all sorts of content online. For now, though, humans are writing most service pieces and while that’s still true, it’s a good income stream.

Services pieces are an easy entry point for writing. Anyone can write them — you don’t need to be an expert.

But here’s where your weird dad jokes, your nerdy love of collecting scrabble tiles, and all the rest of your human quirks come in…

Are you a generic human?

You need to be a little creative to stand out. Creativity is our human advantage. Make use of your quirks!

The biggest mistake new writers make with service pieces is writing stories AI could write. Boring. Generic. Google-able.

Why will an editor pay you for that?

Think outside the box. The world doesn’t need any more articles about drinking water and morning routines! Unless your morning routine is chocolate cake and sex…then maybe you can write a story about it.

There’s still a big demand for original, creative services pieces from writers, but that may change as AI becomes better at them.

It’s the nature of working online. Things change rapidly.

A lot of my work used to be proofreading. When Grammarly came along, work dried up overnight. My little daughter was so mad!

“Mum, the robots stole your job!”

I wasn’t mad. I hated proofreading, but it was work so I did it.

What I really wanted to be doing was writing creatively. As I saw it, Grammarly did me a favor! 90% of my commissioned work now comes from personal essays. Change happens, but for now, services pieces are a great starting place for writers.

Which brings me to the second entry point:

Your real-life human stories are gold.

If you want to get paid as a writer, you need to future proof. Learning to tell your story well is future proofing. It’s today proofing! (Is that a thing?)

Editors are willing to pay for your stories — only you can tell them — and it’s not that hard to learn how to write personal essays.

Honestly. I know you can do it, because I’ve worked with hundreds of new writers.

Most of the writing students I teach end up with a publishable essay on their first try. We’re used to telling our stories verbally to our friends and family, so it’s not a huge shift to writing those stories down.

The main difficulty is answering this question:

“Why would anyone other than my nana care about this story?”

Learn how to write in a way that engages people who don’t know you and you’ll be off running!

If I was starting my career today, I’d learn:

• How to tell my own life stories well — with blogging and personal essays.
• How to write service pieces.

Other useful skills to learn:

• How to edit your own work well, alongside Grammarly or ProwritingAid.
• Studying publications to understand what editors want. Read, read, read!
• Mastering copywriting with a course (like this free training and optional paid course — affiliate link by the way, but a course I personally found really helpful.)
• Practicing in public with feedback from readers, like on Medium or LinkedIn.
• Pitching editors.

What do you still need to learn to help you bring in those extra paydays?

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