How to Start a Writing Career in 2024

6 months ago, I wrote this article, which has been viewed thousands of times. After 250 comments and 2024 just around the corner, I thought it was time for a remaster.

Who am I?

I’m a young writer who started writing long-form content about a year and a half ago. Being a non-native speaker, I faced many challenges in building an audience.

Recently, I’ve passed the 30,000 follower mark on Medium. I also have two newsletters that are read by around 1,500 people each.

I don’t really know how to judge the virality of articles. But I have many of them that have exceeded 100 comments. Some others that have exceeded 1k claps. I’ve been lucky enough to have a few writings chosen for republication in major newsletters.

I write mainly non-fiction, fiction, philosophy, poetry…

For the past four months, I’ve been writing daily. Which makes this piece number 120+ in a row.

A few months ago, I started earning money by writing. I’ve been able to turn a passion into a profession. This year has been rich in experience, and this post is here to share a summary of what I’ve learned.

When I started, I didn’t really know where I was going. Or what i was doing. I had no direction. I just wanted to write and hope one day… succeed.

To write this article, I thought about what I would have liked to have known the day I started.

If you want to start writing in 2024 or take writing more seriously, you’re exactly in the right place at the right time.

1) Mental preparation

A) “I am a writer”

It all starts here. I spent months having identity crises. It took me a long time to be cured of this evil. I’ve helped hundreds of writers this year. This is often the main issue.

They have identity conflicts that prevent them from revealing their potential. It’s like in the movies when the hero needs a trigger to get to the next level. The hero is stuck until he embraces who he is. Until he asserts his identity.

• “I don’t feel like a writer”
• “I don’t know if I can call myself a writer”
• “I’m not good enough to be a writer”

Only parasitic thoughts that sabotage a career.

You write = You are a writer.

Why is this so important?

(I’ve gone into more detail here.)

Your emotional state shines through in your words. A writer’s words reveal his soul. If you lack self-confidence, everyone will notice. A writer needs to be confident in his identity to erase his hesitations.

There is a before and an after to the resolution of this conflict. I’ve seen some magnificent transformations. Writing that has been set free.

It all starts here.

B) There is no certainty

I can’t tell you:

• You’ll make it
• You’ll make a lot of money
• Readers will love you

Because I’m not a fortune teller. And because these things are unpredictable.

It will depend largely on:

• You
• Your talent
• Your branding
• The quality of your content
• Your niche
• Your frequency of publication
• The algorithm that carries your content

It may take three months, it may take six. It may take a year. Who knows? Maybe longer. Every career is unique.

I see the creation of a writing career in a three-year cycle:

• The first year is about creation
• The second year is scaling
• The third cycle is consolidation/prosperity

Exactly like creating a business. Often, the first year isn’t profitable because that’s when you plant your seeds. Our fields are fertile, but they need time to bear ripe fruit.

Some will say: “Three years is a long time.”

Yes, it is. No, it isn’t.

Three years in a lifetime to build a solid career, alongside your job, doesn’t seem like an insurmountable investment to me. And, at the end of year 1, even if you don’t necessarily replace a solid income.

With clear ideas and a precise plan, you can even start making an income in the first few months.

C) You can do it

You can start in 2024. No, that’s not too late. If we zoom out, we’re still very early in the social networking era. We have this feeling that the Internet is old. But on the scale of our century, the Internet is new.

New platforms appear every year. There are transformations and changes. And change means opportunity.

There was the era of blogs, then videos, then short videos. Who knows what’s coming tomorrow?

When you start creating content, you position yourself. You put yourself in an environment where you become a player in an ecosystem.

This article is called “How to Start a Writing Career”. A career is decades.

Imagine 20–30 years from now. Is it too late to start in 2024? This will only be another anecdote about your journey.

If you want to be a writer, you need eyes on your writing. The Internet is still one of the best ways to do this. Algorithms need content to feed their plateform.

Why not yours?

Writers who started before me stop. Writers who started after me are much more successful.

Now that we’ve finished the mental preparation, time to get practical.

2) Write

A) The Plan

I advise you to buy notebooks. This will help you get organized. I use colored notebooks to easily find the information I’m looking for. You can also digitally organize everything, your choice.

• One notebook as a diary In this one, you’ll write about your writing adventure. The first step is personal analysis. A series of questions to help you adjust your compass.

What’s my purpose in writing? What do I want to write? What are my areas of expertise? How much time do I give myself to succeed? How much time can I give myself each week to write? How much time can I give myself each week to learn? How many posts will I publish per week? What days will I write? Which platforms will be the best to share my type of content? What content should I create to build my audience? What will my branding look like? What can I do to make it effective? How will I promote my writing? How can I meet other writers? How can I meet readers? What will be my learning routine? What will my self-care routine be?

Take your time. Answer these questions. Then synthesize them into a roadmap. You have to know where you’re going. And how you’re going to get there. The roadmap is the starting point.

B) Choose a platform

We’re on medium, so I assume you’ve chosen this one. It’s a platform I love. Easy to use. A lot of daily readers are ready to discover your content. It’s easy to meet writers AND readers. Plus, you can get paid.

If you’re just starting out and don’t have much time. Focus on a single platform. Once you’ve built up a small audience. That you have the proof of concept that it works for you. Start your email list.

After you’ve chosen the platform, you want to try to understand the platform.

• What content is being read?
• What actions do I need to repeat to grow my audience?

I made a discovery this year. An article can be a hit on medium and fail on substack. And vice versa. The answer is simple: every audience is different. Every reader on every platform has his or her reading habits.

What’s more, content distribution on Medium is special. If you’re starting from scratch, my advice is

• Find publications
• Try to get boosted

You want to get boosted to take advantage of the extra visibility.

If you’re not boosted, it’s not the end of the world. I’ve never had a monetized article boosted because I don’t publish in publications. When I started writing, the boost didn’t exist. But if I had to start again today, that’s the path I’d take.

I will soon be submitting several articles to publications.

3) Routines

I’ll share with you six routines that are at the heart of my creative process. They work in harmony. Each is interconnected with the others.

A) A writing routine you can keep up (for a long time) It will take time to find a routine that works. Lots of tests and retry. Don’t be too hard on yourself. There’s no magic routine. Some writers write once a week and thrive. Others write every day and thrive.

The magic routine is the one in which you thrive.

The most important part of this adventure is to survive. I’ve lost count of writers who have disappeared. Some were even quite gifted.

If you look at the most-read bloggers. For the vast majority of them. They’ve been around for years. Settled into a routine they never abandon.

The success of this adventure is the marriage of discipline and repetition.

B) The audience-building routine It’s all about the comments you leave on other people’s stories. Have a daily routine of a few comments. Try to build genuine relationships with other writers. Be emotionally intelligent.

Don’t leave generic comments. Or comments generated by robots. The vast majority of writers will mute comments written by AI.

Writing comments with AI is an idea that looks brilliant when it’s actually terrible. It’s like shooting yourself in the foot. It’s easy to recognize comments written by AI. Why would I read the work of someone who uses AI as the cornerstone of his communication?

Other people’s comment space is not a place to advertise your work. It’s a place to bond and have fun.

A guiding principle. Don’t do anything you wouldn’t want done to you.

C) The networking routine This is different from the second. Even if it sometimes involves the same means. It could also be the creation of a community, a publication...

You want to network horizontally and vertically (in both directions).

I wrote an article about it. It’s one of my least read and yet one of my most important.

By working with other authors, you can extend your reach. You increase the effectiveness of everything you do. Your work is shared much more often.

Being a lone wolf in writing doesn’t pay.

D) The analytics routine These platforms bless us with analytics tools that we can use or not. If at first, we navigate entirely in the dark. After fifty stories, you’ll have a good idea of what’s working and what’s not.

After more than 200 stories, you have enough data to know exactly what to write and what angle to take. You spot words that work in the titles. You spot patterns that make stories a success.

You’ll know what your audience wants. And how to give it to them.

Every week, you’ll want to take your dedicated analytics notebook and track your progress.

At the end of the statistics:

• This week’s mistakes
• How to improve for the next week

If every week, you correct your mistakes and improve your process. In a few months, you’ll be a machine.

E) A learning routine

The writer’s most formidable weapon is reading. The more you read, the better you’ll get. Read what you’ve always wanted to read. Great works, great authors, poetry, and plays.

Be curious and eclectic.

Then there’s video content, blogs, programs you can follow, training courses…

Every week, you want to set aside time to learn.

F) A self-care routine

As I said a few paragraphs earlier. It’s not the most gifted, the most talented or the one who writes the most beautiful prose who will succeed.

It’s the one that stays standing.

It’s a path that requires a lot of hard work. Butnour will never be far off. And burnout means gameover.

You need to find a routine that allows you to be productive enough. But also a routine you can survive.

A balancing act.

4) Keeping a clear head

It’s hard to write articles like this. Because you have to give enough positive energy to motivate those who read it. You also can’t give too much hopium with unattainable goals.

The method I used seemed safe to me.

In the best of all possible worlds, I try to build my writing career without it affecting my work, my family, and my life.

In reality, I often overran my schedule, my work, my family and my life because I lacked discipline.

I think the healthiest way to do it is to take as few risks as possible. To see writing as a long-term project. To see each week as the laying of a new brick.

That’s why I build while keeping my work on the side, so I can always land on my feet. Build routines that allow me to continue to do BOTH effectively. Build until I can replace my job.

A year later, it still hasn’t happened.

So it’s still an exhausting path. I work during the day. Then I work again in the evening. Almost every day. I’m not complaining, because other people work harder than I do.

I don’t count the times I’ve wanted to quit. I don’t count the times when I’ve asked myself: “Is it worth it?”

The same doubts will run through you. Because all writers experience them.

You’ll have to find your answer.

I think it’s healthy not to be stubborn when things don’t work out. I also think you have to be stubborn to succeed.

Two concepts in total opposition and there will never be any “right” things to do.

This article comes to an end.

I wish you a wonderful year of writing in 2024 and much success in your adventures.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in comments. As usual, if I can help, I will.

This long article of 2000+ words is finished. It’s only the introduction to the course I’m going to publish. I was supposed to release it in November. Then in December. But I’m still polishing it. I want it to be perfect.

It’s coming out soon, and if you want to know when it’s available, join my newsletter.