If You’re Just Writing For The Money, Then You’re Not A Writer

You’re a marketer.

“Hmm, bullet journaling.”

-Me, holding a bullet journal book at the bookstore.

I knew nothing about bullet journaling, so I threw the book under my arm and continued to the cashier.

Lord, I had no idea what was in store for me.

I read the first 50 pages of the book in a snap, and after setting it down for the first time I bought an actual bullet journal.

I went from not knowing what bullet journaling was to buying a damn bullet journal in 3 hours.

The point is, I love writing, I love journaling, and I enjoy organizing my life. This system promised to cultivate all three of those things in one convenient place. I’m sold.

It’s no surprise my highest-performing article of all time was also about journaling. It has some 600,000 views.

I tell you all of that to arrive at this simple point: If the internet were to get destroyed in some apocalyptic event, I’d still write every day.

I am in love with writing. I’m fascinated. It feeds my rotten soul.

Contrast that with the the other writers out there. The writers who are very clear that if Medium didn’t pay them, they wouldn’t be writing. These people are more “marketers” than anything, and I don’t believe they really feel any satisfaction from writing alone, which is fine.

What percentage of our working life is filled with meaningful shit? Not a lot, right? Some people view writing as a mental escape. Others see it as a way to further their business. There’s no right or wrong, but there is a more fulfilling way to go about it. Let’s get into all of that right now.

Writing For Money Is A Hollow Experience

If you write for money, and money only, that’s fine. Go ahead and keep doing that.

You’re essentially stripping writing of its meaning, though.

It’s like porn.

Porn isn’t sex. Sure it’s wild and ridiculous but there’s no intimacy involved. There’s levels to it, and when you objectify sex like porn does, you miss out on all the intimacy that actually makes it satisfying.

There’s negligible satisfaction in writing for money.

The only satisfaction that comes is when you make money, but that’s ultimately a hollow experience because money doesn’t do anything for our happiness. It sure can pay the bills, though, so I understand.

Writing — real writing — is satisfying before you hit the publish button, though. Saying what you want to say exactly how you want to say it. Watching the idea you had in your head become something real.

Teardrops hitting the keyboard. Feeling the anger drain from your body as you type. Debating a crucial topic with yourself on paper instead of in your mind. These are all beautiful experiences to have.

My satisfaction as a writer comes before I press publish. The satisfaction for money-hungry writers only comes after they press publish in the form of money.

That’s why I don’t really care about headlines or publishing in big publications anymore. My needs are already met when I write the article — I don’t need to make $1,000 with a post to deem it a worthwhile investment of my time.

From that perspective, it’s infinitely better to write for writing’s sake rather than writing just to make money. There’s far less stress and anxiety involved.

Your Writing Gets Better When There’s A Piece Of You Inside It

My favorite authors tell a lot of personal stories. In my experience, the writers who just write for the money put a lot of other people’s stories in their posts.

Sure, it’s inspiring as all hell to read about some person who used to be in poverty become a millionaire, but I enjoy first-hand accounts from the author more.

I read David Goggins’ book Can’t Hurt Me recently. It was his life story telling tales of ultramarathon running, SEAL team operations, and almost drowning to death at BUD/S.

I finished the book in like four days. It was wildly entertaining.

I read Simon Sinek’s Start With Why a few years back. I nearly vomited reading that worthless sack of bounded paper.

I’d rather take sand paper to my literal eyeball than read that book again.

Simon’s book is so boring because there’s not a lot of him inside it. It’s just a preachy book spouting on about the accomplishments of greater men.

I don’t give a fuck. I’ll watch any interview David Goggins does, but I won’t ever search Simon Sinek’s name on Google.

Typically writers who write for money don’t talk a lot about their experiences. They shoot for virality, and the way to go viral is to talk about all the personal development hacks of Bill Gates.

What about you, though?

Real writing is typically much more personal. You’re writing to exorcise your own demons. You’re not writing to create a listicle about Bill Gates — you’re writing to stop feeling so goddamn bad about something.

And for me, I’m much more drawn to that style of communication. I don’t care about what Steve Jobs did. I care about what you did. I’m reading your article, after all.

Here’s A Secret: You Can Do Both

If you want to go into business as a writer, you need to realize one crucial thing:

You gotta pay the goddamn bills.

There’s a lot of writers I respect who write deep, meaningful articles about past traumatic experience. Then the next article is a personal development listicle. That’s fine, you know?

You gotta play the game. You have to balance the money making with the stuff you actually love to write. In my experience, taking a break from one to focus on the other for a few articles can help significantly with burnout.

Enjoy Writing More

Writing is a gift. It will drastically increase your self-awareness and help with stress and anxiety. Maybe you love writing, but you’re just focused too much on the money.

Just remember: When you write and publish an article, you’re getting a lot of intangible benefits from that that will positively impact your mind. My course focuses a lot on the money you can make on a platform like this one — but I hardly ever talk about the intangible benefits writing gives the user, like self-awareness and stress relief.

That’s why, no matter what happens to the internet, I’ll always write somewhere. I’ve journaled since 2014, and I’ll likely journal for the rest of my life.

Get my free 5-day Medium writing course right here. It’ll teach you how to write five posts per week and become a top writer on Medium. :)