My Way As A Writer

After so many articles that I have written here, I would like to introduce myself to my readers in detail today. If you are wondering what makes the guy tick whose article you are reading here permanently, then you have come to the right place.

Who am I?

My name is René Junge, and I live in Hamburg, Germany. I am 47 years old and have been married to my wife for twenty-two years.

I studied history and then worked in the wind power industry as an office worker for over fourteen years.

If there are two constants in my life, they are curiosity and love of freedom.

I read everything I can get my hands on when it comes to the big questions of life and the connections in our world.

With topics that interest me, I can occupy myself for months. When I have caught fire, I try to find out and understand everything about a topic.

My love of freedom is expressed in my aversion to doing things that are expected of me. My fourteen years on the job have been a valuable experience, but having a boss and having to sit in an office at fixed hours has never fulfilled me.

Nor was having the same income, month after month, what I imagined. I always thought that my income should also be more if I worked more and better.

As a self-employed person, I have this under control myself today.

How I went from being an employee to a freelance writer and where I stand today, you will learn in the next sections.

My career as a thriller writer

I spent seven years working on my first novel, which was published in 2012.

Well, that’s not entirely true, of course. In those seven years, there were always many months in which I didn’t work on my book at all.

I was young and naive, and self-publishing via Amazon KDP had not yet been invented when I typed the first words of my Urban Fantasy novel.

I would find an agent who would sell my manuscript to a publisher and that I would then have to write about one book a year to make a living from it.

This was to turn out to be the first big mistake of my career.

When I look back on my beginnings today, I can hardly believe how far I have come.

I have now published over thirty novels and sold well over 200,000 e-books. On average, I publish a new novel every two months, with an average of 50,000 words. In 2015 I started writing thrillers exclusively. I gave up urban fantasy and horror.

My best month on Amazon earned me 8600 Euros, and again I made a mistake. I assumed that sales would always be this high in the future if I just continued writing at my usual pace and in my two established series.

I quit my 9–5 job a bit more than a year ago, and since then, I have only been a writer.

But every series passes its peak at some point. Over the next few months, my sales became less and less, and I realized that in the future, I could not rely solely on my income, which I earned with my books on Amazon.

I discovered Medium

In February 2019, I discovered Medium. Suddenly there was a platform on which you could write what you wanted and where there was a vast audience. I quickly found stories by Medium authors who were earning several thousand dollars a month.

I wanted that too. That was the second mainstay that I needed so badly. But it wasn’t just the money that appealed to me. I wanted to write whatever I wanted to write.

But the rules on Medium are different from KDP. When I have caught fire, I try to find out and understand everything about a topic.

When I have caught fire, I try to find out and understand everything about a topic.

Nor was having the same income, month after month, what I imagined. I always thought that my income should also be more if I worked more and better.

As a self-employed person, I have this under control myself today.

How I went from being an employee to a freelance writer and where I stand today, you will learn in the next sections.

Where I stand today

My career is in a state of flux right now. I am currently putting more emphasis on my development at Medium and have scaled down the work on my books a bit.

For a few weeks, I have also been taking orders from customers for the first time. So I write web content on order.

Medium and my freelance work are still far from matching my earnings at Amazon KDP, but the growth rates are promising.

A few days ago, I received a request from Dr Mehmet Yildiz. He invited me to write for the new publication Illumination.

When I read the first articles by Yildiz, in which he explained what Illumination is and how we authors and editors would work together, I was on board immediately.

I believe that working with Illumination can take my presence on Medium to the next level. It is already clear that Illumination will be more than just another publication among many.

I look forward to working with my co-authors and the editors of Illumination on an exciting and inspiring journey that will hopefully last many months and years.

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