Want to Make It as a Writer? Don’t Bother Writing.*

The game has changed. Adapt or die.

I’m old enough to remember when side-hustles were just called hobbies. If you’re younger than me, you probably don’t.

You probably grew up in the era of the gig economy or the now creator economy; where your every meal, sneeze, or fleeting thought had to be posted as a Story or Reel or TikTok. You probably don’t remember doing things just to enjoy them. (Then again, “enjoyment” itself seems like a quaint concept given the state of … everything.)

There were once whole buckets — no, oceans — of time where young adults learned languages, played guitar, bombed at comedy open mics, played tennis, backpacked through the Sierra, and took photographs for no one but themselves. These revelatory pursuits made these people interesting. Sometimes, they even made people money.

Best of all, you once had to ask people to learn what they did. “Oh, you also gaze at stars and read about astrophysics? Please blow my mind!”

God, it was great. Now everything you want to learn about anyone is on their grid or in their bio. Even extras now exude #maincharacter vibes.

I’ve had many hobbies in my lifetime — soccer, golf, hiking, biking, running, trivia, drumming, MDMA, guitar, singing, getting obnoxiously drunk and having casual sex with strangers, fishing, cooking the best Pad Thai a white man’s ever made, Super Mario 3 — but many of them have fallen by the wayside if they haven’t specifically laddered up to “wellness” or “monetization.” I simply don’t have enough time for them. Sad, too— I could still beat the hell out of a tympani.

One hobby above all others has stood the test of time, though. The alpha/omega of my life, the pursuit that brings me by far the most sustained joy, and the craft I appreciate most. It is blacksmithing, woodworking, and coding … all wrapped into one.

Today, we’re going to talk about writing. We’re going to talk about what it means to write, create, and monetize and how to get your name and/or words out there. We’ll talk about the creator economy and the ways you can build your career within and outside of it.

First, we’re going to talk about how I turned my hobby into a hustle, into a sustainable career.

Then, I’m going to tell you a much better way to do that.

You Can Absolutely Clear Six Figures as a Writer

[Author’s Note: Now I’m going to talk dollars and cents. As a warning, this entire stanza is going to sound a paragraphs-long flexathon.]

Good news! You can actually make money doing this shit. Even if you didn’t go to school for it. Even if you’re a late bloomer. Even if you don’t know where to begin.

I didn’t study writing in college. I didn’t put digital pen to paper on purpose until I was 25. I didn’t make a goddamned dime off words till my 30th Birthday.

I’m now about to complete solar circuit №40, and it’ll be my fourth six-figure year in the past five (2018, 2019, 2021, 2022). Neat.

Here’s the timeline on how I got myself broke off:

1. Two weeks before I turned 30, I got my first writing job! As a job as a copywriter at a global tech conglomerate’s in-house agency in 2012. ($55K)
2. I got a raise in 2013. ($60K)
3. I got a raise in 2014. ($64K)
4. 2015: After capably filling in for a writer on another team — same corporation, different division — they made a play at poaching me, triggering a bidding war. Both teams offered raises and promotions. Ultimately, I took less money ($72K vs $77K) to switch, because I enjoyed the work a whole lot more.
5. Later in 2015, I was promoted again, and also converted from a contract worker to a full-time employee, when I was — for the first time — allowed to freely renegotiate my salary. ($83K)
6. In my off-hours, I took my first freelance clients in 2016. ($85K combined)
7. I got a raise in 2017 and took on even more freelance clients. ($92K combined)
8. I got a promotion and another raise, made about $1K a month in freelance, and joined the Medium Partner Program. All in 2018. ($101K combined)
9. In 2019, I got one final raise and an enormous bonus before leaving my corporate gig— I started raking in mega Medium money and had too many freelance clients and new business opportunities to handle a day job anymore. ($117K combined)
10. In 2020, well … 2020 happened. (Any number I throw out here is a blind dart tossed from a moving Vespa, but … maybe $32K?)

11. In 2021, I reeled in a big fish ($90K), then a bunch of little clients and speaking/coaching gigs ($40K), and then a “Medium” client I rarely wrote for. ($136K combined)

12. Welcome to 2022. Same big fish ($45K through June) plus a new retainer client ($15K), a one-off corporate rebrand ($16K), a hodgepodge of other projects ($4K), and about two weeks worth of posts at this place ($1K). ($81K through June 30, if I haven’t cracked $100K by year’s end, then I’ve passed away unexpectedly.)

That’s preposterous skrilla for clacking a keyboard. I’m aware of how ridiculous it seems; it often feels ridiculous.

I did all this without starting young, without hella industry connections, without any schooling, and — until 2021 — without an organized portfolio. I haven’t made it past a resume screener since 2007. I have a psych degree from a state school. Hell, none of the blogs I initially cut my teeth on are even on the Internet anymore.

I also did it without any prominent or monetizable presence on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Substack, Patreon, Udemy, YouTube, Fiverr, Upwork, or Behance.

I can chart my success in five phases:

1. I got one corporate writing job and did extraordinarily well at it
2. I wrote on Medium and did extraordinarily well at it
3. People who knew me for 1 and/or 2 asked me to write for them
4. Those people recommended me to other people, Ad Infinitum
5. I both raised my rates and looked for higher-level work, branching out into things like brand development, creative direction, and speaking engagements

Other than my late and unorthodox beginning, that’s pretty straightforward: do a job, do it well, get paid more, get new jobs, do them well, get paid more.

You can follow this same timeline and find success, but nowadays that’s the hard way. Paradoxically, the shortest distance between starting and succeeding in a writing career isn’t a linear progression.

There are two (relatively) quick ways to build a lucrative writing career. The first involves killing your ego; the second involves encouraging the masses to feed it.

1. Most Great Well-Paid Writers Are Anonymous

Signed, a ghostwriter. That’s where the money is.

I’ve written as authors, actors, politicians, lawyers, brands, CEOs, entrepreneurs, crypto-bros, and AI bots. [Hey, someone’s gotta script those.] I’m not a doctor, but I’ve played one on the Internet. I’ve even been a mattress.

Clients pay me to sound as smart as they think they are — those surprise guest OpEds in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, or San Francisco Chronicle from prominent people who aren’t writers by trade? I write those. Sometimes for $1,000 a pop.

Those clever coaching courses that sound like they come from quirky 20-something white girls with impossibly high levels of spiritual enlightenment? I write that shit, too. [I’m not a woo-girl, but I can write like one for you, girl.]

I’ve written ads, essays, chapters of books, websites, ads, videos, short films, research papers, annual reports, financial prospectuses, love letters, apology letters, and press releases. I even straight-up sent whole columns to TechCrunch so “journalists” could write them while I pocketed $250 and they bolstered their resumes. Millions read my words; no one knows my name.

I’ve been nominated for Emmys, Grammys, Addys, Clios, and Cannes Lions without my name in the same zip code as the nomination forms. [I’ve even filled out the nomination forms.]

Of course, I can’t publicly tell you for what. That violates NDAs, Terms and Conditions, and the unwritten Code of Ghostwriting Ethics.

And I’m not just a ghost … I’m a chameleon. I wrote women’s march speeches for women who spoke at women’s marches. While we’re at it: Black men, Black women, Latinx women, Latinx men, Arab women, South Asian women, South Asian men, and one Indigenous American woman have all asked me to write words assuming their identities. A plurality of them hold elected office.

Words I’ve written — after Lawyers marbled them with their oppressive “Whereas” — have been passed into law.

And yet I’m just one of many like me. Ghostwriters are out hiding in plain sight … everywhere you look.

Mark Manson wrote Will Smith’s first bestseller. (He’s credited. That’s not news.)

Ryan Holliday wrote Lewis Howes’ first bestseller. (He’s not credited. That’s probably news to you.)

Hell, prominent people on this platform don’t write their own shit and even some people on this platform who already write under pen names don’t write their own shit, either. (I’m not naming them. They know who they are; you probably do, too.)

An ocean’s worth of autobiographies, self-help books, ebooks, and memoirs are written by anonymous nobodies who’ve been paid a pittance up front and a percentage on the back.

Why? For the same reason people hire personal drivers, personal chefs, executive assistants, and au pairs. Because they’d rather not do the work themselves, and also because they can.

Yes, behind every* great writer is another better writer. Oh, and that’s to say nothing of editing teams that get short shrift in every imaginable fashion. Editors write way more of what you read than you can possibly imagine. And, yes, I do my fair share of editing, too, unless we’re talking about my own Medium page.

You can do all this, too, and build a long, sustainable, successful career. It’ll be a pretty quiet one, but your name will get whispered with reverence inside certain industry circles. You’ll be the writing equivalent of “your favorite rapper’s favorite rapper.” You will not be Drake or Cardi or Hova; you will be Earl Sweatshirt or Jay Electronica.

[*Okay, not every, but I really wanted that snowclone to work]

2. Go Big Now, Get Good Later

Let’s say you started a bit later than I did. Let’s say you’re also not a pure ghostwriter or copywriter. Your path forward is paved by being very public about what you do and seeming like an awesome hang. The best ability used to be capability; now it’s visibility.

Journalists, authors, poets, marketers, thought leaders, presenters, speakers, and broadcasters all now fall loosely under the umbrella of “creators.” A creator is someone who is very good at managing the components of content: copywriting, design, photography, video, trend analysis, audience segmentation, data- and algorithm-driven execution, project management, and, with rare exception, being someone with whom lots of other people want to spend their time.

Gone are the days of prominent single-medium specialists. Mobile multimedia journalists — commonly called MMJs or MOJOs — soak up the vast majority of beats and bylines for news outlets and even corporate comms departments.

It’s now much easier to parlay a large audience on a platform into a successful writing career than it is to parlay a successful writing career into a large audience on a platform.

First, you gotta be irresistible, then you gotta be inescapable, then you gotta be irreplaceable, then you gotta be inevitable. Writers who brand themselves as writers, and who are highly sought after on social platforms, don’t necessarily write very well at all. In fact, dare I say beyond a certain level of baseline competence, there’s no real incentive to get any better.

If you’re charming, attractive, impeccably branded, and you can develop a couple of middling skill sets, you can flood the public sphere with yourself and rake in opportunity after lucrative opportunity. [Not that it doesn’t take sweat equity, it requires an insane level of effort to nail the formula down and also to be “on” all the time.]

Whether you’re trying to make friends, find love, grow your career, or get something big and positive done, it matters how much you can project the aura of excellence even more than the accumulation of skill in your chosen field. The value you command is tied directly to the size, influence, and enthusiasm of your audience. People will come after you if they think other people are always coming after you.

I’ve written before that if you can be visibly excellent, consistent, and respectful, you can pretty much do or be just about anything. I stand by that. You can be awesome in public while you get good in private. You don’t even have to sound unique, you just have to sound like someone we want to be, chill with, work with, or fuck.

Hell, get good enough at selling yourself and you may just find yourself on shelves. Much like how most post-2016 cookbooks come from folks who make beautiful cooking videos on TikTok or Instagram, most writers with book deals get them because they’re great at … Instagram. Or LinkedIn. And especially Twitter. These aren’t necessarily the best chefs or writers, these are the chefs and writers people can’t get enough of.

Here’s one example: Freelance GAWDess Alex Fasulo — she of CNBC “I made $378K last year on Fiverr” fame — made the bulk of it farming out her services overseas and pocketing all but the living wage of a developing nation. That story didn’t break by happenstance; she also has a formidable PR effort blowing huge gusts in her sails. Her sister’s a popular fitness influencer, and her mom’s her hype-woman, co-investor, and biggest initial financial backer. It takes a village.

Alternatively, you can also grow your empire large enough and you won’t even need to create at all. You can pay other people to do it for you. A high volume of writers with six- and seven-figure follower counts run their own media groups to keep the content engines running.

Gary Vaynerchuk’s an obvious example, but he’s far from unique. Many prominent writers — including many who write about writing — pay copywriters, interns, virtual assistants, social media managers, or even lowly ghostwriters to approximate their voice.

And it works! Most don’t notice and most who know don’t care. If people want to hear your story, it doesn’t matter if you write it … only that it comes from you.

Two Career Paths Diverge

Let’s put a bow on this: You can make great money as a writer — sometimes north of $1,000 a page or $2 per word, after you’ve cut your teeth long enough — so long as you’re willing to put up with probably not receiving credit for it or being able to prove you wrote it.

You can also make great money as a writer by first branding yourself as a writer and all-around interesting person, and garnering a sizable public following.

The first path requires you to get really good at writing; the second path requires you to get really good at becoming a content creator. Those two sets of skills are not the same; they barely even overlap. They’re the difference between killing it as a chef and making it as a restauranteur.

Nowadays, restauranteurs are increasingly hired as chefs.

Compared with yesteryear, popular content creators take up more — and higher profile — jobs in the newsroom, more bylines, more slots on the bestseller lists, more awards and accolades, more panel and speaking appearances, more agency gigs, more money, and more eyeballs in general.

Our predilection for people who convey status, power, sex appeal, and success isn’t new—there’s always been a bias towards charismatic extroverts — but the rise of social and streaming video has accelerated and excaserbated this trend.

The faster you can adapt from purely perfecting your writing craft to proliferating into omnichannel public excellence — video, photo, social strategy, media, etc — the easier time you’ll have getting paid. Not just for your words, but for your presence.

And, if you don’t think we pay people more to hang out with us than perform a job function, you need to take a stroll through a corporate office and see all the chummy and beautiful young professionals who rake in $180K annually to send typo-ridden emails and present jargon-stuffed Google Slide decks they reassembled from other Google Slide decks.

The best writers I know are folks like Ed Yong of The Atlantic, or whoever the hell hammered out the brand voice for Liquid Death. They’re Kitanya Harrison. Truly all about the work. They’re rightfully lauded by those in the know, but they’re not the most visible unless they’re “so good they can’t ignore you” or it’s awards season or they’ve outdone themselves yet again.

And I can’t count the number of jaw-dropping things written by people who exist in the almost total cover of darkness, who will never see their books in stores, and who will almost certainly never think of writing as a “career.” All because they didn’t turn their listicles into carousels, or because they were shy on camera, or because photoshoots and filters and presets and aesthetic consultations are expensive, or because they couldn’t avoid the cringe-triggering “millennial pause.” That’s sad, but that’s reality.

So if you really want to “make it” as a writer, quickly, and if you want to be publicly known for it, lauded for it, sought out for it, and paid handsomely for it, you may want to post everything you learn about what you eventually want to do as a Story or Reel or TikTok.

Curate that grid. Outsource the gruntwork. Open the restaurant. It’s either that or making boatloads of cash in exchange for giving up credit or the rights to your own thoughts. The food doesn’t necessarily have to taste good, but nothing tastes better than a lively ambiance, full tables, and a long waitlist on a Friday night.

Then, when you’re sick of cooking and you’ve got the budget for a real chef, you know who to call. I’m a wizard in the kitchen, but I sure as hell don’t come cheap anymore.

Want more hot career tips? Of course you do. (So do I!) Let’s hang on Instagram or LinkedIn, or become a Medium member.