Write For a Living

When most people think about writing for living or about becoming a professional writer, they think about being a bestselling book author. The reality is that most of us will never get the chance to do so through traditional publishing routes. Fortunately the writing landscape has changed radically over the last decade due to the major influence and integration of technology in our lives.

So what does this mean for the budding author. Well, firstly, that there are many avenues in which to write for and the most dynamic being the internet. This doesn't mean that the traditional author is now extinct, it means that almost anyone can be a read and successful author. The writing industry becoming quite similar to the music industry, where the emphasis is on self publishing to get discovered. It sounds extremely disheartening to most, but one needs to preserve and eventually, enough people will read your work and hopefully the write people. Below are four basic rules to write by:

1. The first and golden rule of writing good work and making a profession out of it, is to read. The key to writing well, whether it be blogging, ghost authoring, SEO tags, screenplays or books, is to read as much literature in your field as possible. You need to know what is out there and how to distinguish between good and bad writing.

2. Language, grammar and punctuation - its imperative that a writer knows the do's and don'ts of their chosen language. Bad grammar and language are unforgivable. As a writer, language and your knowledge, is your most important tool. Learn how to use it properly.

3. Practise - as any professional writer will know, most good pieces have been crafted and reworked many times before the final product is published. Some writers have a knack for writing once, with minor revisions. Unfortunately, the reality is that writing is really hard work and as with anything, practise makes perfect.

4. Get your writing out there - there its hard to accept that its most likely that most aspirant writers will have to get their work out there and read by the masses before anyone picks them up on their radar.

Use these rules as basic guidelines in your writing endeavours. If your choice is internet authoring, I have written a couple of articles on blogging. It is a great tool, but in the age of millions of pieces of information floating about on the internet, be weary of what you put out there, you'd be surprised how hard it is to get it back.