writing career advice

Reality Check: 7 Questions to Ask Yourself before Quitting Your Day Job By Patty Harder

Reality Check: 7 Questions to Ask Yourself before Quitting Your Day Job By Patty Harder

Before I launched my freelance copywriting business, I spent three full months planning my escape from corporate America. (Four months if you count the month I spent over-thinking whether I should quit my day job . . . or not.) I read Peter Bowerman’s book, The Well-Fed Writer, cover-to-cover. Twice. I built a website and created an online portfolio. I converted my rarely-used formal living room into an office. And I planned my business implementation strategy.
These early efforts paid off. Within 90 days of starting my business, I had replaced my full time income…

Taking the Path Less Traveled By Maria Connor

At 40, after several years as a stay-at-home mom, I returned to college to complete my associate’s degree to make myself more marketable when I returned to the workforce. A medical secretary by default, most of my courses were business related. However, one of my electives, Newspaper Research and Reporting, put me on a new and unexpected career path…

I Must Confess By Russ Heitz

Katy Terrega’s book, It’s A Dirty Job…Writing Porn For Fun And Profit! Includes Paying Markets!, reminded me of my own secret experiences as a writer of confession stories — stories for which I got paid. Did I sell my very first confession story? No. In fact, the first couple stories were flatly rejected without a word. Then, for some unknown reason, I thought, maybe it’s because I’m using my actual name: “Russ Heitz.” Maybe they don’t accept confession stories that are written by men. After all, ninety-nine percent of all confession stories have a first person female narrator. And how could a man possibly know how a woman feels about anything?
When I started using the genderless “R. L. Heitz” on the first page of every manuscript, the Macfadden checks started rolling in.

Go Take A Running Jump! By Nadia Ali

Although I have been freelancing for a while and tackled a few high paying markets, I still find myself looking at the medium paying markets to chase after.
Recently, as I scanned through my market lists, a gig caught my eye. It was a travel writing gig, but then when I saw the pay it said $300.00. It suddenly threw me!