Those of us who have had to work a full time job while launching a writing career know that it’s no easy task, for a variety of reasons. What people sometimes fail to realize is working a day job that has nothing to do with writing can also give you a huge advantage. Being in the workforce can teach you many valuable lessons that can be applied directly to your writing career.
Building Your Brand
Look at any successful writer’s career and all of them have effectively coined their, “brand.” This is consistency...your own unique voice or way of telling a story. Once developed it’s a golden thread that runs through all of your projects and will keep core readers who resonate with your style coming back for more. Working in your intended genre should feel natural and organic, like breathing. When you have identified your natural, “brand” this will be the key to attracting your niche readership. Also, pay close attention to your reputation and guard it with your life.
“Personal branding is about managing your name — even if you don’t own a business — in a world of misinformation, disinformation, and semi-permanent Google records. Going on a date? Chances are that your “blind” date has Googled your name. Going to a job interview? Ditto." – Tim Ferriss
Be Punctual
Respect other people’s time, this one simple act will gain you a lot of respect in any business, especially creative careers. Let’s face it, creative people (myself included) are so often lost in thought we can appear to be scatterbrained and lackadaisical. There is an incredibly talented pool of writers out there and the competition is fierce. Make a serious effort to set yourself apart from the crowd by becoming trustworthy and a pleasure to do business with.
Deliver on Your Promises
You must prove to the world that you’re serious about your career. I learned a valuable secret from working in my corporate career, habitually under promise and over deliver. This not only has a tendency to impress but it takes pressure off of you when trying to juggle many responsibilities at once. If you think you can complete a project in a month, promise it in a month and a half or two months. You will quickly establish a reputation with everyone you deal with for being the rock star that you are.
“Over deliver on promises and deadlines. Show up early, deliver your product early, and deliver more than you promised. Over deliver now, and in the future, you will be overpaid.” - Clay Clark”
Practice Respect (You Get What You Give)
Be respectful and professional with everyone and try to, “Pay It Forward” when you can. Whether people are several rungs higher on the ladder than you are or just on the ground floor of the business they all deserve the same amount of respect. Along with the quality of your work, your reputation is your greatest asset. Once you’ve achieved a certain amount of success in your career writers will flock to you for advice and, at times, it can feel overwhelming.
It has become my practice, as often as possible, to share what I have learned and offer advice when asked. This is one of the main reasons I wanted to write this Indie Author Series. I feel a great affinity towards anyone undertaking creative endeavors, especially writing. Being a writer can be an extremely rough road but sharing the lessons you have learned can save another writer from the pain of your mistakes and help to provide them with the quantum leap they need to be successful.
Stay Positive
Keep your communications positive when posting on your social media outlets. With time, it is very easy to get comfortable and start posting details of your personal life. This is okay to do sometimes because people are naturally curious but it is best to keep the more negative aspects of your life off of social media and to keep certain aspects of your personal life, well, personal. Attract the quality of readers you want by keeping your communications positive. Lift people up, don’t bring them down and they will reward you for it by coming back and continuing to support you and your work.
Also, you will find some readers who, “like” your Facebook author page or upvote your posts may also search your personal social media accounts and request you as a personal friend. Although I value my readers greatly, for obvious reasons, I’m very selective about who I let into my personal life. If I have no personal connection with a person I do not accept the invitation to connect to my personal accounts. As your writing career progresses this practice becomes increasingly important.
Utilizing All Available Resources
Take advantage of any in-house courses that you can apply to your writing career or tuition reimbursement that the company you work for provides. Once you begin to view your day job not as a curse or a burden but as a stepping stone and opportunity to further enhance your writing career it can really spark a shift in perception that improves your mood and outlook as well as the quality of your day to day life. This change in attitude might just save your sanity.
Are you enjoying this Indie Author Series? If so click here to read more.
*I am an American novelist, poet, traveler, and crypto-enthusiast. If you’ve enjoyed my work please sign up for my author newsletter at my website. Newsletter subscribers will receive exclusive updates and special offers and your information will never be sold or shared.
Eric Vance Walton - Media
Excellent article, many valuable tips my friend :) Definitely putting this up on my page ;)
I've recently published a stand alone novel (not one I've put on steemit) in order to get my 'feet wet' so to speak. I just received a physical copy in the mail (very exciting, there's something about that ISBN number...;) to check it over and see if I want to make any changes before I give my husband the Go Ahead with putting it on Amazon and promoting it. The reason I'm telling you this, is the place I chose to go through for this 'experiment' for lack of a better term, is probably not what I would use the next time (Blurb) and since the next time will most likely be for Reborn, I was wondering if you could point me in the direction of a good place to self-publish?
I appreciate your time, and you in general Eric :)
Thank you my friend! WOW that is a huge accomplishment...congratulations and c-e-l-e-b-r-a-t-e this weekend! I just can't say enough good things about Amazon's CreateSpace. I've used many other platforms and nothing else I've tried even compares. This is who I used for my soon-to-be-released meditation book. Please ping me when you publish a link to your book.
That's just what I needed to know, thank you! And I definitely will :)
BUY Crypto, SELL the US toilet paper dollar!
The dollar will begin its 18 year cycle with a 9 year downturn period to the eurocurrencies as it always has done. This will probably be very bullish for precious metals as well.
Check out this post for more on the cycles of weakening US dollar and the current state of the dollar.
https://steemit.com/dollar/@sjovmaiin/the-coming-fall-of-the-us-dollar
Thank you. I'm well aware of the state of fiat currency :)
Great piece of advice, and not only in writing career, In any Business, If we are Punctual in our work, Respectful and Deliver on our promises, We will build a reputation easily and a very big one. A great personality, "Chanakya" Once said, This life of yours is not enough To make mistakes and learn from them, so If you want to be successful, learn from others, and you are helping others in making them learn from your mistakes, what a great work you are doing @ericvancewalton . I was happy to read your post.
I'm glad you enjoyed it, @looftee. Thank you!
And I am Glad you read my comment and replied to it. Thankyou too.
I'm reminded of a Neil Gaiman speech where he talked about being dandelions just create as many seeds as possible because you never know which one will take.
Good comparison, @mctiller!
Good advice. I'm going through something similar myself.
Trying to building up a writing career while having a full time job as well. It's tiring sometimes.
Thanks. It's really tough to have a foot in both worlds. Even now, my biggest challenge is always lack of time. Best of luck with your writing!
Eric , you have a nice clean consise style :) enjoyed the read. I am just posting my first article. I hope to enlighten people on how to enter the world of opening a new business. I am a new business consultant and loss analysis consultant so im hoping to help people avboid mistakes without smothering their ideas :) Thanks for your post I am sure to benefit from it.
Helpful advices! Though falling under "Building your Brand" category, acceptance and making the best out of rejections are also important to keep on mind.
Great work! Thank you for sharing!
Nice to read you again, you present sound advice that applies to many pursuits. As you may or may not have noticed i have been away from steemit for awhile, but now I am back and have been posting for about a week. If you have time check out some of my new stuff @beginningtoend.
It's great to see you back and writing again, @beginningtoend! I hope all is well!
Thanks for asking, everything is good, just some distractions.
Valuable post, and thank you for sharing about how to write as a writer. Nice ! :)
Thanks for reading and for the resteem!
I always enjoy your posts. This one is no exception -- great work!
Thank you so much @redhens! I appreciate your support and kind words. Have a wonderful weekend.
Great info and nice tip for career and business.
Thanks!
Great post! You definitely need some life experience to draw on to write interesting stuff, and you have to have discipline with your habits!
Thanks! That's so true @annhoyblog. You also have to develop a steely resolve and thick skin. It's a challenge in every sense of the word.
excelente publicacion de verdad muy interesante felicidades y muchos exitos en futuras publicaciones ;)
¡Muchas gracias!
de nada :)
I think the majority of this applies to being a visual artist too. Great advice.
Thanks @opheliafu!
Great piece thank you. I just launched my dedicated Space Opera series of short stories today. Your advice will come in handy.
Wonderful! I look forward to reading the short stories!
Please do, I would love to get your feedback, sir. Chapter 1 was posted last night.
Lovely article to read, thank you for sharing this @ericvancewalton ! Good points to take note, which is applicable not only for newbie Steemit community user like myself, but also for my professional work life~
Thank you, @miss.kat and welcome to Steemit!
Thanks for the warm welcome @ericvancewalton ~ Hope to learn more from you and everyone in Steemit community lol! I'm quite amazed by the variety of intelligent conversations and discussions that goes on here!
I enjoyed reading this, and I went through and opened all of the other articles in your series. I'll be reading them throughout the day. Thanks for posting.
Awesome @kbooms! I hope you enjoy the series. Thanks for reading them!
That's a great piece of advice, of always fulfilling your promises before the deadline and making yourself a brand. I am not very good in writing, but I have followed these rules in the translation (of course not comparable to the writing original content) field on Upwork. Always got 5 star ratings there. The only thing which makes me pull back from the writing is inspiration. I just don't know, in which topic I am naturally good at. Till now, only good in commenting, I guess!!!
I appreciate your comment @Siddhartha. Yes, I think any way to make yourself stand out from the competition is in your favor, especially in this gig-economy. Thanks!
Excellent advice, this applies to so many diverse ambitions. Well done Eric, resteemed!
Thank you and I appreciate the resteem @hansikhouse! I hope you enjoy your weekend!