Noticing Newbies

I think pretty much everybody starts at it as a hobby or after work project, because you have to make product and get steady sales before you can quit your day job.

So the answer to pursuing professionally is partly tied to whether you can get any fiscal success during the hobby/after hours stage.

You also have to look at what you are making, whether it's a viable product. Some folks are writing really short things, or like you a dream journal. Is that something somebody would buy or is it really just for yourself and a small set of readers?

Whereas, if you are writing short stories and selling them to magazines or what have you, that is an example of getting into the writing industry.

Or you could look into technical writing, or songwriting or jingle writing or script writing, etc which can be somewhat steady gigs if you can get them.

Some people have managed to turn their blog into a book deal, that requires writing a certain kind of way in that you get product-worthy material out of the blog entries. Those blog entries are more like magazine articles or something, which is why they get fingered for book deals.

That doesn't mean stop writing. Just consider that the act of writing is separate from the process of making money at writing.

Personally, I have a specific goal to get some short story work published and then publish a book that sets up series.

The first step for my plan, I think is relatively easy, if you find a local writers group that is assembling an anthology of short stories. Write something good and submit it. I've seen enough of them to know they are usually desperate for submissions.

Get something like that under the belt, then move up to magazines, which I can then reference my prior published work.

The hard part is publishing the book. I'm still researching my options, but I want some street cred with published material.

Technically, I can self publish on Amazon, and that's my fall back plan.

I'm still working out the details, and getting accepted for publication is a big IF as there is a lot of competition in the market.