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  • It Took Almost a Decade for This Freelance Writer to Earn $100,000/Year. Here’s How She Did It

    It Took Almost a Decade for This Freelance Writer to Earn $100,000/Year. Here’s How She Did It

    A decade ago — a fresh journalism grad ready to take on the media world — I had no idea what was in store for my career. It was 2008, right when the housing bubble had its messy burst, and I’d landed a job as a reporter at a small newspaper in Indianapolis.

    Though grateful to have a job in my field when fellow classmates were struggling to find work, I wasn’t exactly fond of the small-town journalism life. My editor had me covering three beats: community events, celebrations (as in wedding announcements) and local crime. Some of the work was fulfilling, but the day I wrote a story about a neighborhood’s spate of stolen decorative trees was the day I decided it was time to move on. 

    In a major pivot, I relocated to South Korea.

    Teaching English a second language felt like a “new grad” rite of passage at the time; it provided opportunity to explore the world and pay down lofty student debts. As a budding freelance reporter, it also ensured a solid income with plenty of time to hustle hard in order to find clients and collect clips.

    Long story short, I was able to bolster my client roster enough to try going freelance full time when I returned to the States in late 2009. I told myself I’d ride the freelance wave until I was forced to find a “real desk job,” but no lull ever came and now here I am in 2020 riding (writing?) strong.

    The freelance hustle & self-generating $100K+ of work

    In my early years of full-time freelance I hovered around the $20k income mark. 

    I am the first to admit that I have some privilege that allowed me to keep pushing forward on such a small amount of money. First, it was the early 2010s when things were generally less expensive. Second, I lived in Indiana where rent was (still is) incredibly cheap. I paid $600 a month for a two-bedroom house and split that cost with my partner at the time. Third, I did not (and still do not) have children or others that relied on me for income so there was no great pressure there.

    In 2015, I really began hitting my freelance stride. I aimed to hit $50k — which sounded absolutely insane at the time — and realized that by simply prioritizing my time better, eliminating subpar clients, and hustling extra hard I could easily hit that mark. 

    I successfully reached the goal I set for myself by 2016. In 2017, I pulled $65k and in 2018 I reached $85k. Momentum was on my side, so I seized it. 

    I set a lofty goal of hitting $100k in 2019 and comfortably surpassed it. This year I’m on track to do the same. 

    The pillars of freelance success I abide by 

    I often am asked how to “make it” as a freelance reporter, and my answer is always this: hustle hard and don’t expect success to come easy. I steadfastly follow these personal pillars.

    1. Be reliable 

    Editors want to work with someone who they can consistently count on. 

    That doesn’t just mean submitting a story on time which is the bare bones basic requirement of being a reporter. It means submitting clean, well-reported copy. It means promptly answering emails with assignment letters or questions. It means being available for edits, and not giving sass even while licking wounds to your writer’s ego.

    2. Nurture existing business relationships

    Don’t be a stranger to your editors. 

    Email them periodically to let them know you’re available for work. Ask what their specific content needs are. Get a feel for which of your stories have done well on the site. Ask for light feedback on rejected pitches so you refine your approach. Be professional, but also keep in mind that there’s a real person on the other end and it’s OK to have friendly interactions! 

    3. Never stop pitching new outlets

    This is journalism — publications sunset, editorial needs change, sometimes all writing is moved in house. 

    I learned the importance of not putting all your eggs in one basket the hard way early on in my freelance career. While anchor clients (AKA pubs that give you consistent monthly work) are necessary to feel like you have solid footing as a freelancer, it’s important to not put all your faith into anchors. I always make sure that no more than 20 percent of my income comes from a single client. To do that, I pitch new outlets on a monthly basis. When a publication folds, look at it as an opportunity to pitch even more. 

    4. Ask for more money & eliminate deadweight clients

    Clients that suck your time for little pay aren’t worth it. Prioritize clients that have a streamlined editorial process, are reasonable with edit requests, timely and reliable, and that meet your rate. When pitching new outlets and negotiating rates, always ask for more money. The worst that can happen is that they say no and you’re paid the lower rate. 

    Outlets expect you to ask for more; very rarely will they slam the door in your face, especially if you’re professional and reasonable in your request. At the beginning of every year, ask for a rate increase with existing pubs.

    If you’re currently writing for low-paying clients or a client that sucks up a lot of your time, negotiate a new rate right now and/or scale back the amount of work you’re doing for them while seeking better paying opportunities. It might be scary to eliminate clients, scale back, or ask for more money, but trust me on this one.

    5. Accept and lean into the worry

    Every successful freelancer reporter I’ve ever met has an ongoing undercurrent of fear. 

    There’s worry that all your clients will dry up next month, that an editor is going to change their mind about you, that the entire industry will collapse. Don’t let these fears overwhelm you, but do know that it’s normal and, in fact, what fuels your drive for success and gives you momentum. When feeling anxious, channel that energy into finding new outlets to pitch or formulate new pitches to send to existing clients.

    6. Create firm work boundaries

    In order to stay sane — especially as a freelance reporter working from home — it’s imperative to create work boundaries. 

    This is also a lesson I learned the hard way. Personally, I close my computer by 7 p.m. and do not work on weekends unless absolutely necessary (for reference, this might happen once every couple of months). As a creative person, you need that personal time to refuel and it will actually improve your writing and overall momentum.  

    Photo via GuadiLab / Shutterstock 

  • A Complete Guide to Understanding, Obtaining and Using an ISBN for Your Book

    A Complete Guide to Understanding, Obtaining and Using an ISBN for Your Book

    When you set out to write and figure out how to self-publish a book, you probably had no idea how much would be involved in the process.

    Sure, you knew it would be a lot of work. But now that you’re nearing the finish line, you realize how many extra steps you’ve had to take that you never before realized would be required. 

    We’re not just talking about book editing, revising and how to format a book. We’re also talking about choosing a self-publishing platform like Amazon self-publishing, marketing, and yes…getting an ISBN. 

    What is an ISBN? 

    Every book that ever makes it to print and becomes available for public sale, whether through traditional or self-publishing, requires an International Standard Book Number (ISBN). 

    These are unique 13-digit numbers (previously 10 digits, prior to December 2006) that help identify your book to libraries and book sellers, both online and on the street. The ISBN system is internationally used and recognized and the numbers within the ISBN represent five key elements:

    • A standard prefix
    • The country, geographical region, or language the book was published within
    • The publisher or imprint responsible for the book
    • The edition or format of the book
    • A single digit used to mathematically validate the rest of the number

    What isn’t an ISBN?

    An ISBN does not represent your copyright to the material. It doesn’t provide any legal protection to your creative work at all. It is purely an number meant to help identify your book to distributors, libraries, and booksellers around the world.   

    Why do you need an ISBN?

    If you want your book to be sold and read anywhere beyond your own garage, you need an ISBN. 

    Without one, those already mentioned distributors, libraries and retailers won’t consider it a real book, and you will never have the opportunity to market your words to a larger audience. 

    How many ISBNs will you need?

    Different formats require different ISBNs, even for the same book title. So if you are publishing a hard cover, a soft cover, an audiobook, and an e-book version, your book would require four ISBNs. 

    Additionally, if you make substantial changes to your book after publication so that the updated version would be considered a new edition, if you change the title or subtitle, or if you publish a version in larger print, you will also need a new ISBN for that. And if your book is published in multiple languages, each language version will need its own ISBN. 

    As you can see, a single book title can require quite a few ISBNs if you are aiming for multiple versions of that title. But for most self-publishers, an e-book and paperback ISBN will suffice. 

    Using a free ISBN

    Once your book is completed, and you’ve selected a self-publishing platform, your first step should be to check to see if your self-publishing platform will provide a free ISBN as part of the publishing process. Some do, some don’t. 

    And in some cases, you may be able to receive a free ISBN for some versions of your book, but will need to purchase the ISBN for others (for instance, you may be able to get a free ISBN for your ebook, but have to purchase one for your paperback). 

    You might want to consider whether you will ever want to publish your book through a different platform. If that is a possibility, purchasing an ISBN may be a better option, as those provided for free through publishing platforms are generally only good through that platform. 

    If you want to be able to carry your ISBN with your book wherever it is published, it might be worthwhile to purchase one. Even if you could otherwise get it for free through your publishing platform. 

    How to purchase your ISBN

    The good news is, obtaining an ISBN for your book is a relatively simple process. 

    • If you are located in the United States, you will want to purchase yours through Bowker.
    • If you decide to purchase your own ISBN, Canadian residents can obtain theirs for free through ISBN Canada.
    • And those living in the UK, Ireland or British Overseas Territories can purchase their ISBNs through the Nielsen ISBN Store.
    • If you are located anywhere else, the International ISBN Agency can help you locate which agency you should be purchasing through. There are over 150 ISBN agencies in 200 countries, so rest assured there is one available to you. 

    How much does an ISBN cost?

    The current cost of an ISBN through Bowker is $125 for a single ISBN number. However, Bowker also offers packages for those who see themselves doing more self-publishing in the future, or authors who are planning on publishing their book in various formats. You can purchase 10 ISBNS for $295. There are also options for purchasing 100 or 1,000 ISBNs at a time, but these are generally best suited for small publishers intent on publishing quite a few books over the next several years. 

    If you do purchase a package with multiple ISBNs, you do not have to assign them right way. You can save your additional ISBNs until your next book is ready for publication. Your ISBN numbers will never go bad or expire. 

    What to do with your ISBN once you have it

    Once you have your ISBN, you should register it through Bowkerlink (or look for the registration site affiliated with your national ISBN agency). From there, you simply need to place your ISBN on your copyright page and provide it to your self-publishing platforms. You will also want to publish it on your back cover, above the barcode. 

    That’s it!

    Your book is ready to be distributed to libraries and retailers. Or at least, it will be once you complete the publishing process!

    Photo via Dean Drobot/ Shutterstock 

  • When is the Right Time to Hire a Book Editor?

    When is the Right Time to Hire a Book Editor?

    First-time authors sometimes make a grave mistake when seeking a book editor for their first manuscript.

    When I started as a freelance editor, I couldn’t put my finger on the problem. But, as my client list grew, I realized why I was secretly getting frustrated with a few of their books.

    Highly experienced editor Shawn Coyne expresses the problem succinctly and memorably: “A lot of people just want to dump their goo on an editor and have the editor form that into something for them.”

    When weary writers submit their premature manuscripts to editors too soon, both parties will inevitably become frustrated.

    For the most part, I don’t believe first-time authors do this knowingly. They just don’t know any better. They’ve written what they believe is a workable first draft, and because they want to do the process right, they begin looking for editors for hire.

    But a first draft should never be sent to an editor, unless you’re working with — and willing to pay — a developmental editor to help you create a workable draft.

    Why premature manuscript submissions happen

    Authors who submit under-cooked books are subconsciously motivated by the twin specters that haunt every writer, every day: fear and resistance.

    They may fear they don’t have what it takes to be “a serious writer,” so they send their “goo” to an editor in the hopes that the editor can affirm their work and make it monumentally better.

    Unwittingly, these authors place the burden of failure (or success) onto their editors’ shoulders.

    Or, maybe the writer has been working on their book for three months, or a year, or many years, and they’re so tired of looking at the thing that they send it off because they just want to be done with the process. In Steven Pressfield’s parlance from The War of Art, that’s Resistance.

    In fact, Pressfield writes, “Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance. Therefore the more fear we feel about a specific enterprise, the more certain we can be that that enterprise is important to us and to the growth of our soul. That’s why we feel so much Resistance. If it meant nothing to us, there’d be no Resistance.”

    How much does a first-time author’s first book mean to them? The world.

    So how much Resistance can they expect? Planet-sized.

    When you’re up against a foe like that, I don’t blame authors who’d rather have the editor fight that battle.

    But that’s not our job. As the writer, this is your fight.

    When should I start reviewing editors for hire?

    The question that arises then is: When is the right time to hire an editor?

    Consider these questions, and be brutally honest with yourself in answering them before figuring out how to find an editor:

    • Have I done as much as I can to make my manuscript the best I can?
    • Am I looking for an editor because I’m tired of looking at my manuscript?
    • Have I attempted any book editing on my own?
    • Has any experienced writer read my work-in-progress or early drafts? (Tip: find a local writing group or critique group.)
    • Do I need to learn more about the craft of writing before proceeding with further work on my book?
    • Do I have the nagging feeling that something undefinable isn’t quite working in my manuscript?
    • Do I understand the cost, both in time and money (freelance editing rates), of hiring a professional editor, and have I budgeted for both?
    • Do I know the difference between developmental editing and copyediting? And if I’m tired of working on my book but want to get it done, do I have the budget to hire a developmental editor to help me cross the finish line?
    • If you’re self-publishing: Am I rushing the process simply to crank out another book?
    • Am I sending my book to an editor because I’m afraid I don’t have what it takes to be a writer? In other words, am I hoping that a professional editor can shape my goo into the masterpiece I have in my mind?

    The real question before looking for editors for hire

    I hear the fear that sits within every writer’s heart when a first-time author and client asks me that one question I dread: What do you think of my book?

    What they’re actually asking is: Is it any good?

    If an editor answers that question — they often won’t unless they’ve been hired for a manuscript critique — they’re likely going to be bluntly honest. Why?

    If they’re experienced and good at what they do, they’ve read a ton of books. They know the industry. They know what’s considered publishable. And they will stack that knowledge against your book, and your book may not come out looking so well.

    Every writer suffers from doubt that their book will be good or even acceptable.

    When John Steinbeck wrote East of Eden — a phenomenal book — he recorded this in his journal, which was later published in Journal of a Novel: “I know it is the best book I have ever done. I don’t know whether it is good enough.”

    To me, that’s one of the more astounding admissions of self-doubt from a writer who had experienced both critical and commercial success. In other words, even Steinbeck feared that the “goo” of his manuscript wasn’t ready.

    Steinbeck needed at least six years to write East of Eden based on notes he’d taken about the Salinas Valley for most of his life. Arguably, he needed his lifetime to write what he considered his masterpiece. He wrote, “I think everything else I have written has been, in a sense, practice for this.”

    Toward the end of that years-long journey, as he dove headlong into finishing East of Eden, Steinbeck wrote letters to his friend and editor, Pascal Covici, which were posthumously published in Journal of a Novel in 1968.

    When considering whether or not your book is ready for an editor, think about Steinbeck’s challenge to himself: “You can’t train for something all your life and then have it fall short because you are hurrying to get it finished.”

    Writer, this is your fight. If it’s your first, prepare for 15 rounds.

    This is an updated version of a story that was previously published. We update our posts as often as possible to ensure they’re useful for our readers.

    Photo via GuadiLab / Shutterstock 

  • Can You Earn Money Through Substack? These 8 Writers Prove You Can

    Can You Earn Money Through Substack? These 8 Writers Prove You Can

    Since its launch in 2017, Substack has quickly drawn attention from the media industry for its potential to launch a new business model for writers.

    The platform’s simplest promise — making it easy to set up a subscription and collect payment from readers — has writers’ attention. Is this is the new place we have to be to make money writing?

    How writers earn money through Substack

    Substack is an email list platform for writers. It helps you do everything other platforms do — accept subscribers, send emails, see analytics, manage an email list — plus, it facilitates a paid subscription model.

    It’s one of the easiest business ventures to set up technically: Create an account and a publication with Substack in about five minutes, import your email list if you have one and set up or connect a Stripe account to receive payments.

    Readers subscribe monthly or annually, and most publications offer a discount for the annual subscription. Substack also recommends publishing some free editions to let readers test the waters before paying.

    A $5-per-month and $50-per-year price level is common. But Bill Bishop’s “Sinocism,” the platform’s first official newsletter, according to Nieman Lab, charges $15 per month and $168 per year. Others charge $60 or $100 per year, so you can land on a price point that works for you and your audience.

    If your publication is free, you can use Substack for free. If you charge for a paid subscription, Substack keeps 10 percent of the subscription proceeds plus about 3 percent in processing fees.

    Who is Substack for?

    Anyone can start a publication on Substack; sign up is free, and you don’t have to meet any requirements.

    Early adopters and currently popular newsletters are largely about tech, politics and popular culture, written by journalists in those beats as a side hustle or a career change after leaving a media company.

    You don’t need a huge subscriber base to make a paid newsletter worth it — 200 subscribers paying $5 a month means $1,000 (about $870 after fees) each month for writing one to four newsletters per week. Plus, the volume of work doesn’t increase as revenue increases.

    However, building that base of paid subscribers can be significantly harder than building one for a free subscription. 

    For example, tech writer Jared Newman built a base of 17,000 subscribers for his free newsletter, “Cord Cutter Weekly,” largely thanks to his ability to promote it in his tech-industry articles, he writes for Fast Company. From that base, he gained 200 subscribers in a year for a paid spinoff newsletter, “Advisorator.”

    Substack says about 10 percent of a newsletter’s subscribers typically become paid subscribers. So if you want 200 to pay, aim for 2,000 total on your free list. (Also consider that Substack’s early newsletters, from which it pulls those stats, are relatively niche or run by authors recruited because of their loyal audiences.)

    8 writers who earn money through Substack newsletters

    To give you a better idea of who’s using Substack successfully, here are eight writers who earn money through the platform, plus some details about how they do it.

    1. Emily Atkin: ‘Heated’

    • Topic: Climate science and politics
    • Price: $8 per month or $75 per year

    Emily Atkin has been a climate reporter since 2013, first at ThinkProgress, then at The New Republic, in addition to contributing to other publications. But she believed climate reporting could be better than it was at traditional publications.

    Atkin left her full-time job to launch “Heated” in September 2019 and deliver daily original reporting and analysis on the climate crisis. The newsletter is already among the most popular on Substack, with thousands of subscribers paying $8 per month.

    “I’m hoping this will pay for better reporting, so that I can go to more places and talk to more people,” Atkin told Storybench last year.

    2. Jacob Cohen Donnelly: ‘A Media Operator’

    • Topic: Media business
    • Price: $10 per month or $100 per year

    Jacob Cohen Donnelly, managing director of audience and growth at cryptocurrency site CoinDesk, created “A Media Operator” in August 2019 to write about the business side of building a media business.

    “I believe that, to do a newsletter well, it’s important to think about it as its own standalone product,” Donnelly writes in a recent post for AMO.

    Donnelly has worked in media for nearly a decade, as a freelance writer and a marketer. Through AMO, he shares his insight on how the news is covered, plus which trendy tools and products (such as Substack) are worth your time when building a media business.

    3. Nicole Cliffe: ‘Nicole Knows’

    • Topic: Personal, pop culture
    • Price: $5 per month or $50 per year

    Nicole Cliffe is a freelance writer who pens Slate’s parenting advice column, “Care and Feeding,” and was the co-founder of the now-defunct site The Toast.

    She has been publishing “Nicole Knows,” a potpourri of beauty, pop culture and general life observations and advice since February 2018. 

    It was among the pilot newsletters for Substack’s “community” feature, launched last year, which supports discussion threads for newsletter subscribers. Whether discussing memes, new movies or parenting quandaries, the “Nicole Knows” community remains engaged.

    Substack lists the newsletter among the site’s most popular. “Nicole Knows” is a rare non-niche newsletter that’s killing it on the platform — so take notes if you want to build an audience on the strength of your voice and personal brand.

    4. Judd Legum: ‘Popular Information’

    • Topic: Politics
    • Price: $6 per month or $50 per year

    Judd Legum, the founder and editor of political news site ThinkProgress, put together “Popular Information,” a daily newsletter of in-depth information and analysis on government and politics. It’s one of Substack’s most popular, with thousands of subscribers.

    As Atkin does with Heated, with “Popular Information,” Legum addresses a weakness in conventional reporting in his niche. 

    “There’s something fundamentally broken about news delivery as a process,” Legum told Wired ahead of the newsletter’s launch in 2018. “…I’ve felt more and more strongly that I wanted to start something new that could circumvent the system.”

    While general and political news publications rely on horserace reporting to draw readers’ attention, Legum uses the subscription model to build trust and loyalty, and curate an audience eager to read more in-depth reporting.

    5. Luke O’Neil: ‘Welcome to Hell World’

    • Topic: Culture and politics
    • Price: $6.66 per month or $69 per year

    After 15 years as a journalist, Luke O’Neil launched his newsletter, “Welcome to Hell World,” in 2018 to share reporting and personal essays on a variety of topics, tied together with the theme of the world’s transformation into, in O’Neil’s words, a “pit of despair.”

    Through the newsletter, he wanted to cut through the niceties of traditional news writing and get the opportunity to speak about how upsetting things like “baby jails” are to him, even as he’s reporting on them.

    Creating a direct relationship with readers through the newsletter subscription lets him do that in a way he never could when he wrote for publications like Esquire, The Wall Street Journal and The Guardian.

    “It’s kind of cool, instead of working for f—ing Hearst, which is a billion-dollar company with thousands of middle managers, just working for the people who read my newsletter,” O’Neil told WBUR last year.

    In addition to revenue from the newsletter — 1,100 paid subscribers out of 7,000 total as of July 2019 — the newsletter garnered O’Neil a book deal. Indie publisher OR Books approached him to turn his essays into a book, and it released “Welcome to Hell World” (the book) in September 2019.

    6: Heather Havrilesky: ‘Ask Molly’

    • Topic: Personal
    • Price: $5 per month or $50 per year

    Heather Havrilesky is an essayist who writes the relationship and lifestyle advice column “Ask Polly” for “New York” magazine’s “The Cut.” Molly is “Polly’s evil twin,” Havrilesky’s outlet for all the things polite and uplifting Polly can’t say.

    Despite its parallel to the advice column’s name, Ask Molly isn’t strictly advice. Newsletters include Havrilesky’s personal essays on life and culture in addition to responses to reader questions.

    Havrilesky has been dolling out advice professionally since the mid-90s, starting with a now-defunct online magazine called “Suck,” and she’s a pioneer in online media. 

    She kept the advice going at her own blog for about 10 years after “Suck” shuttered in 2001, pitched it to “The Awl” and finally caught the eye of “New York” magazine, which invited her to write the column’s current iteration.

    With the “evil twin” lens in “Ask Molly,” Havrilesky has found a clever way to spin off a personal brand on the shoulders of her popularity in traditional media.

    7. Sophie Brookover and Margaret Willison: ‘Two Bossy Dames’

    • Topic: Pop culture
    • Price: $7 per month or $70 per year

    The pop culture–obsessed publication “Two Bossy Dames” is a case study in emerging platforms over the past half decade.

    It started as a Tumblr blog, launched subscriptions on Tinyletter, garnered supporters on Patreon and, in 2018, migrated to Substack to put publishing and revenue in one place. Its content has shown up on Medium, and it has a relatively small but engaged Twitter following.

    According to Substack, Two Bossy Dames makes the authors a significant side income, but isn’t their full-time job. Each of the writers, Sophie Brookover and Margaret Willison, keeps busy with other work, as librarians and culture writers.

    8. Ryan O’Hanlon: ‘No Grass in the Clouds’

    • Topic: Soccer analysis
    • Price: $7 per month or $70 per year

    Ryan O’Hanlon is another creator Substack notes as a successful side hustler on the platform, and his newsletter, “No Grass in the Clouds,” is a good example of finding success in a narrow niche: soccer through an analytics lens.

    O’Hanlon is a freelance writer and host of the soccer podcast “Infinite Football,” previously a senior editor at sports and culture site The Ringer, where he hosted a (different) soccer podcast. He’s also a former collegiate soccer player — he’s well-suited for his niche.

    Launched in December 2018, “No Grass in the Clouds” promotes O’Hanlon’s podcast, shares his essays on the sport, and publishes analysis and news for paying subscribers.

    Alternatives to Substack

    Substack is often the first brand we connect with paid newsletters, but it has competitors and alternatives.

    • Campaignzee is MailChimp’s built-in way to sell subscriptions that integrates your MailChimp and Stripe accounts. It charges 10 percent of subscription fees, plus processing fees and MailChimp’s regularly monthly cost if you have more than 2,000 subscribers.
    • Patreon lets supporters subscribe for exclusive perks and updates from creators across media — from video producers and podcasts to authors and visual artists. Study Hall is an example of how to use the platform to create a paid newsletter.
    • Buy Me A Coffee lets writers and creators start a page and add buttons to your website or newsletter. It has a Patreon vibe, but it lets supporters make one-time donations instead of requiring recurring subscriptions.
    • Revue is an email marketing service that, like Substack, gives you the option to add a paid version of your newsletter. It’s a lot more expensive, though, and designed more for publishing teams than individuals.
    • Or you can DIY. For “Advisorator,” for example, Newman simply collects email and payment information through Stripe. You could use a service like PayPal or e-junkie to do the same and send emails though your preferred service. It’d require a little more heavy lifting, but you’d keep more of what subscribers pay.

    The challenge to a successful paid newsletter

    The ability to make money as a writer feels increasingly threatened by shuttering media companies, rolling layoffs and growing competition.

    Many experts laud the (re)emerging subscription model as a way for writers to take success into their own hands, cut out the intermediary and make money directly from readers.

    But — like profiles of early successes in blogging — promises of the logistical ease ignore a serious barrier to a lucrative subscription business: building an audience.

    “Directly singing for your supper to readers is always going to prioritize people who already have an audience, who already have a certain amount of privilege, or who are speaking to an audience that has a certain amount of money,” newsletter pioneer Ann Friedman told Vanity Fair’s Claire Landsbaum.

    Many successful Substack writers built audiences by writing for traditional publications first — many in a very different media landscape. It might be wishful thinking for a new writer to try to follow their example when the path has already shifted so much.

    Similarly, while a platform like Substack ostensibly helps with discovery, the company benefits most by supporting the most successful creators. It grew by recruiting writers with large audiences, and it would be wise to continue to nurture those brands.

    Can writers make money on Substack?

    Like media platforms before it — see: Medium, YouTube, Patreon, Kindle — Substack eliminates incredible tech barriers for creators, allowing you to focus on creating while delivering your content where your audience wants it. 

    Ultimately, however, your success on these platforms depends on your ability to develop your own brand and cultivate a loyal audience.

    Photo via GuadiLab / Shutterstock 
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  • How to Write a Profile Story: 8 Tips for a Compelling Piece

    How to Write a Profile Story: 8 Tips for a Compelling Piece

    From about us pages to blogs, feature profiles are used to communicate a business’ brand, but also to put a human face on a business. By creating a compelling story, good profile writers can benefit from this high-need area of freelance writing.

    Profile writing involves disparate parts of the brain in order to produce an emotionally involving piece. An effective profile comes from thorough research, thoughtful interview questions and an ability to organize large amounts of information into a concise story.

    Here’s how to write a profile story, in eight easy-to-follow steps.

    1. Research your subject—a lot

    For my first profile assignment, I interviewed a jazz great who enjoyed a five-decade career in music. Being young and unaware of his music, I asked him how long he’d been playing. The musician playfully laughed at me and replied that he had been playing most of his life. He then asked me if I knew anything about him. The feeling of embarrassment sunk the rest of my interview.

    But from this defeat, I learned the importance of researching my subject.

    Your goal should be to understand your subject’s point of view before the interview begins if you hope to capture that person’s journey.

    Start by thoroughly reading their website. If the business or individual maintains a blog, you will want to read their posts to understand their identity. This will clue you into what’s important to your subject.

    Then explore articles written about your subject in other publications. What’s the general angle of these articles? Is there any information that’s repeated again and again? This will help differentiate yourself from previous material written about the same subject.

    2. Create questions that linger

    When interviewing, the worst thing you can hear from a response is “yes” or “no.”

    Try to focus your questions on material your subject is passionate about, and don’t ask questions that can be answered with a simple “yes” or “no.” Start phases with: “Can you tell me about?” or “Why did you…?”

    This gives your subject the opportunity to go “off script” and share unique details about their story in a way that makes them feel comfortable.

    3. Let your subject to do 90 percent of the talking

    It may be tempting to interrupt your subject with your own commentary, but resist this at all costs.

    Interrupting cuts into your subject’s flow, which will result in glossing over important information. Through digressions, subjects will often provide entertaining stories. These stories can further illustrate your subject’s unique personality.

    Do not be afraid of pauses and silence. Sometimes this means your subject is thinking about your question, and giving them time will elicit more detailed answers.

    For others, silence creates a bit of awkwardness, which they might be eager to fill by sharing a story they might not have otherwise shared.

    4. Record your interviews

    Handwritten notes are great, but it can be difficult to record every word a subject says. Mistakes in note-taking can be costly when it comes time to write the profile.

    And you certainly don’t want to rely on your memory. Get comfortable with a recording app in advance to ensure you capture your entire interview.

    5. Develop your angle

    Profiles need an angle, or a specific focus to sustain the reader’s attention.

    A unique angle will set your profile apart from the other material written on the same subject. Use an angle that’s newsworthy or contains the essence of the business’ philosophy. Profiles that are simply a list of things that happened are rarely interesting.

    When reviewing your interview and notes, find a theme that links together the material. For example, if your subject talks about failures that led to their success, the theme of persistence in the face of failure can serve as a good angle.

    6. Find pull quotes that move the story

    Don’t use quotes just to fill space. Instead, lean on quotes to help tell the story. Using the subject’s words can be the most effective way to develop the profile’s main points.

    Not sure how many quotes to use? Here’s a good rule of thumb: Each section of a profile should contain at least one quote that ties the material together.

    Find pithy, meaningful quotes to provide maximum effect. Reserve the best quote that best encapsulates your angle and use this for your concluding paragraph. This leaves the reader with a clear picture of the main theme and takeaway.

    7. Tell the story

    Remember you are telling a story, so it needs a beginning, middle and end.

    A scattershot piece with no clear timeline will confuse the reader.

    Create an outline or storyboard so you can keep track of the direction of your story. In your outline, include quotes you plan to add to the story, so that you can shape your piece around your subject’s words.

    8. Check your facts (and check them again)

    Getting information wrong is an embarrassing moment for a writer, especially if you hear about it from your subject.

    You’re responsible for presenting facts as truthfully as possible. If you are unsure of certain information, contact your subject and ask. They will appreciate the effort. Don’t throw away your credibility by failing to fact-check your piece.

    Profile writing is a great way to flex all of your writer muscles in one assignment. Over time, you’ll develop a knack for interviewing, which is helpful for lots of writing work. With the right amount of preparation, organization, detail and practice, you’ll paint the perfect picture of your subject.

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    This is an updated version of a story that was previously published. We update our posts as often as possible to ensure they’re useful for our readers.

    Photo via GuadiLab / Shutterstock 

  • How to Become a Ghostwriter, So You Can Land Ghostwriting Jobs

    How to Become a Ghostwriter, So You Can Land Ghostwriting Jobs

    Thomas Jefferson might as well have been describing how to break into ghostwriting when he wrote, “I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.”

    In the summer of 2014, I quit my job to pursue full-time self-employment as an author and editor. Knowing that a majority of my income would likely not come from my books, I focused on seeking editing work.

    In less than a year, I shifted my focus to ghostwriting, a professional avenue I thought would be forever closed to me because I simply didn’t have the connections. I knew no celebrities, political figures or rich business types, but I did have three key assets: experience, patience and luck.

    This isn’t just my story either. In taking an informal poll of online connections who also ghostwrite books, common threads of experience, patience and luck wove through every story of how they first got paid to help other people tell their stories.

    Why you should consider ghostwriting jobs

    Before I cover the practical aspects of how to become a ghostwriter, let’s consider why you should add “Ghostwriter” to your writing services:

    • You’ll get paid upfront. No more waiting on royalties like you would for writing your own books!
    • It’s lucrative. With the right clients, you can earn substantially more than other writing services you provide.
    • No need for marketing. Because your name isn’t on the book, you don’t have to do any marketing to sell the book, which means you can proceed to the next project ASAP. Authors who don’t enjoy marketing often see this as even more beneficial than how much they earn from ghostwriting projects. (Unfortunately, you will still have to market yourself to get clients, but that’s content for another post.)
    • You can keep emotional distance. Because the book is not your own child, you’ll be able to see its strengths and weaknesses clearly, bringing a helpful perspective to the client.
    • The subject matter is fascinating. When you choose the right clients, you learn as you write: about other people’s lives, their professions and industries you otherwise might not come across.
    • It will help you write better. Ghostwriting consistently challenges your writing skills. If you’ve ever had trouble meeting your daily word count goals, try ghostwriting a book for a client who has already paid you!

    With those considerations in mind, it’s little wonder that writers want to know how to break into ghostwriting, but the process isn’t easy or fast. Becoming a ghostwriter is equal parts patience, determination, experience, confidence, marketing, and, well, luck.

    It’s that last part that most aspiring ghostwriters don’t want to hear, but it’s true — and we’ll get to why luck is a necessary ingredient in a moment.

    How to become a ghostwriter

    So how do you get started in this lucrative profession?

    Here are some tips for how to become a ghostwriter.

    1. Gain experience

    Journal. Blog. Guest post. Write for publications like The Write Life. Send letters to the editor. Make insightful comments on websites. Self-publish a book (properly edited, of course). Create a family email newsletter. In whatever ways you can, write, write, and write some more.

    And don’t forget to read. “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write,” Stephen King wrote. “Simple as that.”

    Read high-brow, low-brow, classics, and today’s popular books. Alternate between fiction and nonfiction — nonfiction authors must know how to tell a compelling story. Read the best books on writing and storytelling, like King’s On Writing and McKee’s Story.

    Put in your 10,000 hours of reading and writing. Earn the right to write for others.

    2. Be patient

    Ten thousand hours is 1.14 years, but that means you’d have to be doing that one single thing every hour of every day. Let’s say that five days a week you read for an hour per day and write for two hours per day, a generous assumption for most writers with full-time responsibilities outside of writing. At that rate, it will take you 12.8 years to become an expert writer.

    My story witnesses to this Gladwellian opinion. I began to take my writing seriously as a freshman in college at the age of 18. Every one of my post-college jobs was related to reading or writing, but I also suffered serious doubts about my abilities and so let the blinking cursor blink for long stretches at a time. Sixteen years later, I was offered my first ghostwriting gig.

    By no means do I believe myself an expert. Hemingway, who one could argue was an expert, said it well: “We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.”

    Patience doesn’t mean biding your time until the right person contacts you. Patience means constant practice until you’re ready for the right person to contact you.

    ghostwriter

    3. Prove yourself…and then get lucky

    Of the six online ghostwriters who responded to my question about how they broke into ghostwriting, every single one said they’d been working on smaller writing projects before “getting lucky” and breaking into ghostwriting:

    • Mike Loomis started in multimedia curriculum development and book and product marketing before realizing he could help authors through offering ghostwriting services.
    • Pat Springle wrote for two organizations who loved what he produced and helped others finish their manuscripts before launching into a successful 20-year career as a ghostwriter.
    • Alice Sullivan wrote web and magazine copy for Country Music Television (CMT) during an internship before being asked by a major publisher to ghostwrite two books.

    In my case, I proofread bills and laws for the Texas Senate, directed communications for a large church, wrote copy for a law firm, edited a content marketing website, and became a self-employed editor before breaking into ghostwriting through a fortuitous referral. At the time, I thought I was lucky to have earned the opportunity to write for someone else and be paid for it.

    That job has led to two more direct referrals, which makes me feel even luckier to have been granted that first step into the world of ghostwriting.

    But before getting lucky, I gained experience and practiced patience. The luck would never have been achieved without them.

    Looking for other writing work? Check out this article, where you’ll find more options to get paid as a writer.

    Perhaps this quiz can help you decide.

    This is an updated version of a story that was previously published. We update our posts as often as possible to ensure they’re useful for our readers.

    Photo via GuadiLab / Shutterstock 

  • 9 Keys to Creating an Effective Writing Accountability Group

    9 Keys to Creating an Effective Writing Accountability Group

    In a writing conference I once attended with novelist Ron Carlson, he said, “You wouldn’t not show up for a coffee date with a friend, so why don’t you show up for yourself?”

    Despite our best intentions, we often let our distractions prevent us from showing up to the page.

    An accountability group can provide the structure you need to stay on track. Why? Because we’re simply more likely to achieve our goals if we write them down, share them with a group and check in over time.

    Plus, having the support of others is a solid strategy for combatting self-sabotage and resistance.

    Creating a Successful Accountability Group

    So how do you get started?

    Here’s what you need to consider when creating your own writing accountability group.

    1. Define your accountability group’s purpose

    Imagine your ideal writing group. Are they reading your work and offering you specific feedback?

    Or do you imagine the shared camaraderie of discussing the writing process? Or maybe you just want writing friends to hold you accountable to your self-imposed deadlines?

    Imagining your perfect writing group will help you think about the types of people you want to include.

    2. Find people who are the right fit

    Will you meet online in or in real life? If you’re simply seeking accountability, the group doesn’t need to be made up of writers. In fact, sometimes the best beta readers and critiquers aren’t writers.

    When creating an accountability group, it’s often best to work with individuals with whom you have weak ties. These people are vested in you enough to help you succeed but aren’t so involved in your life that they aren’t objective about your situation. In other words, it isn’t easy to be accountable with your mother or best friend. A coworker, neighbor, or acquaintance is likely to work better.

    To find these people, post a flyer at your local writing center, browse online writing groups, approach writing conference attendees, connect via social media, or consider a NaNoWriMo challenge.

    3. Determine how and when the group will meet

    The more vested you are in the group’s or your accountability partner’s success, the more likely you will meet your own goals. In other words, success fosters success.

    Having an opportunity to see the individuals, either in person or online, allows that relationship to grow more quickly. Use Skype or a Google Hangout if you can’t meet in person. It’s easier to skip out posting each week to an online forum, but once you’ve connected with people via video you are less likely to no-show for a group meeting.

    Create a schedule for the meetings. An hour a week is usually plenty of time to share goals and discuss challenges. You may need a two-hour meeting if you’re critiquing each others’ writing. Holding meetings at the same time each week or month helps foster a routine.

    4. Choose your group size

    If you plan to review each other’s work, the ideal group size is between 3-5 people.

    This will give you several different sources of feedback while remaining small enough that everyone has time to share regularly.

    If you just want someone to hold you accountable to your writing practice, however, having one committed accountability partner may be enough.

    5. Commit to a length of time to work together

    Choose a time commitment for your group. Maybe everyone wants to try it for three months or six months.

    Once you’ve worked together for a few months, committing for a year might feel comfortable.

    6. Create SMART goals

    Follow the SMART goal format. If you’re in the midst of your “shitty first draft,” you might set a word count goal for the week.

    If you’re rewriting, working for a specified amount of time each day or for the week will allow more flexibility.

    7. Determine how much work you’ll share

    Having a predetermined sharing schedule will create a structure for critiquing others’ work and submitting your own. For example, one writing group I participated in had members share 20-40 pages of work every two months. The pages were submitted two weeks prior to our monthly critique sessions.

    Often sharing a larger section of work once a month or once every several months will give your reader an opportunity to get more of the flow of the story. We had each group member share overall feedback plus mark the text with specific feedback.

    8. Ask for what you need

    The more momentum the group creates, the more this will spill over to each individual. Help each other!

    If you need a midweek check-in to keep you focused, ask for it. Do you need help with dialogue or characterization? Would you like help line-editing? What are you worried about? How can the group help?

    Be specific about what you need, and you’re more likely to receive it.

    9. Celebrate your successes

    Having an accountability group will help you get unstuck and move forward. Take time to reflect on the group’s accomplishments. This will foster continued momentum and help you see how much the accountability group has helped propel you forward.

    Writing is a solitary practice, but you don’t need to do it all by yourself. An accountability group will provide the support, motivation and structure needed to have you meet your writing goals week after week.

    Have you worked with an accountability group? How has it helped your writing?

    This is an updated version of a story that was previously published. We update our posts as often as possible to ensure they’re useful for our readers.

    Photo via Rawpixel.com / Shutterstock 

  • Self-Editing Basics: 10 Simple Ways to Edit Your Own Book

    Self-Editing Basics: 10 Simple Ways to Edit Your Own Book

    Writers’ victories are short-lived indeed.

    For a brief moment after completing a first draft, writers sit back, breathe a sigh of relief, post a self-congratulatory humblebrag about finishing our manuscript, and then immediately think about that one character whose arc we forgot to complete, or that we’re pretty sure we overused the word “that,” or that those squiggly red lines scattered throughout our manuscript are surely incorrect.

    In other words, the joys of #amwriting give way to the trials of #amediting.

    As a strong (and biased) believer that every author needs an editor, your first line of literary defense shouldn’t be a professional editor. Rather, you need to learn how to edit —and really, how to self-edit — before sending your manuscript off to be edited by someone else.

    Book editing at its best

    As a full-time editor, I witness dozens of simple mistakes authors constantly make. If only they’d take the time to learn and incorporate better self-editing techniques, they would become better writers, endear themselves to their editors, and maybe even save money on a professional edit.

    Furthermore, beta readers and early reviewers will be grateful for the creation of a readable early draft.

    If you’re ready to self-edit your book, consider these 10 tips for book editing.

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    1. Rest your manuscript

    “Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.” — Henry David Thoreau

    When you’ve finished typing the last word of your masterpiece, set it aside for a few days. If you can stand it, set it aside for a week or more. In On Writing, Stephen King relates that he places his finished drafts in a drawer for at least six weeks before looking at them again.

    Why rest your draft for so long? You want to try to forget everything you’ve written so that when you do come back to self-edit, the book almost seems as if someone else wrote it. You want fresh eyes, and the best way to do that is to rid your mind of what’s been filling it for so long.

    2. Listen to your manuscript

    “So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads.” — Dr. Seuss

    Hearing your words spoken makes mistakes glaringly obvious. You can enlist a (patient) friend to read it to you, or you can go the friendship-saving route, which has the benefit of being free: use your computer’s built-in speech synthesis function.

    If you’re a Mac user, click the Apple logo at the top left of your screen, select System Preferences, click Accessibility, then click Speech. Choose a System Voice and Speaking Rate you can tolerate, then select “Speak selected text when the key is pressed.” If you want to change the keyboard combination, click “Change Key” and follow the directions. I prefer Option+Esc.

    Once you’ve enabled your preferred shortcut key, simply highlight any text (within any program) that you want to hear read aloud. Then hit your shortcut keys and follow your words on-screen as your computer reads them aloud.

    For PC users, make use of Narrator, part of the system’s Ease of Access Center. Press “Windows+U” and click “Start Narrator.” Since the program is intended for blind users, it will automatically begin to read any text your mouse encounters. To turn this off, hit “Control.” To have Narrator read a paragraph, place your cursor at its beginning and type “Caps Lock + I.” To have Narrator read an entire page, press “Caps Lock + U.”

    3. Search for troubling words

    “Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words.” — Mark Twain

    All writers have specific words and phrases that (which?) always cause them to (too?) second-guess whether (weather?) they’re (their?) using them correctly. If you know what your (you’re?) troubling words are, use your word processor’s search function to locate every possible variant of that word or phrase.

    To help you consider what your troubling words might be, here’s a good starting list, excerpted from the first chapter of Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing:

    • a lot/alot
    • affect/effect
    • can/may
    • further/farther
    • good/well
    • i.e./e.g.
    • into/in to
    • it’s/its
    • lay/lie
    • less/fewer
    • that/who
    • their/they’re/there
    • then/than
    • who/whom
    • your/you’re

    If you’re unsure of how to properly use these words, there’s no shame in looking them up. Grammar Girl likely has the answer, or check The Write Life’s post on how to edit for invaluable tips.

    edit books

    4. Remove or replace your crutch words

    “I can’t write five words but that I change seven.” – Dorothy Parker

    Do you know the top 10 words you use most frequently in your manuscript?

    Outside of necessary articles and prepositions, you may be surprised at what words you tend to use over and over. One client of mine used “suddenly” too often, making every action seem unnecessarily rushed. Personally, my crutch words tend to fly in the face of the age-old encouragement for all writers to “eschew obfuscation.”

    In other words, I tend to cash in ten-dollar words when five-cent words suffice.

    Scrivener makes it simple to discover your crutch words and is available for Mac, iOS, and Windows users. In Scrivener’s top menu, go to “Project > Text Statistics,” then click on the arrow next to “Word frequency.” If necessary, click the “Frequency” header twice to sort your words by frequency. You’ll then be presented with what could be a jarring list of the words you might be overusing. (To include your entire manuscript in the frequency count, be sure to have your entire manuscript selected in Scrivener’s Binder.)

    For Microsoft Word users, there’s a free Word Usage and Frequency add-in, but other, less technical online solutions may also help, like TextFixer.com’s Online Word Counter or WriteWords’ Word Frequency Counter.

    No matter how you determine your crutch words, go back through your manuscript and see where you can remove or replace them.

    5. Remove all double spaces at the end of sentences

    “I try to leave out the parts that people skip.” — Elmore Leonard

    If tapping two spaces following your sentences is an age-old habit ingrained into you since before the dawn of modern digital typography, may I suggest ingraining another practice?

    Conduct a find-and-replace search after you’re done writing. In Word, type two spaces in “find” and one space in “replace” and hit enter.

    Voila! You just time-traveled your manuscript into the 21st century. (If you’re interested in why you should only use one space, read Slate’s Space Invaders: Why you should never, ever use two spaces after a period.)

    6. Search for problematic punctuation

    “An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald

    Are you a comma chameleon, adapting that otherwise innocent punctuation mark to do work it was never meant to do? Or does your manuscript need a semicolonoscopy — a thorough check-up on proper semicolon and colon placement?

    If you know you have trouble with certain punctuation marks, conduct a search for that mark and figure out whether you’re using it correctly. If you’re still unsure, let your editor fix it, but make a note to ask him why.

    7. Run spell check or use an automated editing program

    “Be careful about reading health books. Some fine day you’ll die of a misprint.” — Markus Herz

    Writers sometimes become too accustomed to the colorful squiggles under words and sentences on their digital pages; I know I do. In an effort to get ideas on the page, we might run rampant over grammar and usage.

    Yet those squiggles mean something. At the very least, run spell check before sending your manuscript to an editor or beta reader. It’s a built-in editor that I’m not sure every writer uses to their advantage. You may not accept every recommendation, but at least you’ll save your editor some time correcting basic errors.

    You might also consider trying out automated editing programs; The Write Life provides an overview of the best grammar checkers. I have yet to try them all, but I’m a fan of Grammarly.

    8. Subscribe to The Chicago Manual of Style

    “To write is human, to edit is divine.” — Stephen King

    When an editor returns your manuscript, they may cite particular sections of The Chicago Manual of Style. If you’re unfamiliar with this Bible of the publishing industry, you may not be aware of precisely why the editor made a certain change.

    By subscribing to CMOS (it’s only $39 a year), you’ll be able to look up issues on your own before sending your manuscript off to an editor or beta reader. Sure, you shouldn’t get too hung up on some of the issues (editors have their jobs for a reason), but learning more about the mechanics of writing can only help you become a better writer.

    You can also buy the hardcopy version of The Chicago Manual of Style, but I recommend the online version for its ease of use.

    9. Format accordingly

    “The Real-World was a sprawling mess of a book in need of a good editor.” — Jasper Fforde

    While preferred styles may differ from one editor to the next, you can show your professionalism by formatting your manuscript to conform to industry standards.

    Such formatting makes it easier for beta readers to consume, and editors prefer industry-standard formatting, which allows them more time to edit your actual words instead of tweaking your formatting. Here are some basic formatting tips:

    • Send your manuscript as a Word document (.doc or .docx).
    • Use double-spaced line spacing. If you’ve already written your book with different line spacing, select all of your text in Word, click Format > Paragraph, then select “Double” in the drop down box under “Line spacing.”
    • Use a single space following periods.
    • Use black, 12-point, Times New Roman as the font.
    • Don’t hit tab to indent paragraphs. In Word, select all of your text, then set indentation using Format > Paragraph. Under “Indentation” and by “Left,” type .5. Under “Special,” choose “First line” from the drop down menu. [Note: Nonfiction authors may opt for no indention, but if they do so they must use full paragraph breaks between every paragraph.]
    • The first paragraph of any chapter, after a subheader, or following a bulleted or numbered list shouldn’t be indented.
    • Use page breaks between chapters. In Word, place the cursor at the end of a chapter, then click “Insert > Break > Page Break” in Word’s menu.

    10. Don’t over-edit

    “It is perfectly okay to write garbage — as long as you edit brilliantly.” — C. J. Cherryh

    Set aside an hour or two to go through this list with your manuscript, but be careful about over-editing. You may start seeing unnecessary trees within your forest of words, but you don’t want to raze to the ground what you’ve toiled so hard to grow.

    A middle path exists between exhausting yourself in a vain attempt for perfection and being too lazy to run spell check. Do yourself and your book a favor and self-edit, but be careful not to go overboard.

    If you’re creating a professional product, your self-edits shouldn’t be your last line of defense against grammatical errors. In other words, I don’t offer this post to write myself out of a job. Even in going through the self-editing steps above, you’ll still need an editor to ensure that your manuscript is as polished as possible.

    Plus, going through the editing process with a professional editor will help you become a better self-editor the next time you write a book.

    Do you self-edit? What tips and tricks work best for you?

    This is an updated version of a story that was previously published. We update our posts as often as possible to ensure they’re useful for our readers.

    Photo via GuadiLab / Shutterstock 

  • Your Grade School Teachers Were Right: Avoid Using the Passive Voice — Here’s Why

    Your Grade School Teachers Were Right: Avoid Using the Passive Voice — Here’s Why

    Even as a full-time freelance writer, I have to admit: I don’t remember much of the grammar lessons I learned in grade school. 

    But when writing is your bread and butter (or even just your primary hobby), figuring out the most salient points of usage takes on a new importance — or, at least, feels more important than figuring it out just to pass a pop quiz.

    Chances are at least one of your teachers drilled the idea that passive voice is bad into your head. 

    But why did they do that? Is it that bad, really? And, with however many years separating you from your classroom experience, do you even know how to identify passive voice in the first place anymore?

    Let’s take a quick, pain-and-pop-quiz-free review of this peculiar type of sentence construction.

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    What is passive voice?

    The passive voice is a type of sentence construction wherein the subject and object switch places: rather than the subject acting on the object, the object of the action becomes, itself, the subject.

    It sounds complicated, but you’ve definitely seen it used — and more than likely used it yourself without even thinking about it.

    One common way the passive voice is employed (and thus an easy red flag to look for when trying to identify it in your own writing) is the use of some form of “to be” verb plus a past participle. For example:

    The paper had been written when I was young and inexperienced.

    (An active voice version of that idea might read: I wrote the paper when I was young and inexperienced.)

    However, not all sentences that use “to be” verbs or past participles are passive! For example, all of the following sentences are in the active voice:

    I had been writing all night long, but I wasn’t getting anywhere.

    I have to submit my manuscript by tomorrow!

    He had gone to his editor more than once about it.

    “To be” verbs and participles aside, the most conclusive way to figure out whether or not a sentence is in the passive voice is to identify the subject, verb, and — if there is one — the object of the action. If the object of the action is in the front of the sentence and the subject is at the end, you’ve got yourself an example of passive voice.

    Another example:

    PASSIVE VOICE: The book was written by my best friend, Elizabeth.

    ACTIVE VOICE: My best friend Elizabeth wrote the book.

    Why is the passive voice wrong?

    As discussed above, the last time you talked about the passive voice was probably in the context of being told, by some well-meaning teacher, that it’s incorrect.

    So let’s be totally clear: the passive voice isn’t wrong, exactly. But it’s usually a lot clunkier than an active sentence construction. 

    Using the passive voice distances the subject from the action of the sentence, which leads to less clarity and urgency. It can also add unnecessary words to your manuscript, since the passive voice generally requires more auxiliary verbs than the active voice does. You need a lot more space to say The ball had been kicked by me than to say I kicked the ball.

    That said, there may be times when you want to employ the passive voice to purposefully draw emphasis to the object of an action — or the fact that the object is, in fact, being treated as an object. 

    For instance, Writer Constance Hale argues that Germaine Greer, in writing “The Female Eunuch,” uses the passive voice “ to emphasize that a subject is not a ‘doer’ but a ‘done-to’ over at the New York Times. Here’s Greer’s passage with the passive portion bolded:

    The married woman’s significance can only be conferred by the presence of a man at her side, a man upon whom she absolutely depends. In return for renouncing, collaborating, adapting, identifying, she is caressed, desired, handled, influenced.

    When in doubt, however — and especially if you’re still working to understand exactly what the passive voice is — it’s usually a good rule of thumb to avoid it.

    How to use less passive voice in your writing

    Now that we’ve covered how to discern between passive vs. active voice and why the passive voice can be so problematic, you may be wondering how to fix or avoid it in your own writing practice. 

    And to be honest, like most things in the writing world — and in the whole world, as a matter of fact — a lot of it comes down to plain old practice. As you continue to write, take time to review your work specifically for instances of passive voice usage and change the sentences to active voice when you see them. Over time, using the active voice will become second nature.

    Of course, everyone needs some help along the way. Fortunately, we’ve come across some grammar checker tools that include a passive voice checker amongst their suite of goodies — and although premium versions of those programs cost, many offer a free edition.

    Armed with this knowledge of passive voice, go forth and do some writing…as opposed to letting your writing do you!

    Photo via Prostock-studio / Shutterstock 

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  • Start Your Passion Project Right Now by Taking 5 Small Steps

    Start Your Passion Project Right Now by Taking 5 Small Steps

    You’ve had a passion project (or seven) rattling around inside your brain for months now.

    Maybe you love telling people about it, or maybe you’re keeping mum — either way, you can’t stop thinking about how amazing it will be when you finally start working on it.

    But for some reason, you just haven’t taken the first step.

    Sometimes we put off getting started on passion projects because we’re waiting for just the right time, when we’ll have the energy or the spare time to tackle it. You know: After the kids go to college, or after you meet that big deadline at work.

    Why your passion project doesn’t have to wait

    Meanwhile, we end up ignoring all these fabulous little fragments of time we do have throughout our days, while we’re waiting for the dentist or checking Facebook on our lunch breaks.

    Sure, it would be great to have generous amounts of uninterrupted time every afternoon to draft your novel or work on your magnum opus, but if you put off getting started until “the right moment,” you may never get started at all.

    Here are five small steps you can take to light a fire under your passion project today.

    1. Visualize why it matters — and then commit

    What’s so special to you about this project? What makes it so important that you’re willing to give up staying current on the latest TV series, or say no to happy hour?

    If you can identify why completing this project is so important to you, you can hold it like a beacon of light when darkness and frustration threaten to close in.

    Many of us have multiple dream projects and boundless optimism about how much we can actually accomplish. Maybe dreams of writing your grandmother’s recipes into a cookbook are warring with visions of that screenplay you’ve been dying to write. Maybe you’ve thought of starting a blog, but you also have a seven-book fantasy series plucking at your attention.

    Trying to work on all these projects at once will just result in none of them getting done.

    Some day you might get to them all, but right now, you need to commit to the one that feels most important.

    Write down the name of your project and the reason it’s so important to you, and put it where you’ll see it regularly.

    2. Get organized

    The thing about passion projects is so often they’re very, very big. We’re not talking “bake a cake,” we’re talking “open a bakery.” We’re not talking “write an email to grandma,” we’re talking “write a novel.”

    In the face of projects that will span multiple months — and maybe even years — it’s easy to get caught standing like a deer in the headlights, frozen by just how much will be required to get it done.

    It’s time to get organized. Create a new file or open a new notebook (I like to create a new Evernote folder). Now, and over the next few weeks, it’s time to brainstorm everything you know about your project:

    • What research will you need to do?
    • Can your research be broken down into several parts or phases?
    • Will you need to enlist anyone’s help?
    • What materials do you need to get started?
    • Do you need to learn any new skills?

    By dumping your project out of your brain and onto paper, it becomes more than just a dream. Now it’s something you’re actually doing.

    3. Make a plan…

    Start organizing your brain dump into action steps, breaking down every element into bite-sized chunks.

    Every project is made up of building blocks: Novels can be broken into chapters, chapters into scenes, scenes into beats. It’s time to find the building blocks of your own passion project.

    The best way to make a plan for completing your dream project is to get as granular as possible until you have a list of discrete, actionable tasks.

    For example, one aspect of your goal to turn your hobby travel blog into a memoir that’s ready to pitch to agents might be to network with other writes who know how to write a memoir. It’s an important task, but it’s not an actionable goal.

    Break it down into its components: Smaller tasks like identifying five memoirists you want to meet and becoming an active commenter on their blogs; or joining a popular weekly Twitter chat.

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    4. …Then make a schedule

    Once you know what steps you need to take, build project time into your schedule. It’s not enough just to wish for the time. If you really want to do it, you need to make the time.

    Treat your passion project time as sacred. You wouldn’t put off a job interview or dinner with your best friend because the house needed cleaning, so don’t let that get in the way of your project progress, either.

    Remember, you don’t always need a big window of time! You’d be surprised how much you can get done in five minutes here in 30 minutes there — “throw away” time you might currently waste scrolling through your phone or checking your email (again and again).

    Instead, why not give yourself the gift of using those spare minutes to work on your project?

    5. Write something

    You didn’t think I was going to let you get away with just planning, did you?

    Research and planning are deceptively productive. You may need to know the history of the Chinese banking system in order to write that scene, but it’s way too easy to spiral into a Wikipedia rabbit hole once you’ve found the information you need, taking more and more notes but never actually writing.

    Don’t wait for the day when you get to retire into a beautiful cabin in the woods or attend a writers retreat without any other obligations. Don’t wait for the muse to come visit. Don’t wait for a more flexible job to come along, or the weather to get better, or the house to be completely spotless.

    If you ever truly want to finish your passion project, you need to train yourself to write even when there is no muse, even when there is no babbling brook, even when you’re tired, even when you only have five minutes.

    If you can write 300 words in half an hour and you do that every single day, at the end of the year you will most certainly have the first draft of a novel.

    What one thing will you do today toward your dream project? Tell us in the comments!

    This is an updated version of a story that was previously published. We update our posts as often as possible to ensure they’re useful for our readers.

    Photo via nd3000 / Shutterstock