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What are some jobs in the writing field?

How do you break into writing as a profession?

  • The last several years of my life have been rough. I've been pursuing a career in game audio, and when I've had work it's been a wonderful dream, but the number of jobs in game audio is actually decreasing as the industry is seeking to become more streamlined, and multiple jobs are being compressed into a few. Whole teams are reduced down to one person. Out of frustration, I've been seeking out a new branch to the tree of my career. I've been taking courses, in preparation to become an iOS developer, with the hopes of continuing in game development, and hopefully to return to game audio some day. But I'm a realist. I know that I may never get to return to game audio. That bums me out, but I have a family to support and mouths to feed, and pipe dreams don't make for the sturdiest of foundations. So, I'm training for a stable day-job career in software development. Hopefully the stability and income that this will provide will provide me with the capital (monetary / social / emotional / temporal) to seek my dreams in the meantime. I believe that in this economy it's almost a necessity to have multiple income streams to be stable and/or comfortable, so I try not to write off using any of my talents as a way to make money. One of my talents is that (at least I think) I am a fairly decent writer. I've been asked many times by many people, especially in light of my current 2-year stretch of underemployment, "Have you ever considered trying to make a living as a writer?" One friend actually said to me today: "Jake. I'm just going to tell you how it is. You should be a writer. Professionally. Getting paid. What ever that looks like.. articles, blogs, novels. But you got too much talent and it needs to get paid." I was incredibly flattered, but at the same time frustrated by it. Because I don't know what to do to get work in that field, because most staffing agencies won't even put you in for that kind of work unless you already have professional experience. And, to answer all those encouraging friends, I have indeed thought about it. I've applied to jobs and put my writing out there. I actually got so far as getting to the final round of interviews for a writing gig at a game studio I really respect. But I guess I just don't know if I'm doing the right things to get my work out there. So, professional writers of the world: How do you do it? How do you get writing jobs?

  • Answer:

    Start a blog and twitter. Let's start off with Twitter, you want to follow other authors, potential readers, publishers, publishing agencies, and the likes. Use some hashtags, three being maximum for most tweets. There's also Twitter lists you can join. Just so you know on Friday's there's a universal event, Follow Friday (#FF #FollowFriday) where you mention a couple of your twitter followers in a tweet. Some people "host" hashtag events. For example every Tuesday @RobertLeeBrewer hosts the hashtag #porttues. Another thing I suggest doing is to ALWAYS retweet. It is even better if you mention someone in a tweet but make sure it is relevant. You can ask someone to check out one of your posts or have a conversation with them. You can even search a hashtag and comment/favorite a tweet from the list. But never forget to retweet. For your blog, I recommend starting with Wordpress because it's a very popular blogging website and you can pay for your own URL. Always write "About the Author" page because statically most people read this page and it has a profound effect on whether or not someone reads your blog. To get followers, start following people. But who do you follow first? Well on Wordpress there is a page called "Freshly Pressed" where blogs are picked from the administrators of the site. Check them out and a lot of people comment on them so there are a lot of blogs you can find. Or you can type in the search box words specifically pertaining to the kind of blogs you might be interested in reading and read the most recent posts from that said hashtag. Like the posts you enjoy and follower the authors you like. Affiliating with Amazon will help you gain revenue on your website. Meaning in exchange of making money from Amazon you put an ad on your website and hope someone clicks on it. I wouldn't do this right away though. Wait till your blog builds up a bit. You can also join and write for directories such as LonelyBlogs only after you have been blogging for a month or more. I'm sure you can really come up with some clever ideas to sell your "brand" because  these days your blog is your brand. Half of your time is spent writing and the other half is spent social networking. By using Twitter and a blog you can start a following and put your name out there as a writer. Not only that, you can potentially gain money just from having a blog. Try to set a goal for yourself like gaining 100 followers within your first month. Then you want to gain another 100 the next month. Eventually you would want to gain a lot more but set realistic goals for yourself. If you want to be published in a magazine first read a bunch of magazines and articles. Once you find something that perhaps you are interested in writing, research that section of the magazine. Researching in other words means to read a bunch of previously published articles. Find a common thread or idea between all of them because they only want certain kinds of stories. If you can't provide that then they aren't going to publish your submission. You need to accommodate what publishers are looking for! There are plenty of large and small press companies looking for new, unique stories. Just be patient! Keep trying. Don't give up. I think that's all I can provide right now. -- EJ @Jenkinswritings

Eli Jenkins at Quora Visit the source

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To add a bit of context to Eli's and Frank's solid responses, here's the low-down on writing jobs the way I see it, based on my time as a technical writer and my forays into the world of marketing, screenwriting, and self-publishing. The only writing "jobs" that are sitting out there waiting to be filled are as follows: Technical Writing - write boring software manuals for a tech company. There's not much of a career path, it's not terribly well paid or valued, and it's fairly competitive because there are a lot of English majors out there looking for these jobs. But it's pretty low-stress and cushy if you can get it. Just be prepared to look for fulfillment and inspiration outside of your job, because you won't get much in it. Copywriting - write ad content, marketing blurbs, blog articles, etc. for a marketing department somewhere. Again, not terribly well paid or valued because everyone thinks they can do this, they just don't have the time.  Same deal as above. There are other flavors of these (legal writing, grant writing, proposal/RFP writing, speech writing) but essentially you're either writing technical/instructional content, or you're writing ad copy to sell something. All other paid writing gigs are either freelance/on spec, or you're hired for something else and one of your responsibilities is to write occasionally (like an editor who's hired for his management and editing skills and gets to write an article now and then, or a creative director that writes his own scripts, or a journalist that's hired mainly for his investigative skills). Almost all "creative" writing, the kind you're probably most interested in, is something you get paid for piece by piece. Write articles or stories for magazines and get paid per article. Sell a nonfiction book idea to a publisher and get paid an advance to write it, or sell them a novel you've already written. Sell short stories. Launch a blog and monetize it. My sister connected with a prominent blogger/entrepreneur and is now getting paid piece by piece to write content for his site. Write a killer screenplay and shop it around Hollywood. If you've written some novels that you think are good enough, self-publish them now through Amazon KDP. It's basically free (although you should probably invest what you can into a professional cover) and if your book is really good, you can start making money right away.

Scott Baird

This might be a good place to start: https://kdp.amazon.com/Welcome to Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing

Frank Dauenhauer

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