Taking Steps to Build a Writing Career

Stepping out to build a writing career based on my own products came in part to surrounding circumstances and in part to stubborn determination. Now I have to continue to grow and expand my writing platform to launch the budding career into a full blooming business.

Steps to Build a Writing Career

– Sign up for webinars. This week I will be taking part in a webinar with speakers that include Jack Canfield (of Chicken Soup for the Soul). Many of these webinars are free and can give valuable tips for building a successful writing career.

– Sign up for challenges. The weekend provided me with an opportunity to join in the Biannual Blogathon Bash. It included mini-challenges to improve my blogs, get better organized and enhance my writing skills. The Blogathon also hosted Twitter parties where I had the opportunity to connect with new bloggers from around the globe.

– Sign up to speak. I reached out to the local libraries in my community and offered to host one-day seminars or lectures on making money as a writer or some similar theme. I want to meet people in my community but I also want to get the word out that I write. The publicity from the library events will help get my name into local homes. I have also talked to local women’s organizations and writer groups. Look for groups connected to your niche, find something that you can offer these groups, and then offer to speak.

– Sign up for conferences and classes. Learn all that you can about the niche that you have chosen and then learn all that you can about other niches and apply that back to your own direction. You will never stop growing as a writer as long as you are willing to keep learning. I feed my writing career by continually seeking out opportunities to learn.

– Sign up for contests. There are contests being hosted on websites all around the internet and most of them are completely free to enter. I look for contests that I can weave back around into the storyline of my novel series – that way I can cross promote. But sometimes it is just inspiring to enter something outside of my writing box. The more awards I can clip to my belt the easier it will be to let those experiences elevate my writing career.

Being a writer requires that I write. Being a published writer means that I have to be willing to take the words that I have crafted and molded and expose those words to the world. Being a successful writer pushes past the writing and publishing and jumps with boldness into marketing. I have to be willing to do more if I want to build a writing career that will launch me into the success that I desire.