“I want to be a writer…” the email began. “I was sharing my work on social media but people kept leaving hateful comments. Sometimes I’d be left in tears.
“Do you have any advice? To be honest, I feel moderately forestalled. How do I get into the writing business? Should I start my own Substack?”
Well, first off, congratulations on this exciting new path. The fact that you’re coming to ME for professional advice is the first step in any career’s long and steady downward spiral into flames.
Namely, because, as a longtime professional writer, I still have to move my lips when sounding out phrases like “moderately forestalled.”
Frankly I don’t know anything about the business of writing. And I’ll let you in on a secret, neither do the publishers, editors, marketing teams, or prof reeders. This is why the publishing industry has perhaps the highest turnover rate among employees except for, perhaps, the mafia.
Moreover, I’m the wrong guy to ask for help because I’m not a businessman. I suck at business.
A good example of this is when I was a Cub Scout. We Scouts sometimes went door to door, selling homemade cookies which our moms had baked. I don’t know why we did this. The Cub Scouts are not classically known for their cookies like Girl Scouts.
When you attend a Cub Scout troop meeting and witness a dozen boys entertaining themselves with poorly executed professional wrestling chokeholds, or telling jokes whose punchlines consist solely of bodily noises powerful enough to register on the Richter scale, you do not immediately think “cookies.”
Nevertheless, we sold cookies. I was a bad salesman. My only sales technique was to knock on a door, then blurt out, “SORRY FOR BOTHERING YOU!” Then I would speed-walk away. If someone had wanted to actually buy cookies from me, they would’ve had to chase me home and purchase them from my mother.
One thing I CAN tell you about the business of writing is that writers who approach writing as a “business” rarely have much fun.
The reason for this is because “business” refers to money. And money has nothing to do with good art. If you’re measuring your literary worth in terms of how much money it rakes in, you might as well give up now and move into an empty refrigerator carton in an alleyway. (You can be my neighbor!)
Because the unofficial cardinal rule of the writing industry states that the only way to make a small fortune as a writer is to start off with a large one.
In fact, I only have one writer friend who made it big. He shall remain nameless. I met him in college, and we all knew he was going places. He wanted to write content that affected readers on a deep level. He once said, “I want my work to cause people to experience true emotions like sorrow, anger, and even pain.” Today, he writes error messages for Microsoft.
Which brings me to my final point. Your writing is your craft. Your craft is you. And YOU are a human being. Human beings do not have monetary value until they become NFL draft picks.
Thus, the only way to make your work valuable is to VALUE your work. Love your work. Share your work.
Do not run into the arms of Big Social Media and start posting there. You will only become disappointed and begin evaluating yourself based on digital reactions. Listen. Your worth cannot be measured in “likes” and “shares” and tiny turd emojis.
So don’t fall fall prey to playing the Algorithm Game, which is a game no one can win unless they are either Sean “Diddy” Combs, or a member of Congress, or both.
Join Substack instead. This is an incredibly benevolent platform with actual readers. Write your heart out. Then write some more. And if the only subscribers you have are your mom and your cousin Ed Lee, then write to your mom and your cousin with all your soul.
Because your words, your experiences, your love, your art, your perspective, it’s all meant to share. So start putting it out there.
I’m running out of room here, but when you get discouraged, one of the best writer’s tips I can pass on to you is this:
Refrigerator cartons last longer if you place them beneath a highway overpass.