AaronTurpen.com

Most aspiring writers–and even many professionals–look at how much each project will pay, how soon they’ll get paid, and how much effort will be required on their part to get the payment.  Writing, of course, is a business and businesses are all about income versus outlay (costs).  It has, however, been my experience that this focus is self-defeating.

Many new writers jump into the profession and put a lot of effort into honing their craft, finding new clients, and “getting themselves out there.”  This is great, but it misses the very foundation of good business practice.  Writing professionally is a business and so it should be treated as such.  So before diving head first into the marketing and money aspects, you would be well served to first set a foundation of solid business practice.

The Plan

There is one thing that all businesses have to have in order to succeed, no matter what their business is and no matter who is running them.  All businesses must have a solid business plan.

That doesn’t have to be a thick sheaf of papers with a lot of accounting and projection charts in it, of course, it just needs to be a clear plan of action.  In fact, unless you’re looking to impress a banker or venture capitalist, that long, drawn-out business plan with lots of impressive charts and graphs and illustrations is probably more of a detriment than a help.

Most small enterprises, such as your burgeoning self-employment as a writer, can be served with a business plan that is only about a page long.  It will consist mainly of goals and bullet points.  No fancy projections or complicated bar graphs will be needed.

Your plan should have the following:

• Your ultimate goal with the business,
• Your expected achievements for the next 6 months,
• Your expected achievements for the next 1 year,
• Your expected achievements for the next 3 years,
• A cost breakdown of your major products/services.

Pretty simple, really, but I’ll show you an example from my own business plan.  This was created in 2007 when I was hoping to become a full-time writer.  I’ve removed some irrelevant things and spelled out a few things so they can be better understood.  Remember: your business plan is for you, not for others, so don’t worry if it’s not “neat enough” or doesn’t explain it all.  It’s mainly a reminder list of goals to look forward to and how you’re going to achieve them.

Aaron’s Writer of the Century Biz Plan O Doooooom

Mission Statement: To become a professional, full-time, work-at-home writer.  I will be working independently, writing about what I enjoy, and able to support my family doing so.  Plus, I want a Unimog.

6 Month Goals:

• Establish two regular clients at $100/week or better (each),
• Rebuild AaronTurpen.com to match my new writing focus,
• Find a writing gig that focuses on environmental stuff.

1 Year Goals:

• Have clients that pay a total of $1,000/month or better in income,
• Build a new website focused on environmental issues (so I can make fun of Al Gore),
• Have at least half my income based on regular clients/contracts vs. bidding.

3 Year Goals:

• Land a position (freelance) writing for a major environmental venue like Mother Earth News or NaturalNews,
• Have my income increasing by 25%/year with 1/3 of it coming from “residuals” rather than current work,
• Buy a Unimog.
• Own 10 acres of farmland and a mule.

Price breakdown – most work is billed by time, with $25/hour as the minimum target and $50/hour as the ultimate goal.

That was basically my entire business plan.  I still have it, though I update it regularly.  What you’re after is a list of achievable and realistic goals and a basic idea of how you’re going to get them done.  In that first year, for instance, I achieved all but one of the 1 year and 6 month goals.  I’ve also achieved the first 3 year goal (I write for NaturalNews), and about 2/3 of my current income comes from contracted/regular clients, without bidding, but I so far am not making 1/3 of it from residuals.  I also don’t own 10 acres or a Unimog.  I still have a year left, though.

Your business goals aren’t necessarily just business-related either.  Anyone who’s been self-employed will tell you that your business and your life are one and the same.  My career is what I spend almost all of my time working on.  My goals in and around my writing business are also my personal goals in almost everything or are the means by which I will achieve my personal goals.

I will not likely get everything I wanted out of Year 3 because my current Year 3 goals are not the same as those I wrote in 2007.  My current goals for the next year (Year 3 in the above, Year 1 in the current) revolve around family and a new baby we’re about to have.  It’s a new sub-project of my business which I’m calling “Homo Magnificus.”

Revising and Updating Your Plan

This brings us to the next part of business plan building: maintenance of the plan.

Your plan is not static, sitting on paper and waiting to be marked off like some checklist at the grocery store.  It’s a dynamic thing.  Your personal wishes, goals, and needs will change often and so should your business plan to match.

Every six months (at least), you should revisit your business plan and mark off those things you’ve achieved while adding or revising those things that might have changed.  The “6 Month”, “1 Year” and other goals should reflect the next six months and one year, not the past.

This continued revision and habit of always looking ahead will serve you well in your business endeavor.

The Goal is the Key

In the end, all of this is about goals.  You should have your plan laid out, your goals set, and your expectations written down.  Spelling out what you want to achieve (realistically) and how you expect to achieve it and then continually reminding yourself of those goals will keep you on track.  Plus, when you get to check off one of them, it feels pretty good.

All of this should be done well before you begin your endeavor in earnest.  Set goals first, then sit down with your business and figure out how it (and you) will achieve them.

Next, we’ll look at keeping track of your business’ finances and writing income.  Seems rudimentary, but it’s amazing how many people skip this.

First off, I would like to welcome you to this blog, where I’ll be talking about writing, from both a professional and an amateur prospective.  I often have clients, friends, or people who run into me on the Web ask me about the aspects of writing for the Internet and how different types and styles of writing are used for content and promotion.

One of the things that most people seem to misunderstand are the differences that exist between the several styles of writing as they relate to a venue.  So I thought I would cover that today.

First and foremost, writing is rarely easy to do.  While some have an innate talent for words and phrases, most have to work very hard to hone this skill into something that is above and beyond the average.  Like most professionals, writers often specialize in one type of writing or one style or venue.  Let me explain.

Venues

There are many venues for writers to aim towards when writing and this, above all else, nearly always decides the final style and type of writing.  If, for instance, the article you’re writing will appear in a printed magazine of a generally mainstream type, like say Vanity Fair or Time Magazine, then your writing will be very different than if you’re writing for a personal blog.

In general, printed venues are, in a traditional sense, looking for material that is written on an 8th grade academic level.  This includes using sentences and phrases that can be understood by most people reading without requiring a dictionary, but without sounding too dumbed-down.  Sentences tend to be longer and more complex, but most of the vocabulary will be relatively colloquial.

News-oriented venues will instead prefer what’s called the Associated Press Style (APS), which is news reporting with no first person and no colloquial terminology.  Just straight forward, choppy sentences with a clear beginning, middle, and end for the story being told.  Facts are situated so that the most important (and eye-catching) are at the beginning, tapering down towards the extraneous loose ends before ending with a summary of the entire story.

On the Internet, however, there is a revolution taking place and a more colloquial, first-person (or at least “common man”) approach is being taken to both news reporting and commentary.  I specialize in writing for online publication and so I use a very “down home” style of writing.  This includes a lot of contractions (“can’t” instead of “cannot”) with writing that reads as if someone were speaking rather than, well, stiffly writing.

Before any writer can be successful, he or she must first understand the venue being written for.  Many print writers are having a hard time adjusting to writing online outside of print publisher’s websites, which still expect their online fare to match their paper publication.  Academic institutions are still teaching with an eye towards print publications, but that is slowly changing.

Types of Writing

There are a lot of writing styles and they’re used for many different things.  Writing isn’t just novels, journalism, or editorial and philosophy.  Writing also includes copy writing, tagline or sloganeering, and more.  There are many types of writing and few writers are good at more than one or two.

For instance, I write mostly news reporting and editorials as well as creatives for website copy and technical information.  I am not, however, particularly skilled at sales copy and marketing work (also called “copy writing”).  This requires a specific skillset that understands more than just basic marketing techniques, going into psychology and different strategies for using words and phrases to create sales pull from a website, billboard, leaflet, etc.

Writing fiction, similarly, is very different from writing non-fiction.  Most people can be very good at one, but not particularly good at the other.  Most fiction writers, for example, are not generally good at objective news reporting or sales and marketing copy.  Most non-fiction writers are, by the same token, not generally good at fiction.  Some are good at both, but find that one or the other requires much more work and effort on their part to make it shine.

Another style of writing that is often overlooked is technical writing, which is very different from the others already mentioned.  When I began writing, in fact, I began as a technical writer.  The specific skillset required, more often than not, is the ability to understand complicated technology and turn that into something that the average person can understand by reading your descriptions.  One of my first paid writing jobs, back in 2000, was to write the user’s manual for an online application, explaining how the technical aspects of the website app worked so that everyday users with little computer knowledge could understand it.

As you can see, there are many types of writing and I’ve only given a basic overview of them here.

Over time, I will discuss different aspects of writing.  I’ll also talk about how I’ve found writing work, how to market your own work, and other issues surrounding the profession of writing.  If you have any questions for me or have suggestions for a future article you’d like to see, please feel free to leave comments or send an email through my Contact page.