Writing a Book When It’s Not Your Day Job

Jul 10, 2018 | Writing A Book

Semi-pro writers are men and women who write with a business purpose, even though writing is not their full-time job. If that’s you, you probably write for personal expression, to sharpen your thinking, and to boost your career. That’s great, but you’ve got some special challenges.

All those challenges derive from the fact that writing is not your day job. You’ve got to find a way to produce quality work while cramming that work into an already full calendar and life. Here are some ways to meet that challenge.

Spend Your Time on The Distinctive Stuff

Put your time into developing quality content. Research what you need to. Put your personal stamp on your work. With all the books, blog posts, and articles being published these days, it’s more important than ever to stand out from the crowd.

Be Realistic

Developing good content takes time. Allow enough of it. Develop a process for creating content so you can produce consistent quality work even when you’re super-busy.

You will probably have to take time from somewhere else. Just don’t cut down on your sleep or skimp on your important relationships. You need both to maintain equilibrium and do quality work.

Hire help for the things you don’t want to do. If you’re going to devote time to something, make it something you enjoy doing and which is essential to the work. Hire out anything that requires special skills that you’d have to develop but only use once or twice.

Get Professional Help.

You probably know about hiring a ghost writer or writing partner to help you get a book done. That’s not the only kind of professional help.

You can get coaching to improve your work. That might be coaching for specific writing skills, or to help you put a book together. A book writing coach can reduce your anxiety and help you avoid common pitfalls.

Some semi-pro writers also hire an accountability partner. That’s a professional who understands the book-writing process but whose primary function is to give you someone to report to.

Bottom Line

If writing’s not your day job, but you want to write to boost your career, work smart. Spend your time and energy on developing distinctive, helpful material. Be realistic about what you can do without overloading yourself or ruining important relationships. Get professional to help make your life easier and your writing better.