How to Make a Living Doing Something You Love... Writing
Sharing my journey to help inspire yours
I’ve always wanted to work for myself.
But, it’s taken me 3 decades to figure out exactly what I wanted to do. Not to mention, make it a reality.
So, I wanted to illustrate my entire journey to becoming a full-time writer.
Although your path will inevitably differ from mine, I hope it helps you take your next step…
Getting started.
If you’ve ever heard my story before, it goes something like this:
I found early success in my twenties
Burnt myself out chasing money and quit my job
Searched for purpose and put myself $40,000 in debt
Found writing and slowly started working toward a more fulfilling life
The last portion has been the longest — and most challenging.
In 2017, finding myself aimless, jobless, and hopeless, I began writing on Fiverr to rebuild my broken life.
Through freelancing, I earned my first $1 as a writer. And, slowly began to scale my earnings alongside various part-time and full-time jobs.
Although freelancing helped me slowly work my way out of debt (while gaining confidence as a writer), it wasn’t for me. And, when I stumbled across Medium, sitting on the floor of the room seen in this picture, I decided to quit freelancing.
And, start posting my own writing…
Side hustling.
The beginning phase of any journey is always the hardest.
It’s why I always recommend writers start posting their work as soon as possible. Once you earn your first $1 online, you realize earning $100 isn’t so crazy. And, eventually, you’ll discover earning $1,000 per month is very attainable.
Which, is a special number. 💰
For whatever reason, earning $1,000 per month is a tipping point for most writers. Although it’s not enough to live on (at least not in North America), it’s a solid figure.
And, for most people, it’s enough to start planning a leap of faith.
Although there are nearly endless places to post your writing today, Medium was the first platform I committed to fully. And, although it didn’t happen overnight, writing my first viral article sold me on the idea of quitting my job.
For the next year, I saved up as much money as I could and began planning my escape from the 9-5 rat race. Admittedly, I quit my job a little too soon.
And, learned the volatile nature of writing online the hard way…
Moving to full time.
After writing my first viral article, I had a frank discussion with myself.
At the time, I was working at a startup with flexible hours. And, I had finally struck a healthy work-life balance — writing for an hour in the morning and an hour on my lunch break.
These 2 hours per day were paramount in building confidence as a writer. And, as I began to earn more money, I began thinking of myself as a writer with a day job.
As opposed to an aspiring writer.
But, I knew that to truly earn a full-time living, I had to give writing a full-time effort. So, I made a deal with myself: If I could earn $1,000 per month for 3 consecutive months, I would quit my job.
Well… that never happened. 👇
Writing online is incredibly volatile. And, it’s impossible to predict what (and when) articles will go viral. It’s for this reason, most full-time writers have multiple streams of income. But, more on that later.
Despite not reaching my income goals, I was antsy to get started. And, eventually quit my job hoping to figure it out along the way. This made for a very stressful few years — relying on savings, investments, and selling many of my prized possessions to stay afloat.
If I were to do it all over again, I would change almost everything about my strategy. With that said, it did lead me to where I am today.
So, perhaps things worked out for the best.
What I do now.
In hindsight, quitting my job before I was ready may have been the best thing for me.
Mainly, because it robbed me of options.
In life (and on Netflix), too many options can be a detriment. And, when I was writing as a side hustle, I was constantly split between:
Not wanting to sell out
Struggling to cash in
This caused me to ride the fence for my first 5 years of writing online. Sometimes I would post stream-of-consciousness essays. Others, I would write research-heavy health and wellness articles.
This fractured my potential audience. And, kept me in a purgatory of writing from a place of passion — yet, never feeling creatively fulfilled.
It wasn’t until my finances began to run out that I was forced to focus on the task at hand.
Making money. 💰
Although money on its own will not bring you happiness, it’s essential for life. And, if you want to make money doing something you love… well, you need to make money, first.
So, in 2022, I started a YouTube channel, newsletter, and began prioritizing profitability over preference. Serendipitously, this has allowed me to streamline my writing process. And, with complete autonomy over my schedule, I’ve slowly been able to make time for more creative outlets.
Such as writing my first novella — which, I plan to publish next year. 📕
How it happened: 👇
Until late last year, about 80% of my writing earnings came from writing viral Medium articles. Which, put a lot of pressure on me to write stories on popular topics.
But, everything changed after posting this article:
Although it didn’t make me rich, it gained widespread appeal. And, helped me pass the 10K followers mark. Which, little did I know, was the threshold for sponsors to began reaching out.
It also drew more attention to my YouTube channel and helped me provide real-world examples for my writing videos. This played a momunental role in helping me move past the 10K subscriber mark on YouTube as well. Which, has resulted in more brand deals.
Today, writing on Medium accounts for a small fraction of my total income streams:
Paid newsletter
Brand sponsorships
Affiliate commissions
Selling digital products
Revenue-sharing platforms
It’s always funny to look back at which decisions shape your current reality. It’s impossible to predict the future, so I always find the best strategy to be trying, failing, learning, and repeating.
Taking the first step as early as possible…
Final thoughts: your next step.
The reality of life is there’s no one-size-fits-all approach.
So, as much as I’d love to urge you to copy my journey, it likely won’t work for you. At least, not without your own personal spin. Instead, I invite you to think of where you’d like to be in the next year.
And, take one bold step toward it, today.
Reach out if you need support. Or, manifest your goal in the comments below.
Happy writing!
Hudson :)
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Yesterday, my medium account was suspended. Now, i decided to write on Substack.
This is a beautiful journey, an insightful post, and a big truth that there is no one-size-fits-all success plan, because everyone is unique. Thank you for encouraging us all to be brave and find our own success!