Potentially Paid
Thoughts & Experience Writing Online For Almost A Decade by Jeff C. Whitaker
I've been a paid online writer for almost a decade. I currently post exclusively on free platforms, recently deleted my Buymeacoffee.com account, and have no plans to launch a Patreon in the near future. I have paid to be a premium Medium.com member and even tried Bluehost, Wix, and another site I can't remember that does the same thing — take your money while you figure out how to make it back. Before I get into what I've finally settled on after months of deliberating on the viable and sustainable career path for my online writing, allow me to unpack this.
Before pursuing a career as a writer, I wrote for everyone around me in various capacities. I have run company blogs, ghostwritten for social media accounts, and, most proudly, written an unusual number of obituaries and eulogies. Before these unique sources of income, I had been writing for free. I have a few embarrassing mixtapes buried under the graveyard of music that is DatPiff.com, a not-so-bad song I wrote for a computer music class somewhere, and a bunch of forgettable obligatory raps from my failed rap stage. I've written a love letter or two and sent a text message that takes up the whole screen. I can also proudly say no one has ever written a paper for me at any school level. I either passed on my own or took that bad grade alone. I have written a few documents for some money while we're on the subject, but graduating with no loans or debt is a hustle.
In The Between Of Things, like my late 20s, picking a career and general life path, I found myself trying to impress a girl and pridefully shut up a nosey stranger at a party when I declared I was writing professionally. With the girl successful on my line, I had to follow through. With 13 eBooks with eight currently for sale, hundreds of blog posts, and more than a handful of different pages and profiles (and sadly no girl) later, I don't brag or even aggressively market myself as a writer. I write, then figure out what to do with the finished product later.
I only recently began learning to categorize my work and even throw away a fantastic idea in the name of focus. I'd love to write about the current basketball sweet spot with Angel Reese, Caitlin Clark, and women's basketball's re-emergence post-Kobe Bryant. Every other day, a lovely series of lines for a new poetry book comes to me in such a wave that I have to consider if it's time to publish another poetry collection, but I know what I'm working on now and in the future writing wise and can't lose focus.
I am no longer a hobbyist trying to figure out what works for me and what I like best. I also decided long ago that this is a personal choice, not a career choice. You have to be willing to spend money to make money in this industry. If you're broke, you have to spend time doing exceptional work to earn it, and if you're anything like I was when I proved I was writing, you spent more time becoming exceptional than you did getting paid. Even with "Beginners Luck" and a decent following like I had with my first book, you will find very quickly how inconsistent the creative industry is. You have one chance to lose a fan forever, and that fan is constantly looking for the next thing. So, if you don't have it, they are one swipe or search away from moving on.
This is a personal choice, not a career choice. You have to be willing to spend money to make money in this industry.
It's all good. You live, and you learn. I know I did, but if you learned this is your passion, like me, you also must learn to make it easy to live out. Paying for Wix, Bluehost, and the like is wise at the right time. I should have done that with my first book when thousands of people were following me on several social media accounts, not when I deleted my Instagram and restarted my Twitter/X before my eighth semi-rushed book. A Buymeacoffee.com, Patreon, or YouTube account would be much more profitable when I have 100 faithful subscribers on my Medium.com account or a core following on my Twitter and Smashwords.com accounts.
You have one chance to lose a fan forever… It’s all good. You live, and you learn. If you learned this is your passion, you also must learn to make it easy to live out.
I was trying to get extra money on Buymeacoffee.com, so I started an account and posted some random ideas that did not fit this blog but needed to be book-worthy (yet), effectively spreading myself too thin. My followers needed clarification because I had an eBooks page that I would publish at random with little to no advance marketing and promotion, and I was changing blog sites multiple times a year. Add all the aesthetic changes I made from Facebook to Instagram, to Twitter/X, and various combinations in between, and you can start to understand how vital a focused vision and mission are.
I have always wanted to write novels, series, and other significant projects. I also knew that I needed to work my way up to that. Some people can write one long book and keep it moving, but my thoughts and ideas need to be revised. It took me ten books to write my first essay and easily ten essays to write my first short story. After a few short stories, I wrote my first mini-novel(Novelette), and only after writing the first draft did I realize I needed to be more focused.
I realized I was ready to make a portfolio of my work only a month later, and I needed to focus my efforts until then. Money will come if the work is good. Currently, the money is as focused as my efforts. In the holiday season, when I focus on quantity, I get more frequent payments that match the poor quality of the work. In the seasons that I devote months to writing and the same, if not more, time to marketing and promoting a project, it may take some time for money to come in, but when it does, I can go shopping for more than I need.
If you haven't learned anything else from me and this post, I need you to understand how important it is to focus on one step at a time. Planning your novel when you know you have to build a blog is a waste of your time. Your blog needs building, and your book must be in touch when you refer to those notes. Start and build the blog. Actively compile the notes and even begin drafting that novel. However, trying to make the platform without any idea what for or writing a book you want to sell while actively distracting from your writing by maintaining a platform won't help.
Money will come if the work is good…focus on one step at a time.
That said, Smashwords.com (soon to be Draft2Digital) appealed to me because publishing is free, and you decide how much your work is worth. In 2024, we all understand that social media is the best free marketing tool, and it all depends on what you're marketing. I am a writer, so I use Twitter/X, which is primarily text-based. Yet, in today's short-attention-span economy, I can't build a career on one decent book a year and unplanned Tweets when I feel like it. So, I looked into Newsletters, Podcasts, membership sites, and so on. Medium.com is the only one that is free to join and allows me the option to create premium content in any of those forms — mediums if you will. Sure, it may take some time, but all things do.
Writing, editing, and publishing on Smashwords takes a lot of time, and it may be worth it to pay a professional to do the bulk of the editing and art, at minimum. Building a quality fanbase on social media takes time, money, or both and only sometimes translates to sales. Medium.com is the perfect balance of both. I have the luxury of posting what I want with quick dopamine hits from the occasional follower that pushes me to post more consistently. On the other hand, there's no pressure to post because it is free, unlike running a personal site or professional blog like Bluehost.
Buymeacoffee.com was excellent and gives you more options to reach your fans in a way they may need, but for me, it was a distraction. I won't waste time creating a digital planner or coloring book since I do not have a platform to publish and reasonably sell them immediately. Instead, I focus on building my blog or completing my next book until I get to the novel, which I must focus on developing and finishing. Maintaining a Smashwords.com account for eBooks, a Medium.com site for essays, and a Twitter/X account for building a community and marketing is enough. Why would I make things difficult by keeping a Buymeacoffee.com account solely for the little time I may or may not get to create a digital planner for a few semi-interested fans or a coloring book for people who did not ask for one?
When I write a book that covers my expenses for years, I still should only have time to do some of that. Ideally, when that day comes, I'll focus on touring, merchandise, follow-up projects, and enjoying the fruits of my labor, better known as living my best life. Regardless, the choice is always yours, and these are my thoughts.
Comment with your thoughts or share this with someone who has some of their own. Clap if you find yourself meditating on something different and want more thoughts like this. Subscribe to receive weekly Words of Wisdom directly to your email and any other ideas I may have in the theology and self-development realm.
I also have a Twitter/X with mostly basketball content, too. See you next week!
