How to Start a Home Based Writing Business
Do you really enjoy writing? Some individuals feel it's a painful and painstaking
experience. But, if you love to write, and believe others could enjoy reading your work;
then consider starting home-based writing as a part or full-time business.
1. Start your business naturally. Perhaps working part-time with your writing business
while keeping your full-time job. Decide when to write full-time; make sure you maintain
enough savings to carry you through months of lean times. Writers, no matter how
successful, should always have a financial safety net, other income, an employed spouse or
a "crazed" parent.
2. Get a good word processing software program; you can even download a quality word
processing program for free, such as OpenOffice.org writer, as other word processing
software can be quite expensive.
3. Get a printer, a telephone, voice-mail, and internet access with email: all of
these, and even more, are vital.
4. Do a little bit of marketing and prospecting and actually selling your product and
"yourself" everyday. You can not succeed or even exist as a paid author by just waiting
for your day to dawn... It already did!
5. Search for new writing leads every day. Don't count on just one or two sources of
income. Diversify your outlets and publishers until you get a salary with a no compete
clause, as you would in local news publishing or some advertising writing.
6. Tell everyone you're a writer, when someone asks: "What you do for a living?"
Realize that the world's a lot smaller place than it seems. Your hairdresser's brother or
an in-law might be the acquisition editor at Simon.
Tips
• You don't have to write the next great American novel to make a
living as a writer. You can make a living preparing newsletters, collection letters, and
resumes for people and businesses.
• Advertise your services at colleges and universities. Students (and
teachers) always need help in manuscript preparation.
• Develop your writing skills in technical writing, legal
transcription, and⁄or medical transcription: you can be serious if only temporarily.
You can then offer your services to software companies, law firms for compiling reams of
documents, and doctors (maintaining well written records).
• The thesaurus is your best friend. The thesaurus helps you to choose
words that mean what you mean to say.
Warnings
• You're not an actor in a movie communicating with frowns, winks,
nods and shrugs... although you could write all of that into a dramatic creation.
• Expect proofreaders and editors to do some changes, corrections,
deletions, but not much nurturing or mentoring unless you have unusual or great abilities.
Article source: wikiHow
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wikiHow licenses all content under a Creative Commons License. The license
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