Happy Thursday, writer friends!
A friend, who is also a subscriber to this newsletter, texted me the other day. “Are you still working on books?” she wrote.
It’s a good question. The short answer is of course, always.
The longer answer is gradually.
One of the biggest mistakes I see writers making in their careers is one I’m intimately familiar with. It’s the instinct to do all the things all at once.
Freelancing full-time while writing a novel on the side? Been there. Publishing eight nonfiction books and making them bestsellers while running a creative business? Done that. Finishing a novel for one agent and reworking a nonfiction book proposal for another while freelancing, running a creative business, and publishing a weekly newsletter on the side?
Been there, done that, and got the burnout and diminishing income to prove it.
So, yes, I told my friend. I’m always thinking of books. But at this very moment, I’m not actively publishing or marketing any of them.
See, when I was in my twenties, my goal was to make a full-time living with my freelancing. I did that.
In my thirties, I wanted to make excellent money while spending most of my time with my child. I did that, too.
As I’ve entered my forties, my priorities have shifted once again. Now, financial freedom is my key goal. For me, that means creating multiple sources of income in a way that’s consistent, sustainable, and creates opportunities for me to explore new aspects of the writing and publishing life.
I’ve tried this before and failed, so this time, I was strategic about the process. I decided to go right back to the basics and start from scratch.
I built up a full-time freelance income. This was easy. It’s something I excel at and teach. Within three months, I was making $7-10k a month and turning down projects.
Then, I cut my hours. I halved the time I spent on freelancing while keeping my income somewhat steady.
The next step was introducing a passive income source. Instead of going with books, however, which has always been my instinct, I chose to focus on this business instead. Partly because I really enjoy running it, but also because I know I still have audience building work to do before I’m ready to publish my book (I will be going the indie route.)
I followed a very specific process to create these streams of income, one that I detail in this free masterclass on how to get to a six-figure income in a year as a multipassionate creative.
As I explain in the masterclass, most writers will find their income decreasing when they create additional income streams because of three strategic mistakes.
It took me years and a lot of trial and error to figure out, one, what those mistakes were, and two, how to fix them.
And now that I have, I’m getting to enjoy my work and my life without feeling like I’m working all hours of the day or running endlessly on a road to nowhere. I have the peace of mind to know that even though I’m not publishing a novel right this very minute, there’s a plan for making it happen. And if I stick to it, then I’ll get to focus on a book launch exclusively, without worrying about money or sales, because I’ll have created a solid foundation for it to happen.
If you want to go deeper into the process and how you can implement it in your own career, you can watch the masterclass here.
In the last couple of years, I’ve become very strategic in the way I do things. I have a lot of different skills and interests, but I’ve realized that if I am to honor those skills and interests, I have to do the hard work of prioritizing and creating space for them. When I’m ready to launch my novel, I don’t want to be in a position where I have seven deadlines in a month just to pay the bills.
So I’m being smart in how I approach my goals and next steps.
And if you’re a person with multiple goals and interests, that’s what I would recommend that you do, too.
Cheers,
Natasha