Finding a New Path Forward
Returning to what I know.
Selling creative talent is always a challenge, especially when you first start. I don’t care if you’re an artist, writer, or musician—it can be rough first starting out (let’s not even talk about what AI is doing to the market, too).
I’ve spent over a decade working in a business/corporate setting. It was all I knew. I poured myself into my work, and I felt good about what I achieved. Then after my youngest was born, I found myself needing to be home more. The truth was, my husband and I couldn’t afford to put her into daycare and me return to work. It wasn’t logical, so I stayed home.
That was when an old urge started to find it’s way back into my life—writing.
Having Time
I had no idea what writing fiction would turn into, but after honing my craft (I’m still learning and probably always will), I ended up trying my hand out in the genres of fantasy and cozy mystery. The cozy mystery part stuck and most of my new works stayed within that genre.
I got the chance to work with an independent publishing company, and that took my writing discipline to a new level—and boy, did I need that discipline to help me achieve the rest of my projects! From there I went independent and for awhile, found some small success in what I knew.
Once I was independently publishing, it didn’t take long to understand the amount of work I needed to publish, was about to jump up a thousand percent. One thing you learn quickly as a creative pursuing an income, is you wear all the hats. That means marketing, finding a designer (unless you are skilled enough to do that on your own), hiring an editor, and launching your books is all up to you. There’s a lot of blood, sweat, and tears—and capital needed to get off the ground.
Change—Rethinking Strategies
When things starting tanking with the economy and prices of every day items soared, I found myself unable to outbid larger companies for ad space. What once worked, stopped. I needed to either spend more money on ads or pour into social media—I knew I should leverage social media, but I hated the output required to keep the platforms running, and frankly—I didn’t have the mental energy to do that and write. So, what did that leave me to work with? I couldn’t justify pouring more cash into my own business when feeding my family was the priority. That left lot’s of trial and error for the last couple of years.
After trying different ways of marketing, I developed what I called a quiet marketing method where I used email newsletter ads from a couple places I trusted, and an occasional ad from the Zon to keep book traffic flowing. For awhile, that worked…but I’m guessing you already know where I’m going with this one. Things started changing again, and what once worked, didn’t seem to do as well as before.
I learned what I could to leverage my fiction writing in a new way. The goal this time, was to aim for more consistency to combat the economic changes (clearing throat as I look at housing prices and grocery cost…not to mention utilities).
Leveraging What You Know
That’s where fiction ghostwriting came into play this year. I started with Upwork and did all the things: uploaded samples from my stories, referenced my experience, and set out to pick up clients.
I did get somewhere. I got lucky and started crafting a fun series with my first client, who was a delight to work with.
There was a lot to learn, some good and plenty not so when it came to ghostwriting. For instance, not all my clients were as lovely as the first. And I found out, it wasn’t uncommon to be hired to write fast and have your fiction words taken to be used in AI models that you didn’t agree to.
That was probably the beginning of the end for me.
Once my last contract ended, I decided to put ghostwriting mainly behind me.
Changing Creative Goals
I’m returning to the business world.
I’m not going to lie, burnout is a big deal and writing when the joy has fizzled out, is not what I want. This past year has been a huge push in figuring out what my goals are and if they are the same. Surprisingly, or not so surprisingly, I found what I wanted was not what I was doing. That meant, new goals and a new shift needed to be made.
There’s a lot of things I’ve learned while doing writing as an author and for an income. I’m grateful for the chance, I’m grateful for the good months I had. But mostly, I’m grateful for understanding what I actually want with this skill—creating for joy, and not for an income.
Because of this, I need to set aside the fast pace of outputting fiction and shift to use my administrative skills to take over the income side. It’s not easy, I’m still job seeking (although, I’ve got some leads and am hopeful), and I finally have some peace.
New Goals
So here are my new goals for the remaining year:
Land an administrative job to take over the income side (my family and I like to eat, so this one’s an important one).
Stay positive—change is tough, add on the pressures of things I can’t control (like rising costs), and it can be a challenging effort to keep trying.
Start writing fiction for fun and release lots of stories for free.
That means:
More short stories on Substack, whether they are read is irrelevant. The practice is good and the goal being met helps me continue.
Only do writing things or events that will bring joy back
I’m doing my first book table at my local bookstore this December. I’m half terrified and half excited to try something new. I figure if I hate it, I don’t have to do it again, but I’ll be around people I like spending time with and do my best to have fun.
Keep Going
Thanks for reading,
Melinda <3