4 Reasons Being A Pro Writer Sucks Ass

and three reasons I wouldn’t do anything else

Bad news. Professional writing isn’t something you can love. If you love writing because it clears your soul or some such wishy-washy nonsense, then you’ve got a hobby. That’s not a career.

Pro-level writing is a job. It’s a rather shitty job when you add everything all up. And I can’t imagine doing anything else.

The Pay Is Low

What’s the lowest amount of money you can make at a job in your town? I’ll bet it’s minimum wage. You’ll even get overtime if you work more than 40 hours a week (in most places). That’s not what you get as a writer.

If you love the grind, you’ll love a career as a writer. You’ll work 40–50 hours a week. You’ll probably only spend half of that time actually writing. The rest will be spent researching, editing, formatting, emailing clients, finding clients, chasing clients down for outstanding money, dealing with idiot clients, and then deleting everything you just wrote and sticking a fork up your nose (true story, don’t ask).

Here’s the kicker: you’ll only get paid for what you wrote. If you spent 30 hours dealing with client stuff, and 8 hours researching, and 2 hours writing…get the picture?

There’s no minimum wage for professional writers. Your clients are looking for the cheapest writer they can find. There’s a ton of people in India willing to write for $4. Can you live on $4 a week?

The Competition Is Fun

I can’t live on $4 a week. I wouldn’t be a pro writer if I did. That’s why I avoid the content mills. Those places, like Fiverr, Freelance.com, and other similar sites are filled with cheap-ass business owners who think they can get an entire website’s worth of content for under $100.

Let them have it.

Their site will be full of grammar and spelling mistakes. Their blog posts will be poorly written by people who can barely speak English. You can see these sites when you search for information on Google and come across something that reads like Google Translate gibberish. Eventually, Google dumps these sites from the front page.

If a business wants quality content that ranks high on search engines and engages readers so they become paying customers, they come to someone like me. I charge high rates because it sets apart the fake dumpster businesses from the serious business owners.

There’s only a handful of REAL professional writers in North America. That is, those with impeccable English writing skills, experience, and technical know-how. You won’t find us racing to the bottom on some shitty content mill.

I love being elite at something.

There Are No Benefits

It sucks not having benefits. I lucked out when my wife got a job with amazing group benefits, so personally, I’m all set. You’re not, sucker.

All joking aside, I remember what it was like when I didn’t have any benefits. At one point, my writing income was the only income our family had, but we had no benefits for dentists or drugs or massages. I don’t even care about the dentist. Take all my teeth out. Never take my massages!

If you don’t have someone to lean on for benefits, then you’ll find yourself in a tough situation, especially if you live in the United States of America.

I told you that a career in writing sucks.

No Bosses

Do you like abuse? Do you like asking for permission to pee? As a grown-ass adult, how does it feel to have someone telling you that you can’t go home yet? If you love that crap, then don’t be a writer.

Not having a boss is awesome. Fuck bosses. I mean seriously, fuck them all. I work when I want, pee when I need, and take naps when I’m tired.

Now that I’ve got that off my chest, is there anything else I need to say?

Clients…Ugh, Clients…

Wait a moment.

Remember the absolute beauty of not having a boss? Instead, you have clients.

As a professional writer, your client may be a business owner, or a magazine publisher, or a literary agent. It doesn’t matter their title. If they’re paying you, then they’re your client.

And guess what?

They are mostly awful. Expect to answer their emails IMMEDIATELY. Did you agree on a 2,000-word article? Well, now they want an infographic and maybe you could even edit their previous writer’s work while you’re at it? Of course, they won’t pay you anymore. But you do want to keep them as a client, don’t you? There are guys in India who will do it for free…

Don’t even think about getting paid on time. You’ll need to invoice them, and then a few weeks later remind them about that invoice. After a few months, you may want to get more aggressive with your reminders.

Did you just get a book published? Expect to make $200 in two to three years!

Money Money Money

On the other hand, when you DO rake in the cash, you can make a lot of it.

You might do a ton of work for peanuts at the beginning, but holy fuck, once you hit the right balance of client work and published work, the money rolls in.

There are months where your ebooks suddenly sell a bunch, your articles on Medium hit the algorithm the right way, you land three clients who pay a retainer upfront, and your publisher throws you an advance.

Those are the good times.

You can make more money in a month than you ever would at a job. For some reason, when it rains, it pours. Money will just flood in all of a sudden. I call it Writer Momentum. But it’s bound to stop.

The next few months might see you scraping the bottom of the sofa for loose change. It truly is a feast or famine industry.

Plan accordingly.

Taxes Taxes Taxes

There’s a flip side to all the money that comes in random spurts. The taxes don’t.

You need to put money aside for taxes. You need to put A LOT of money aside. A good figure is 25%.

Stuff it in a high-interest savings account and let it sit there until tax time. If you end up paying less in taxes then you have a nice little nest egg saved up, plus interest.

Still Want To Be A Professional Writer?

At the end of the day, you need to ask yourself if the pros outweigh the cons. I didn’t even discuss marketing yourself, managing your budgets, business planning, social media engagement, diversifying, contracts, software, insurance….

Originally published at https://nathanadrescher.substack.com.