You Can’t Just “Be A Writer” and Expect to Make It In the Long Run
Real talk: you are wasting time and energy chasing an empty dream.
That’s what I used to think also —
just focus on writing, creating content, putting yourself out there, engaging, and through time and practice:
- Quality work will eventually appear
- A niche will appear
- An audience will start to gather around you
- Money will follow
While the above are all true, nobody ever talks about the reality behind them:
- Quality work does not equate $$
- Having a niche or being an expert does not equate to having a business
- Having an audience doesn’t equate $$
- You may start making money, but that doesn’t mean your income will grow just because you are stacking up a huge library of content
- Most creative work does not make a sustainable income
Dan Koe and many others have some really motivational content on making it as a creator by just putting in the work and sticking it out.
But the fact of the matter is —
There is a lot more to it.
I’ve been paying close attention to the creator economy for over 3 years, been creating for 2.
Yes, given that I did not write and publish daily until November 2023, I still have a huge leg up in this game because:
- I ran my own business for less than 15 hours a week, making a full-time income for 6+ years without any loans, all by myself.
- I spent $400 to start my first business and was able to generate recurring revenue from the initial $400 investment for 6+ years. (That’s a whopping 45,000%+ in return!)
- I’ve been creating both video and written content across multiple genres (personal development, philosophy, mindset, content creation, and now, finance.)
Guess what the most important things are?
- Cash flow
- Scalability
Most creators and writers get this very wrong:
They think they can create tons of content and the audience would buy. Having a 5k+ audience with anything less than 50 sales on a product is really a terrible investment. 50 out of 5,000 is less than 1%.
Quality content alone does not automatically translate into financial success.
Having a compelling niche, building an audience, and producing great work are important, but monetization requires additional strategic thinking and execution.
Cash flow and scalability are crucial.
Simply having an audience does not guarantee sufficient revenue. Creators need to think about revenue models, product development, marketing, and scaling their offerings beyond just publishing more content.
Audience size does not equal sales.
Even with thousands of followers, conversion rates for products and services can be extremely low if not properly cultivated and targeted. A tiny percentage of an audience's purchase is never sufficient and does not necessarily translate into more purchases further down the road.
Business skills are essential.
Understanding sales, marketing, operations, finance, and general business principles is just as important as creative skills for long-term sustainability as a creator.
We live in a much more complicated world than 10 years ago so why keep the mentality of someone from the 2010’s, right?
All I’m saying is:
The romantic idea of just publishing amazing work until an audience/income materializes is an oversimplification of business realities.