Writing for yourself vs writing for other people – have you got the balance right?

This is something that has occurred to me lately, as I have a number of writing projects that are either started but stalled, or on the back burner.  These are all projects that are for me – not for clients, but for me.  I won’t reveal the details of these but suffice to say that they are either articles or eBooks that I want to write for one reason or another, to sell under my own name.  Ghostwriting is good but it is also nice to have personal writing goals to achieve.

Are you on target to meet your own writing goals?

The one thing that distinguishes some of these personal writing goals from other more general ones that include writing for clients is that writing for you can bring in an income that lasts longer.

If I found the time to write the eBook I have in mind, I could conceivably earn money from it for months (and hopefully years) to come.  I have put in place a few odd and very small income streams that do keep ticking over nicely.  And it is these I want to continue to build on for the future.  They trundle on all by themselves, paying out reasonably regularly, and I’d like to multiply them.  Who wouldn’t?

Don’t get me wrong – I LOVE writing and I couldn’t not do it (not very good English there I know, I know, but it describes the feeling perfectly!).  But at the same time I would like to work a bit less than I am doing now, without any drop in income.  So because of this I am finding new ways of using my writing skills for me.  I am starting to think of ME as a new client, if you like.

Sometimes this can be the best way to ‘fit yourself in’ to your current schedule.  To use a very rudimentary example, let’s say you have room for ten client jobs a day.  For ease of use we’ll assume every client job takes exactly the same amount of time.

If you want to work a bit more for yourself to set up new income streams that stem from your writing –creating eBooks for example – then you need to book yourself a slot.  Consider yourself as one of those ten clients a day.  So from now on you only need to find nine client jobs per day instead of the original ten.  The other one is you.

Now with any luck and after a certain period of time – depending on what you are doing – you should find that you can start earning money from your own writing efforts.  You might even be earning enough that you don’t have to take on those nine client jobs per day any more.  You might decide to cut back to five or even less.

Some writers like to keep their hand in with client work.  Others only keep on their favourite clients.  Some cut the ties altogether and forge a new career writing eBooks, articles and all manner of newsletters and websites for them to earn a decent living from.  And they can work less hours and earn more money doing so.

So if you haven’t asked yourself lately, ask yourself now – have you got the balance right?

Tags: career, clients, freelance, lifestyle, work