Most people who write find their way to writing due to passion, skill and talent. It tends to be something we do because we enjoy it and develop into being fairly decent writers over time. Making the leap to treating our writing as a business can be the last thing we ever think we’ll do! While in a dream world, writing for pleasure and writing for pay would be exactly the same—that is not necessarily the way things go. There are plenty of typical business details that need to be considered when one decides to write as a business.
Just like any business, writing work means we need to keep good records—records of our contacts, copies of our finished work (and work in progress), tax records, income and expense records, and anything else that is associated with our writing business and necessary for us to be professional. This can sometimes fly in the face of creativity. They are entirely different processes—creating writing work, and running a business—and just because one is good at one, does not ensure that he or she will be good at the other.
Writing as a business also means making a commitment—a commitment not to writing as a passion, but as something we work diligently at just like any other type of work. For some of us—dedicated the time and effort to writing can be a real boost to our productivity (just setting aside and guaranteeing time for writing work may open the floodgates of productivity), while for others, making it into a “have to” business, takes all the fun and flow out of our writing efforts. The fact is, deciding to generate income from our writing work means that we need to commit in a way that will require focus, dedication, and attention to mundane details—not always what one things of when one imagines being a writer.
Fortunately, there are those who can help with details like bookkeeping, contracts, taxes and other business issues. Hiring a professional or a consultant to help with the nitty gritty details can be helpful to many writers—although those of us beginners may not be able to afford it in the early stages of our writing business. Meanwhile, the most important thing we can do is to make the mental shift to thinking about our writing work as a business.
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