How to be a Writer

This past week I had the pleasure of hosting a writing workshop with fellow writer, Rebecca Toro. I’m pleased with how well the event went. And since we gathered a ton of really great information for the workshop, I thought I’d share it here with you.

Start Your Writing Career Today!

A brief guide by Beth Martin & Rebecca Toro

What is a writer?

A writer is simply someone who writes. As long as you’re working on something, you are a writer. You don’t need to have any published works, articles, a blog, or stories shared on networks like Wattpad. If you have the desire to write, then start calling yourself a writer.

Step One: Set Your Goal

Before getting started, know what you're trying to achieve.

Do you want to make money or be widely read? Will you write essays, short stories, novels, or non-fiction books? Do you have a time frame in mind? How do you plan on getting to your goal?

Each of these decisions will influence the following steps, but before you have anything you plan on publishing, your writing career goal should be to build an audience.

Building your audience means finding the people who will read what you write. These are the people who will follow your career and purchase your books and anthologies and read literary magazines featuring your work. Don’t plan on having a publisher find your readers for you. This is your job, and it’s never too early to start.

Pro tip: Start by recruiting friends and family. They can give you the boost in confidence you need when sharing your work with an outside audience. 

Step Two: Define Your Ideal Reader 

Once we have a clear goal—build an audience—it’s time to decide who that audience is. What type of person would likely read your work? Often, your audience will be a lot like you and will engage in similar activities to those you enjoy.

Take a few minutes to think about what type of person is in your ideal audience. How old are they? What experiences do you think they’ve had? What do they like to do in their free time? What books (in addition to yours) do they like to read?

Pro tip: Once you know who your ideal reader is, you can start thinking of what kind of content they would enjoy. Do they like pop culture, a playful tone,  or complex language?

Step Three: Define Your Personal Brand

You are your brand. Your brand is everything from your personality to your style, the language of writing, how you talk, who you communicate with, and how you look. Some examples of things writers may use in their brands include sharing writing advice, building a cabin, being a hardcore book nerd, engaging in tons of geeky activities, caring for lots of cats, and prepping for doomsday.

Aesthetics

Choose colors, fonts, and design elements for your brand. Go with colors that would represent your work or something that defines your personality. Something you’re obsessed with? Something that makes you, you.

Ideally, people who look at your work, website, or book cover will say, “That’s _____ work! I recognize it because I keep seeing this color scheme with this font and this author’s name. I want to read their book since it looks interesting.”

Pro tip: Think of it like this—how can you be memorable? With so much content out there, how do you stand out? 

It sounds intimidating, but just find something that really resonates with you and it will come naturally. Take a few minutes to think about what you want your brand to be. What aspects of your personality would you like to share with fans? What detail(s) would you like readers to remember about you? What sort of colors and images represent you, the writer?

Step Four: Build Your Platform

Your platform is your presence online. This should include a website and one or more social media accounts dedicated to you, the writer.

Pro tip: It is entirely up to you if you want to have a separate professional social media account or combine your personal account with your professional work. 

Build a Website

Make your site clear, concise, and easy to navigate. Lots of website builders have premade themes that you can tweak to your liking, or you can hire someone to do the work for you. Some good website builders are Wordpress, Wix, Squarespace, and Blogger.

A website functions as your ‘home’ on the internet. It’s the place you’ll direct people to who want to learn more about you and your work.

Although it’s tempting to build a website around your book or story, your website should be about you. Choose a name for your site which includes your name or pen name. Domain names are affordable, but you can use a free webname in the beginning.

There are a lot of benefits of hiring a professional to build your website. You don’t have to do nearly as much work, and they can help come up with your logo and color scheme and create multiple pages. A pro may have ideas you didn’t think of. Although self-made sites give you more control, when you hire someone to help build your site, you will still have the final say.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with building your own site. A self-made site is more affordable, and depending on your skills, you can customize your site as much as you want. It’s easy to set up a simple website from a template.

On your site, you should have dedicated pages for:

• About you: Your work, education, hobbies, fun facts
  
• Portfolio: Your published works or current work in progress
  
• Contact page: Ways fans can get in touch
  
• Blog: (optional) Share posts about your work and life, give advice, etc.
  

A key part you can include on your website is a blog. Blogs are great since they provide content for your page which can potentially lead people to your site; however, it takes time and dedication to keep up with a blog. Think about what content would interest your audience when deciding what to post. Try to post regularly (once a week or a couple times a month).

Pro tip: Connect your social accounts to your website. That way people can find you online easier. You’d be surprised with how many professional business social media accounts are not linked correctly, not linked at all, or not located on their site. 

Take Advantage of Social Media

There are tons of social media sites. Here are a few of the more popular ones for writers:

• Facebook Make a dedicated page to share photos and thoughts. It’s good for marketing your work and makes it easy for fans to share your content.
• Instagram Great for sharing photos and reaching outside of your existing fan base.
• YouTube Make videos including vlogs, insights to your writing process, writing advice, etc.
• Goodreads Meet other book lovers and leave reviews for your favorite books.
• Twitter Share thoughts and quickly meet like-minded people.

There are many more social websites including Tumblr, Snapchat, TikTok, etc. Use whatever social media your audience might have and you yourself enjoy using.

Pro tip: In order to not overextend yourself, choose two social media platforms in the beginning and dedicate your time to those.

Post content which your audience might enjoy. Include snippets of your work, share your hobbies, and post pictures of you being you. Let people know what books you’re reading, how your work is going, and which things you find interesting.

Sometimes we forget that published writers are everyday people with thoughts and feelings. Some people get really political, curse, argue, or post incessantly about their dog. Your personal brand is you. You can be playful or opinionated, professional or risqué. It’s up to you! Anything you post will be a reflection of you and your brand.

Take a few minutes to think about what you would like to use for your platform. Will you have a website? How about a blog? Which social media websites would you like to use to connect with fans? What sort of content will you share on your platform? How often will you post?

Pro tip: Be mindful of how you react to criticism and trolls. Your platform is visible to the public and reacting poorly to comments will reflect negatively on your brand.

Step Five: Network with Other Writers

When you connect with other writers you’ll be able to make lasting friendships, gain exposure, discover writers you may not have heard of, relate to fellow book nerds, write editorial reviews for each other, and cross-promote your work.

Once you’re actively presenting yourself as a writer, you’ll attract the attention of other writers. These connections will be invaluable.

So, how do you network with other writers? Try to comment on other users’ posts, follow hashtags that you’re interested in, or create your own thread. Ask a question, and be the conversation starter! Join groups and pages you are interested in and follow your favorite authors.

Next Steps: Have Fun!

Yes, starting a career is a job, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun! Try new things and experiment until you find a strategy that works for you. If your platform takes away too much time from your writing, it’s totally fine to downsize your social media involvement.