Writers As Entrepreneurs – WNP 105

This is The Write Now Podcast with Sarah Werner, Episode 105: Writers As Entrepreneurs.

Welcome to Write Now, the podcast that helps all writers, aspiring, professional, and otherwise, to find the time, energy, and courage you need to pursue your passion and write. I’m your host Sarah Werner, and I’m curious if you as a writer think of yourself as an entrepreneur, or a small business owner. Now, I should back up and say, first of all, do you think of yourself as a writer?

I’ve said it before on this show. I will say it again. I will continue to say it forever. If you write, if you love to write, if you actively write you have permission to call yourself a writer. You do not need anyone else to give that permission to you. You don’t need to have a book published. You don’t need to have a short story published in a prestigious magazine, any of that, so let’s just get that out of the way.

If you write, you are a writer, but a little bit more controversially is, do you think of yourself as an entrepreneur? Do you think of yourself as a business person? Do you think of your writing as a business? I feel like I may be getting into a little bit of hot water here by bringing this up, and maybe this is just me and my own experience, but I feel like there is sort of a spectrum where art is on one end, and business is on the other end, and neither shall the twain meet.

They seem to be polar opposites, or at least perceived as such. I’ve seen people say you can write for the sake of art, or you can write to make money, and there is absolutely zero overlap. I’ve also seen some very hot takes that thinking of your writing as a business will ruin your writing. Yes, I have seen that take on the internet. You can find anything on the internet, so of course you’ll be able to find somebody saying that thinking of your writing as a business will ruin your writing, and everyone is entitled to their thoughts and opinions.

And I’m not coming into this episode telling you what you should think. I’m not here to tell you that you must, or should, think of your writing as a business, or you must, or should, stay far away from business influence as possible in your writing. I wanted to talk about this topic for a couple reasons. First and foremost, because I know a lot of you listeners, my wonderful listeners out there, hello, you are wonderful, a lot of my listeners are looking to ultimately quit their day jobs and write full-time.

Secondly, even if you are not interested in quitting your day job to write full-time, which quick sidebar if you’re interested in hearing more about you can go listen to episode 89 of The Write Now Podcast, which is called Maybe Your Day Job is Okay, then I still want you to make money from your work if that is something that is of interest to you. Writing is work, and I believe that we should be paid for our work, but I also want to equally say that if you enjoy creating for the sake of creating, if you enjoy making art for art’s sake, there is nothing wrong with that. If you don’t want to make money that is totally okay, but this episode is still for you.

The second reason I wanted to talk about this today was because I’ve run into a lot of writers who are interested in making money with their writing, but they’re not quite sure how to do it, and I’ve also talked to writers and creators who could benefit from treating their craft like a business. Again, I’m not going to tell you if that person is you. I’m going to just present some information in this episode today, and leave it up to you to decide what you want to do, and ultimately how you want to create your art, and what you want to do with it. That is 100% your choice, and there is not a right choice or a wrong choice. There is simply what you want to do, what feels good to you, what feels comfortable for you.

Ultimately, it all goes back to what you see as success for yourself as a creator, and success for your writing, but I want to circle back to what I started this episode with, and that is the seemingly mutually exclusive and diametrically opposed concepts of art and business. I don’t know if you’ve seen The Lego Movie, but The Lego Movie is a wonderful example of this type of thinking.

I love The Lego Movie. It’s brilliant. It’s quirky. It’s funny. It made me laugh. I had a great time watching it, but also there’s this not so subtle message, that creativity and business cannot meet, cannot mesh, that they are of two worlds. There’s this kid who wants to play with Legos and let his imagination soar, and create beautiful worlds, and have fun within them, and then there is on the other side of the spectrum we have our villain who is evil Lord Business.

That’s actually his name, and it’s funny, and it’s tongue-in-cheek, but I think it says a lot about how we as creatives think about business. This was the mentality. I’ve talked about this on the show before. When I first graduated college I was dead set on becoming a starving artist. I refused to sell out. I saw great nobility in sacrifice in creating art for art’s sake and refusing to be paid for it, refusing to let the man get me down.

And from an idealistic standpoint I’m there. I totally get it, and part of me still clings to that. There’s something beautiful and pure about creating art for art’s sake, but here’s the issue, unless you are independent, which unfortunately I am not … Maybe you are. In which case, go forth and create all of the art with our blessing. You do you. Enjoy it. Create for creation’s sake.

But for those of us who need to pay rent, and eat food, and put gas in our cars, or pay for a bus pass, and buy clothing and school supplies for our children, and all of the other myriad of bills and expenses that come with living life, what if these two things, art and business, what if they weren’t mutually exclusive? Circling back again to something we touched on earlier. I’ve spoken to a lot of you wonderful listeners. I’ve spoken with a lot of you, and for a lot of you it is your dream to quit your job and write full-time, which means making money from your creative writing, merging art and business.

And I’m talking about it today because I have done this myself. I left my day job in April of 2017, and since then I have been supporting myself with real money from my creative work. Am I a sell out? That’s up to you to decide, and this is going to maybe sound a little smug, I don’t care. I feel like sell out is a name that people call other people when they’re maybe jealous that things did not work out for them in the same way.

I don’t think I’m a sell out. I create what I want to create. I am not bound by a corporation telling me what to make and what not to make, but we’re not getting into all that today. What we’re talking about today is do you think of yourself as an entrepreneur? And going a little deeper, do you want to think of yourself as an entrepreneur? Do you know how to start doing that? Do you know where to begin? And do you still carry around that worry, that concern that so many people voice online that business will ruin your writing?

I have some thoughts about this that I’m going to share with you in no particular order, but first when I say the word entrepreneur what does that mean to you? I know for some of you the word entrepreneur may conjure up images of Silicon Valley dude bros who jump from one startup to another, having ideas, investing all their money, losing it all, making it back, et cetera, and it’s just this big scary journey that you might not want to go on, and that’s okay because that’s not the only definition of an entrepreneur.

My own definition of an entrepreneur is an innovative business owner who makes money from their creative ideas and work, and takes on the risk of owning a business. It also means understanding what success means for you, for your creative work, for your business, for yourself. It means that you are accountable and responsible for your own commercial success, and it means that you no longer view your writing as a hobby. You view it as your profession.

There’s all sorts of lists and articles online that will tell you authors can’t be entrepreneurs, authors are not entrepreneurs, authors must be entrepreneurs, and they call them things like author-entrepreneurs, author-authors, entrepreneur-entrepreneurs, and authorpreneur, which we won’t go into my feelings about that particular portamento.

Do I believe that you can consider yourself an entrepreneur? And moving forward we’ll be saying that author-entrepreneur, and authorpreneur, and entrepreneur are all the same term, but do I believe you can consider yourself an entrepreneur if you still have a day job? Yes, and in fact that is a viable strategy for many writers. It undercuts some of the risk of leaving a job and having to rely on your writing full-time.

Let’s get into some of those implications of what it means to be a writer and an entrepreneur. I’m not going to get too deep into this first one, but if you live in the United States, and you make money from your creative writing, whether it’s through publishing novels, having a Patreon, doing content marketing on a freelance basis, whatever it is, if you make money from your writing in the United States you are classified as a business for tax purposes.

Back in 2017, I formed an LLC for my writing business, but you don’t even have to do that. As a sole proprietor you are still considered, at least here in the United States, a business. Now, I am not going to go into all of this because I am super not qualified to talk about this, but if you have questions about making money, and paying taxes, and forming an LLC, or some other kind of corporation talk to a financial advisor. Talk to somebody who is much more qualified than I am.

My good friend Rebecca gave me some really good perspective about this. I was complaining about having to pay taxes because it’s so much, and she was like, “You know what? Be grateful, because the more you’re paying in taxes that means that you are making so much money as a writer doing what you love.” And I was like, “Okay. It still hurts to pay taxes, but I appreciate that perspective.” Regardless of whether you want it, or not, the government may consider you to be an entrepreneur, whether you asked for it, or not.

The next consideration is that it may be advantageous for you to think about yourself as an entrepreneur, or even a small business owner, and I’m saying this because the mindset from “I simply enjoy scribbling in my free time to I’m building my media empire” is quite a big leap. And again, I want to acknowledge it’s not for everyone. Not everyone wants this, and not everyone considers this success. It’s beyond okay. That is good, but if you’re interested in thinking of yourself as an entrepreneur there are several advantages that I’d like to share with you.

First and foremost, when you think of yourself as an entrepreneur you act differently. You commit to your work differently. I remember when I left my day job to write full-time someone very casually and jokingly asked, “So what’s it like to be fun-employed?” Suggesting that what I was doing was for fun, and that I was also in some sense unemployed, and boy, that stuck with me for years because I have never worked harder in my entire life.

I don’t just sit around sipping lattes and gazing out the window. Yes, there is some of that, but there’s also lots and lots of hard work, and strategizing, and planning, and just pushing yourself through writing that is hard to do. There’s a saying that you will never work as hard for anyone as you will work for yourself. I take my writing seriously. I’ve never taken it this seriously before.

And there’s some element of progress being imperative when I sit down to write every day, and this is why I don’t say every writer must be an entrepreneur, because for some people their definition of success is simply sitting down and enjoying the writing process. They don’t care about making money. They don’t need to make money from their writing. Again, I cannot hammer home enough that that is okay. Not everyone needs to be focused on making money in order to call themselves a writer, but if you do that mindset shift is kind of mind-blowing.

I’ve also had to branch out in my daily duties, and so in addition to writing as an entrepreneur I am also thinking about branding, networking, going to conferences and conventions, right now they’re all digital, but after COVID I will once again be attending conferences and conventions, thinking about joining organizations and paying dues to those organizations, attending meetings, doing interviews, selling IP, making deals, IP is intellectual property, and otherwise maximizing your opportunities.

That is a very entrepreneurial mindset thing that I have had to learn to adopt. This new suite of skills has elevated my writing and my career. I have met so many new people. I have gotten experience in selling an intellectual property and making a deal. I’ve had the opportunity to join the WGA, The Writer’s Guild of America. I have landed a podcasting agent, a TV agent, and a book agent. I have essentially built a very large platform because I was thinking of myself as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, and honestly a lot of perceived success in the publishing industry comes from how large and successful your platform is.

Many publishers actually expect you to have an established platform before they publish you, not all publishers, but many. Again, this is a huge advantage if this is something that you’re interested in, if this dovetails with your perception and definition of success as a writer.

I have also gained a very clear picture of who my audience is throughout this entire process. Having a larger platform, and being in an entrepreneurial mindset, means that I am laser-focused on who I am serving with my work, who is this for. Knowing your audience is essential to being an entrepreneur because it means you’re not just sitting there creating. It means you’re creating with intention, and you’re creating something that your audience wants and wants to pay you money for, and your audience is the foundation of your platform. All of these things are related.

It can also be beneficial for you to think of yourself as an entrepreneur because it means that you need to have in addition to those networking skills, the branding and marketing skills, it means that you need to have a business plan. I did not know what a business plan was until I was on the very verge of launching my own business. Someone in one of my mastermind groups asked, “Hey, do you have a business plan?” And I said, “A what now?”

So basically, a business plan is a document. It does not have to be 700 pages. It can be very simple, but it is a document that outlines what your goals are as a business, and how you’re going to reach those goals with a little bit of an emphasis on how money will come in to your business, and how it will be spent or invested in your business.

Again, this is not for everyone, but if it sounds interesting to you it can be a fantastic tool, not only with money, but with achieving what you want to achieve. My business plan is made up of seven different income streams. That’s right, seven. I don’t just make money from one thing. As an entrepreneur, you probably won’t want to put all of your eggs in just one basket. And again, this is a very valid reason why some people choose to keep their day job, or choose to have a part-time job, just to supplement their income and keep the risk a little bit lower.

My income streams include my income that I get from my Write Now Podcast Patreon, my Girl In Space Patreon, my Podcast Now course, which I sell, the marketing and creative consulting that I do, the money that I get from TV deals and selling IPs, and I think probably a couple other things that I can’t remember off the top of my head right now, but these multiple and diverse income streams are only one half of the business plan. There’s also money out, so money going to pay myself, money going to charitable donations, lots of money going to taxes, money that’s reinvested in my business, so for buying office supplies, and printing toner, and all of that stuff.

My business plan also accounts for audience growth, so how much of my time and energy am I investing in social media? How much time and energy am I putting into my branding? How much time and energy am I putting into going to conferences or networking events? What is the return on this investment?

Having a business plan has made me think very differently about how I create, why I create, what is worth my time and energy to create, and I’ve learned a lot from it. Funny enough by focusing on making money for a time I realized that money was not everything. I’ve gained clarity with what is important to me and why I write, more clarity than I’ve ever had before. I’ve learned which opportunities to take, and which opportunities to turn down, and I’m still learning that honestly.

Now, the question of, has thinking of myself as an entrepreneur ruined me as a writer? I prefer not to think so. I like to think that I haven’t been destroyed as a creator, as a creative, by thinking of myself as an entrepreneur. Obviously, I only have my own opinion for this, and then you can have your own opinion of my creative work, but I would say in my experience, and again this is purely me, being an entrepreneur and thinking of myself as an entrepreneur has actually improved my creative writing.

Now, I’m saying this for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, the process of selling my work has put me in touch with people who are in a position to give me advice and to help improve my work. With the TV show that I was recently working on I was in a position to co-write with a very established figure in the business, and oh my gosh, it was a huge learning experience. I learned so much about what works, and what doesn’t work, and what I like, and what I don’t like, about that process and that world.

I have also very unintentionally received clarity and understanding of what my voice is as a writer. As an entrepreneur, I have really had to double down on my own voice, and my own creative path, and my own creative process, because when you’re an entrepreneur, when you’re the CEO of your writing business, you need to have a strong voice, and you need to have a strong understanding of yourself, and I have really started to understand who I am as a writer and what my voice sounds like, and it has been a wonderful revelation.

Now, do you need to become an entrepreneur, or think of yourself as an entrepreneur, in order to discover and clarify your voice as a writer? Obviously not, but for me it has helped. Now, there are also several downsides, and I want to be honest about this. Have I become evil Lord Business? I don’t think so. I still make the artistic choices that I want to make. I still create the things that I want to create. I’m not in a place right now, or yet, or ever hopefully where I will let the quote unquote market dictate what it is I’m creating at any given time.

Remember my earlier definition of entrepreneur was someone who was an innovative business owner who took risks, who generates value from their creative ideas, so in my definition of an entrepreneur it’s not somebody who bends to the will of the market. It’s somebody who creates what they want to create, and they do it well. One of my favorite marketers is Seth Godin who always talks about making a ruckus, going against the grain, and I’ve really taken that to heart, and I’ve found commercial success in it.

Now, another downside I want to talk about is with all of the networking, and meetings, and sales, and conventions, and conferences, and marketing, and branding, and being interviewed. Do I have less time to write? Yes. Unequivocally, yes. This is why in the last episode of The Write Now Podcast, episode 104, I talk about protecting your time, and I talked about the fact that my goal is very small.

My goal for writing every day is two pages, a bare minimum of two pages, which sounds like nothing probably to so many of you, but that is the realism of being an entrepreneur. I’m doing things like bookkeeping, which I’ve never had to do before. It takes time. Everything takes time. I said earlier in this episode I have never worked as hard as I’ve worked for myself, but it’s worth it for me.

As an entrepreneur, another consideration is your team. Yes, you can outsource your bookkeeping. Yes, you can outsource your taxes. You can even outsource your branding, and your marketing, and your social media, and as I have needed to do recently you can hire an assistant. You may be here already, this may be years down the road for you, or it may be something that you’re not interested in at all, but there’s a question of do I have to be alone? Do I have to be solo to consider myself an entrepreneur? No. You can have a team.

And I’ve realized that my assistant pays for herself essentially with all of the additional work that she helps me do, and with the time and focus that she is able to free up for me so that I can write, so that I can work on my creative stuff, because it’s very easy to let the running the business side of things consume you, and consume your time, and it’s very easy to become a professional creative writer who does anything but creative writing.

These are all things that I am still learning and realizing as I do them. I’ve always been the kind of person who enjoys learning by doing, and so I’ve just sort of flung myself into this particular fire because it’s interesting, and I couldn’t not do it, so I think of myself as an entrepreneur, and I enjoy the benefits of that mindset. And if this sounds interesting or exciting to you I encourage you to think of yourself as an entrepreneur, but there are upsides and there are downsides, and it’s certainly not for everyone.

My purpose today was not to say all writers must be entrepreneurs, or being a business will kill your art. No. I’m not here to make an extreme statement like that, and in fact I would avoid those extreme statements because they’re extreme. Rather, I’m here to say this is an option. This is something you may not have thought of. This is something that has helped me. This is something that has helped me learn. This is something that has helped me grow and find clarity, and allowed me to support myself financially on my own terms.

I’m curious, do you think of yourself as an entrepreneur? Do you want to think of yourself as an entrepreneur? What do you see for yourself, the upsides and the downsides being? If this is something you want, is it within reach, or is your next step to create a business plan? Is your next step to bump up your platform building? Is your next step to get just two more pages done on your novel? As always, I would love to know your thoughts.

You can let me know your thoughts by going out to my website. That’s SarahWerner.com. S-A-R-A-H, W-E-R-N-E-R.com, and navigating to the show notes for this episode, episode number 105, Writers as Entrepreneurs. Simply scroll down to the bottom and go to the section where it says “Leave a comment,” and just let me know your thoughts. I respond to every single comment that I receive via my website, and so I would love to have a conversation with you there. I would love to hear what works for you, what doesn’t work for you. If you’ve tried the entrepreneurial life and found that it’s not for you, or if you’ve tried it and found that you thrive in it, I want to know what this is like for you.

As always, The Write Now Podcast is made possible by the wonderful patrons out on Patreon. Patreon is a secure third-party donation platform that allows you to donate $1 per episode, $2 per episode, $10,000 per episode, whatever works for you, and in return you get a few cool perks and the wonderful knowledge that you are helping me to provide this show for free to so many people across the world.

Special thanks this week go to Amanda L. Dickson, Laurie, Leslie Madsen, Regina Calabrese, Sean Locke, TJ Bricke, Tiffany Joyner, Leslie Duncan, Ricardo Lugo, and Sarah Lauzon. Thank you all so, so much for your generous support. I could not make this show without you.

I’ve received some questions from some listeners, and some people who join in my live streams every Wednesday and Friday night, about how to create a business plan, and so I think that in one of my upcoming write along live streams I’m going to talk about how to create a business plan as a writer, so if that’s something you’re interested in come on and join us.

Again, I do these live streams every Wednesday and Friday evening on Twitch at 7:00pm Central Time. If you’re able to join us come on and do so. If not, you can actually watch the replays at any time and pretend that I am there with you talking to you live. It’s been really fun. I’ve really enjoyed these sessions. Join us if you can. It’s out on Twitch.TV/SarahRheaWerner. That’s S-A-R-A-H, R-H-E-A, W-E-R-N-E-R. I would love to see you at our next create-along.

And with that, this has been episode 105 of The Write Now Podcast, the podcast that helps all writers, aspiring, professional, and otherwise to find the time, energy, and courage you need to pursue your passion and write. I’m Sarah Werner, and I am an entrepreneur.