Nicolas Cole describes how his college professor taught the traditional path to publishing: send manuscripts to agents, wait months for responses. Cole argues the internet changed everything. He's made tens of millions across eight different writing businesses, from newsletters to courses to ghostwriting, proving there's no single right way to succeed as a writer.
Writer Career Paths: Introduction. I graduated from college in 2013 with a degree in fiction writing. Days before being thrown into the real world as an aspiring professional writer, one of my professors gave us a final lecture. "Everyone, take out a pen and notebook. I am going to tell you how to become a successful writer." I was ecstatic. This is what I had been waiting for. 3 years of studying Dostoyevsky and Nabokov. 3 years of reading short stories and trying to write my own. 3 years of reading my work aloud, bracing for feedback from my classmates. And an entire senior year spent working part-time in the English department, tutoring freshmen and sophomores, on their writing. Now it was time to see the fruits of my labor. Someone was finally going to explain to me how to make money as a writer. My professor began, first you're going to want to go to a bookstore. The local Barnes Noble will do just fine, and head to the magazine section. Pull 4 or 5 literary magazines from the shelves and flip to the back. There, you'll find a list of agents, the people responsible for getting the short stories in those magazines published. You should buy the magazines and read the short stories, but if you can't afford them, just jot down the names of the literary agents in your notebook. Next, when you get home, print out a dozen or so copies of the first 3 chapters of your novel in progress. This may cost you some money, so save up. Then put them into a manila envelope addressed to each literary agent on your list. Finally, drop those manila envelopes off at your local post office, then wait. It will usually take 3 to 6 months to hear a response back, and that's if you hear a response at all. Keep working on your writing in the meantime, of course, but don't call them or send them another letter or bother them. This is just how the system works. And when you get your first rejection letter, celebrate! Hang it on the wall in front of your desk. And just repeat this process every 6 to 12 months. Be patient. And pay your bills by working at a magazine or newspaper, a job in advertising if you can stomach it, or at a coffee shop. And that, he said with a dramatic pause, is how you become a successful writer. While my 11 classmates furrowed their brows and took copious notes, I sat there stunned, pen not moving, my mouth dehydrated, jaw on the floor. I raised my hand and gave myself permission to speak at the same time. Excuse me, sorry, is that all? What about the internet? My teacher's face crinkled like a throwaway sheet of paper. "The internet? No, I'm sorry, that's just not how the publishing world works." I tried to understand his point of view. I was 23 years old and hadn't published anything, anywhere, except for blogs online, whereas he had published multiple critically acclaimed novels with a local publishing house. He was an underground celebrity, in Chicago's literary scene. Still, I found it very hard to believe this was the only career path for success. And I found it even harder to believe that the most effective strategy was to print out copies of my short stories or novel-in-progress, walk them to the post office, ship them in manila envelopes to agents, and then wait until someone decided I was worthy of a career. Because in my pocket was an iPhone with more technology than we'd used to put a man on the moon in 1969. If I took that phone out and made a viral post on then-Twitter or Facebook, I had the opportunity to reach more people than any publisher in any major city. "I understand that," I said. "But don't you think things are changing?" Again, my teacher's face crinkled, dissatisfied with each drafted thought published out of my mouth. "Maybe. Who knows? But if you want to make it as a writer, this is the way the publishing world works, and so this is my advice to you." Full transparency: I loved my years studying fiction writing at Columbia College Chicago. I learned a tremendous amount from my teachers, and I owe a lot of my confidence as a writer to their support. I graduated very knowledgeable about how to write beautiful sentences, think critically about other people's work, and read my own work aloud. But I was horribly uneducated about how to make money from my writing. I had to figure that one out on my own. Over the past decade, I have generated tens of millions of dollars as a writer. Not only have I achieved an outcome that less than 1% of writers do across their entire lives, but I have done so over and over again, proving that writing can be monetized across a wide variety of business models. I have generated over $1 million monetizing my writing with SaaS, software as a service. I have generated over $1 million monetizing my writing with self-published nonfiction books. I have generated over $2 million monetizing my writing with paid newsletters. I have generated over $3 million monetizing my writing with low-ticket digital products. I have generated over $3 million monetizing my writing with consulting. I have generated over $5 million monetizing my writing with cohort-based courses. I have generated over $5 million monetizing my writing as a ghostwriter and building a ghostwriting agency. And I have generated over $10 million monetizing my writing with high-ticket group coaching programs. I share this for no other reason than to provide context that, yes, there are lots of different ways to earn a living as a writer, and it is possible for that living to be lucrative. There is no one right way to become a successful writer. If you make money writing words you enjoy, regardless of industry, business model, or genre, you've won. Don't let the legacy publishing world convince you otherwise. So, what kind of writer do you want to be? Do you know yet? It's alright if not. But consider this your map. This is the book I wish someone had given me upon graduating from college, eager but uneducated about how to make it as a writer. This is a book about monetizing writing. Which career paths promise which rewards, the skills you need to develop to be successful in each one, and how much money you can realistically earn over what time horizon. Let's dive in.
What Every Writer Gets Wrong About Their Audience #writing #creator #writingtips
