What the First Year of Writing Online Is Really Like
From zero to kind of sucking less sort of not really.
I started writing in April of 2020 — a novel that I don’t know if I’ll ever edit and publish. Just opening it makes my skin crawl a little.
7 months later, I started writing articles. I published my first article on Medium on November 5, 2020.
This was the real beginning of my writing “career”. It was a Medium article that I forgot to monetize.
As you can tell by my pink hair above, things did not go well in the beginning of my writing days.
I had no freelance clients, I still lived with my mom and dad, and I was 3 months out of college. It was the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. Job opportunities were scarce — but to be honest with you, I never really wanted a real job.
I always wanted to be a writer, an athlete, and an entrepreneur.
It would take 5 years for me to really make it happen.
The first year was the hardest. The first year is the year when most people quit.
Here are a few survival tactics for rookie writers.
Don’t even look at the stats.
I spent too much time looking at the stats in the beginning.
My numbers were so small that I did not have a valuable sample size to make any coherent judgments of my data.
If one blog post gets you 20 views and another only gets you 10, you might think that you need to write more about the thing that got you 20 views because it’s more.
This is incorrect.
Don’t split hairs over views or what thing gave you a new follower.
If you write something else that gets 200 views, that is a 900% increase — and it’s still tiny compared to a thousand views, 10 thousand views, or even a million views.
So don’t focus too much on the stats in the beginning.
Focus on your habits:
Write consistently
Publish consistently
Read consistently
If you build the right habits, skills will come. If you allow the highs and lows of your stats to impact your habits, you will never reach your potential.
Piss some people off.
I wrote an article in early 2021 called “This Is Why Buddhism Bothers Me”.
It was a rant that was loosely based on a couple of books I had read. I don’t remember if I referenced the books while writing the article.
Honestly, I was probably mad at my ex-girlfriend for being a fake Buddhist, and I wanted to expose someone. I don’t know.
The whole article was written with vigor, rage, and the angst of a 23-year-old kid who had no idea what he was doing with his life.
It was not my best work, but it is one of the popular Medium articles that I have ever written. The article made me nearly $1000 in views alone. If you know how crappy organic reach has gotten on Medium, you’ll know that’s a decent amount of money.
Even more, I was 23 and broke as hell. It felt like I’d hit the jackpot.
But the internet didn’t seem to agree.
You might think of Buddhists as peaceful and calm folks, but for some reason, they didn’t exercise this peace in the article that completely (and poorly) ripped apart their worldview.
I got yelled at for months. This article was more than 4 years ago, and I still get a comment every now and then from an angry reader about it.
But this taught me a crucial lesson:
If you want to write online, you need to get ready to get yelled at.
When you have the opportunity to share your ideas with everyone, it’s impossible to please them all. Don’t forget that this is always a blessing.
Trolls agree with you; they’re just sad, and nothing they say is valuable. Dissenters can help you, but they’ll probably hurt your ego.
Relax — none of this matters that much.
Don’t focus on the money.
You can make a good living writing on the internet.
There are so many different business models you can try:
B2B services
Freelancing
Ghostwriting
Coaching
Selling digital products
There are so many ways to do it. If you are consistent and enjoy spending time by yourself, exploring ideas, and of course, writing itself, it’s a dream job.
It’s funny to me because in a world where everyone wants to be an influencer, I can’t understand why more people aren’t trying to be writers. There’s literally never been a better time to write.
But if you spend a lot of time worrying about money, obsessing about money, and comparing yourself to people who make more money than you (or at least claim to), you’ll get so frustrated that you’ll quit writing before you have the chance.
It’s good to monetize. I would even recommend monetizing from the beginning.
But don’t make the main focus of your writing journey to be making money. Write to learn. To think. To build a network. For self-actualization.
If you do these things, the mula will come.
Closing Thoughts
The first year of my writing career, I did not make a living.
I got from $0 to $1200 per month. I also generated pretty much no passive income. It was a lot of hard work and long hours for very little reward. It was not that much fun.
I felt like a starving artist. I liked the artist part — it was cool to feel like my creativity was a key part of my life — but I hated feeling there was no way out. No way to make “real money” with writing.
It honestly took longer than it should of. If I had half the knowledge that I have today, I’d have built my first writing business in half the time and scaled it.
If I had just done the things I wanted to do but was too scared to do, my life might look a lot different today.
But it doesn’t. Instead, 5 years in, I’ve got a lot of lessons, stories, and writing experience.
Hopefully, articles like this help you see that the path is possible to follow.
The Modern Writer coaching applications are reopening!
The program will officially begin this fall. I’m looking to work with a few writers who want to:
Grow their newsletter.
Grow organically and consistently on social media
Turn writing into income
Writing has completely changed my life — both personally and professionally — and I want to help you do the same.
Hit this link to apply, and I’ll be in touch.
Thanks for reading another edition of The Modern Writer!
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I’ll see you next Wednesday!
Hi Chris. I wasn't expecting to see B Team members on Substack! It's great to see someone from Jiu Jitsu who has built a strong writing following. I really look forward to future posts, and wish you all the best for CJI :)