Time to get serious about yourwriting career
You won’t be able to quit work and write, but you might find a grant to make your writing goals easier. Or a crowdfunding opportunity to fund your project. Find serious contests, too. Only those that pay in cold hard cash. No pay-per-click, $1 per blog or exposure markets either. Hope Clark writes for a living. If she wouldn’t try these opportunities, she doesn’t post them. Our newsletters are our world. Free subscription.
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You think nobody will notice, but they will. Don't cut corners. Pour yourself into your product as if you had that three-legged stool to be accountable to: a publisher, a reader, and yourself. Don't make excuses about why you can never be as good as someone else. You are already shortchanging yourself, and readers can tell.
Latest posts
Making Money from Writing on Medium, Part 2: Monetizing
Dan Brotzel / 2025-11-12The main way of making money from Medium is to join the Medium Partner Program and start submitting to ‘publications’. It’s worth subscribing too. Anyone can read a limited amount of the content on Medium, but for unlimited access beyond the paywall, you have to be a member yourself. Subscribing... Read More
Making Money from Writing on Medium, Part 1: The Basics
Dan Brotzel / 2025-11-09I make a few hundred dollars a year from writing on Medium, something I’ve been doing for about seven years. As well as a writing side hustle, I’ve also found Medium useful as a research tool, portfolio, and archive. Over a couple of articles, I’ll look at how to get... Read More
Calls to Action for Authors
Alex Coyne / 2025-10-24While assisting author Raven Digitalis to promote his new book, I noticed that his promotional emails were getting better responses than my own pitches for articles and new clients. More than 60% of our cold pitches for promoting Raven’s book (and requesting reviews) had worked, yet I was only getting... Read More
The Gatekeepers Versus Your Heart’s Dream
C. Hope Clark / 2025-10-24“Do what you feel in your heart to be right — for you'll be criticized anyway.” — Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) Keep the above in mind as I opine here. I just read an editorial from someone who'd been attempting to traditionally publish for a handful of years. Dozens of queries.... Read More
How We Want What We Read
C. Hope Clark / 2025-10-24We don't see things as they are. We see them as we are." ~Anais Nin Readers want to read stories by people. They want to read how someone else sees the world, to compare that viewpoint with how they see the world. It doesn't matter whether you're talking nonfiction or... Read More
Getting Started on Substack
Dan Brotzel / 2025-10-17Many writers and authors, both aspiring and established, are turning to Substack as a way to grow audiences, showcase work and build a new hustle. Substack blends the intimacy you get from a blog with the professionalism of an email newsletter, with the possible bonus of paid subscriptions. But is... Read More
Which Do You Prefer to Read Online?
C. Hope Clark / 2025-10-17Let me be clearer. When you sit down at your computer, to read about your favorite writer or catch up on literary news, which media do you prefer to read? 1) Facebook 2) Instagram 3) Substack 4) Website/blog 5) Email newsletter Over the years, now decades since people began incorporating... Read More
Around the Corner
C. Hope Clark / 2025-10-17I heard a soul song created by AI today that made my chin drop, because it was that good. The time when AI will create music, literature, and visual art is just around the corner. All the more need for you to develop yourself as a brand. If your readers... Read More
Quicker Turnaround Income
Alex J. Coyne / 2025-10-17If there’s a single lesson I’ve learned in writing full-time, it’s that emergencies are inevitable. Food budgets run short, bills pile up, or there’s a medical situation or repair that needs urgent attention and grains time and money—often when the next publication date is far away, as is the payment... Read More
Copyright Before or After Publication?
C. Hope Clark / 2025-10-17I personally had this question not long ago, with the advent of Hidden on Edisto, book 13 of The Edisto Island Mysteries. With the onset of Anthropic's $1.5B lawsuit settlement, I realized just how important copyright could be. If I could afford to file for copyright, why not do it? So I... Read More






















