This blog is named “Writer Profits” to help you profit from your writing. And I’m not talking about pocket change or sporadic token rewards of achievement. I’m talking about a real-life, day-in / day-out, career-sustaining income for your writing skills and talents.

Others do it and so can you. Here is a not-so-secret formula for achieving your writing career goals:

Not-So-Secret Step One: The Money Mindset

If you are NOT interested in making a living as a writer, that’s fine. Write what you want, when you want, for whomever you want regardless of the fee, the time it takes to finish or whether or not it will ever sell. Writing can be its own reward. Relish the accomplishment.

However, if you ARE interested in making a consistent living as a writer, you MUST get into the money mindset and not make apologies for it. As I’ve said many times before, freelance writers are business owners, not hobbyists. You must look out for your business interests and that means paying attention to the details that lead you to acquiring money, and the first of those details is developing a money mindset. Napoleon Hill writes in the infinitely popular book Think and Grow Rich, “Before we can accumulate riches in great abundance, we must become money-conscious until the desire for money drives us to create definite plans for acquiring it.”

Not-So-Secret Step Two: Detail Your Revenue Goals

Would you accept a job if you didn’t know how much it paid? Highly unlikely. If you are serious about making writing your career, you must define your daily or weekly income goals.

Let’s break it down. To make $100,000 a year, your goal is $2,000 a week for 50 weeks (allowing for two weeks of vacation). That’s $400 per day for a typical five-day work week. If your initial goal is a more modest $50,000 annual income, that’s $200 per day. These goals are achievable. But only if you keep those target goals in mind and seriously implement step three…

Not-So-Secret Step Three: Identify Money-Attracting Projects

You will struggle to reach a $200-400 daily goal if you settle for the monetary scraps tossed out on most writing job boards and bidding sites. In the amount of time you spend trying to get these “piddly-paying gigs,” you could have been creating a simple, direct marketing piece that attracts REAL money from REAL clients. Identify your marketable writing skills – the ones that will attract good paying projects. What are good paying projects? Commercial writing, like ad copy and marketing brochures, is usually a sure bet. Corporate writing, like annual reports and case studies, is also a good paying area. Are you good at speech writing, radio and television spots, and fundraising packages? They are all high paying gigs. And, yes, nonfiction books should also be added to the list. If you haven’t downloaded my free eBook “What to Charge for Your Writing Services” do it NOW. Just enter your email in the box on the right. Read the report, identify your best writing skills and pronounce yourself a specialist in these areas.

Not-So-Secret Step Four: Pursue Projects

I’d love to have one of my articles appear somewhere on the Internet and be “discovered” by a publisher, leading to a five-book deal with a $500,000 advance. But that’s simply not likely to happen. Like it or not, you (and I) must pursue work to fill our daily goals. This is not difficult. Research is a critical part of the writer’s life. Use this asset to assign yourself the project of identifying potential clients for your writing services – then complete the assignment by promoting yourself to them.

Not-So-Secret Step Five: Polish the “Gold”

Remember that completing projects and getting paid is only one part of reaching your income goals. The other part is treating your clients like gold. Over deliver on your promises, present stellar work, and they will keep coming back to you with more assignments and big, fat testimonials and referrals. Before long, you’ll have a list of steady clients that eventually REQUIRES you to stop looking for new ones.

You can live the writing life. Like anything else worth having, it takes planning, persistence and performance.