Building Your Business Model as a Writer

In my newest book, The Business of Being a Writer, I devote an entire section to various ways you can earn money as a writer that don’t involve selling books. (If you didn’t know, most of my income is not related to book sales!)

Over the last month, I’ve been talking (and writing) about how to build a business model for your career that suits your particular strengths as well as the unique quality of your work. Here are my latest appearances.

How to Turn Attention Into Sales

Over at Goodreads, there’s an excerpt from my book about basic marketing principles. While you may tune out market concerns during the creative process, once that process is over and it comes to the business of writing and publishing, there’s no way around the discussion of audience.

Funding Your Career Through Grants, Crowdfunding, and Patronage

As part of the Self-Publishing Advice Conference, I offer a 30-minute talk on how to apply for grants, run successful crowdfunding campaigns, and secure donations and sponsors to support your work.

Bridging the Divide Between Art and Business

I’m delighted to be a guest on the DIY MFA podcast, discussing how to develop a strategy to make a living as a writer.

Educating Yourself on the Business

Joanna Penn and I discuss how to adopt a mindset that’s conducive to earning a living as a writer—The Creative Penn podcast (April 9).

The Myth of Overnight Success

With Julie Duffy at StoryADay, we discuss what writers should do when they want to go pro, the myth of the overnight success, the nature of “work” and networking for introverts. Here’s a link to the podcast.

Jane Friedman

Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.

Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.