How I make money as a writer

I make a really good living. But still, writing is just one small piece of a larger pie.

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On November 11th 2011, my first ever article was published on a proper website. I became a ‘blog contributor’ for The Huffington Post. I remember going out that evening and clinking pints of gin and tonic with my friends to celebrate. I already had a blog and the HuffPost team were interested in publishing my ideas. In total, I wrote thirty articles for them. I wrote about marketing, feminism, digital culture and creativity. My articles were shared all over Twitter. I was never paid a penny.

But hey, I didn’t mind. I was twenty-two and I had a good 9-5 job at an agency and I wrote my articles in the evenings. I didn’t think to question why a big company wasn’t paying their contributors, and quite frankly, I was just getting started, so my 22-year-old brain didn’t question it (tut tut, not the attitude! my 33-year-old-self says now). But on paper it felt like a really good mutual transaction. They got some free content and I got to put ‘WRITER’ on my CV for the very first time. It was so so exciting. I couldn’t believe it.

Ten years later, I’m sitting in a café on my laptop now, and writing is still my number one true love. The difference is, I now get paid for it and I no longer work in my old 9-5 job.