Week of July 8, 2012 - Reinventing My Career

By Joan Whetzel

I have been writing since the 1990s, which sounds like a long time but feels like very little time. Over the years, I have changed the way I write, what I write, and who I write for. One of the great things about writing is that there are so many ways to reinvent your career, and still keep on writing.

Writing for print Magazines

            Many years ago, I began writing mostly nonfiction articles for juvenile magazines and entering some writing contests. While I didn't earn much money, I did receive a number of publishing credits. Many of the juvenile magazines at the time produced issues based on themes. Others were single topic publications (only science articles, only writing articles, only math) for use in schools. This made it quite easy to come up with ideas because it narrowed the focus so nicely.  However, after a while, many of the magazines either went out of business, or they were bought up by other publishing companies and were forced to change their format in ways that made it difficult or impossible for me to continue writing for them. So I needed to switch gears.

College

In an effort to improve my writing skills and search for other avenues for my writing, I went to college. I got Bachelor's Degree in Journalism, with a TV and Film Production specialty. I have found a lot of production jobs in Houston, but a rather large majority of these jobs seem to be non-paying, which are great for gaining experience, but how many freebies can a person afford to do? I found there were relatively fewer jobs that paid, and virtually all of them are looking for people with years of experience which I don't have. Besides, after all the production classes, I wasn't sure I really wanted the production end of the job.  So I kept looking for writing jobs.

Writing Online

I began writing for online companies. They don't pay well - yet - but with increased numbers of articles, I am beginning to develop an online presence, which in turn, has increased the number of hits on my articles. The more hits my articles receive, the more income I will earn over time. I have written for eHow, Triond (a site for uploading articles that get published on a number of other sites under Triond's banner, like WritingHood), Hub Pages, eZine, and Interact Media (which has a staff of freelancers that write copy for business websites, where the author gets paid but doesn't get a byline). I still write for a couple of the sites, but some of them I have quit working for, for various reasons.

My First Foray into Book Publishing

I have recently (starting June 2012) begun uploading small books to both Amazon Kindle and to Create Space Books (print books on demand). These are all available on Amazon. I have sold a few items already, as of July 1, 2012. So, I remain hopeful that this will become a viable source of income over time.

Other Ways to Reinvent My Writing Career

I have also done the occasional odd writing job, some for free and some for pay including a few jobs for my husband's train club, some transcription work for a private source, several articles for Katy Magazine online, and I have been writing a blog. As my writing career is ever evolving, I will remain on the lookout for other sources of writing. So if anyone has any ideas, send them my way.