Writers write for many reasons. Writers – both seasoned and green – come to the Himalayan Writing Retreat Workshops with dreams in their eyes. Everyone wants to be a better writer. Some dream of fame. Some have a deeply personal story to share. Some simply have to get something out of their system. Some seek riches through their writing. Everyone is driven by these forces, or some combination thereof. And a few want to earn money from their writing, which is a natural outcome of all of the above. They want to make their hobby of writing into their career and earn from writing. They want to become professional writers. “Is there any way we can make a living from writing and earn money through writing online?”
Professional writers come in many shapes and forms in India. Choosing the right avatar is a critical first step to make it work.
Many people ask us if they should quit their jobs and switch to writing as their career? They dream of a job where they only write books, short stories and poems and earn money through writing. “No!” we always tell them. Writing is a great hobby, but it can be a tough profession to earn money from. Besides, you must be exceptionally good at writing to make a living from it.
However, if you really enjoy writing, are determined to earn money online through writing and make it your career, there is a midway path. Writers get better by writing a lot. So instead of going for “full-time author” straight off the bat, pick a job or work as a writer in other shapes and forms. Let’s call this commercial writing. With your commercial writing you can pay the bills, while you also get better and can consider making your writing hobby into a full-time career.
Below is a list of possible roles you can look at as a commercial writer in India. Most of them are writing jobs while some are administrative in nature within the publishing industry. Please note, we have also highlighted the risk quotient in each of these roles along with a broad pay category one can expect from these roles. By risk, we purely mean the predictability of earning an income. In a proper job, the risk is low and with freelancing opportunities, it is medium to high.