IN THIS ISSUE
- From the Editor’s Desk: What can you control?
- On The Wordling: Use the Hero’s Journey in your storytelling
- News & Views: How to best position yourself in the creator economy
FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK
Hiya writer friends,
I’m back from India! The trip was fantastic. The high point was getting to hang out with my niece and nephew, and the low point was the plane landing at Heathrow in the midst of a storm.
The return flight was bumpy overall and there were a couple of hours where everyone, including the staff, had to remain seated. People were, unsurprisingly, freaking out. I, on the other hand, put on some music and fell asleep. When I woke up 90 minutes later, the guy sitting next to me was amazed. “I can’t believe you slept through that!” he said.
“I chose to,” I replied. “If something terrible happens, they’ll make an announcement and wake me up. But if not, I don’t want to sit here being stressed for two hours.”
This is something I have learned and practiced over the last few years: I simply refuse to worry about things I can’t control. There is no part of sitting in an airplane that’s experiencing turbulence that I can control other than my reaction, so I focused on that.
This thought process has served me well in my business. I can’t control whether my clients all decide to use AI and let go of their freelancers, but I can learn how to work with new technologies and use them in my own writing so that when my client asks if I can create AI-assisted content, I know how to do it exceptionally well. Which is what happened last month.
I can’t control large-scale media layoffs and how it impacts the need for freelancers, but I can do such an incredible job for my clients that when they let go of the entire team and only have one freelancer left on their books, I’m that lone freelancer. Which is what happened last week.
I can’t control whether publishers will want to put me in an immigrant box, even though I don’t write about immigration, but I can control how I choose to position myself and turn down opportunities that don’t fit into my vision for my brand. Which happened today.
“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity,” or so the quote goes. This will no longer be a fruitful career for people who are not willing to experiment, to learn new things, to try new ideas, and to constantly reinvent themselves to serve the needs of their clients and readers.
The only people currently succeeding in media are those who are willing to learn, take chances, and keep building new skills. And the only people who will thrive are those who understand that a living is not owed to them, but that one is possible if they’re willing to reinvent themselves constantly as the market changes.
If you need help building those skills and staying on top of what’s coming next, don’t forget to check out Wordling Plus. We know it’s a difficult time for writers, which is why we’ve kept our prices super low. You can sign up and get access to hundreds of hours of training right away, with more live events and masterclasses coming really soon. Check out all that we have to offer here.
Enjoy the issue!
Natasha Khullar Relph
Editor, The Wordling
NEW ON THE WORDLING
The Hero’s Journey: A Classic Story Structure for Your Novel
How to use Joseph Campbell’s monomyth to strengthen your storytelling.
From the call to adventure to the return transformed, this framework mirrors not just the hero’s external quest but their internal evolution—a journey that has captivated and inspired storytellers and audiences alike.
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- How I 4x-ed My Book Sales in 10 Days
- How to Write an LOI That Brings in Clients
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NEWS & VIEWS:
What you need to thrive in the creator economy
In 2010, when asked the best way to make a sustainable income as a writer, I pointed to freelance journalism. In 2015, I recommended writers add content marketing to the mix and start building up their own audience on the side, particularly through an email newsletter.
In 2024, I would still give the same advice, but in reverse. Focus largely on creating an audience around a topic you love to write about, and do some freelance journalism on the side to amass clips, gain credibility, and to help with publicity.
The future for writers is in the creator economy. Currently valued at $250 billion, the industry could approach half-a-trillion dollars by 2027. The influence of some of these creators now rivals the biggest names in entertainment, news, and politics, the Washington Post notes, and the industry has tens of millions of workers, hundreds of millions of customers, and its own trade association and work-credentialing programs.
However, “grow a following on Instagram” is not a strategy, and it won’t lead to a lasting and fulfilling career, especially for writers.
In order to truly benefit from the creator economy, writers need three things:
1. The audience: This is the only thing most writers, agents, and publishers focus on, but it is just the first step. An audience of 10,000 people you don’t sell to is just as irrelevant as an audience of zero. On the other hand, I made my first $10,000 in business from fewer than 1,500 people. (100 people bought a $100 product.)
2. The connection: Or engagement, as it’s more commonly known. Do people follow you and forget about you, or do they engage? Do they email or DM you? Do they click on your links? Do they check out your work? Basically, is what you’re saying resonating with your audience?
3. The sale: Finally, do you have a product, such as a book or a newsletter subscription? Do you market it efficiently? Talk about it? Make sure your audience knows how to get it? Knowing how to sell is key in the creator economy, no matter whether you’re selling a book, a Kickstarter campaign, or a newsletter subscription.
Next week, I’ll talk more about the selling piece, and how writers can use their audiences (however small) to make a recurring and sustainable income. I’ll also share a way of partnering with The Wordling that can guarantee you a recurring income. Stay tuned!
ALSO SEE
The Hugo Awards have been mired with controversy this year, after Neil Gaiman, R.F. Kuang, Xiran Jay Zhao, and Paul Weimer’s works were marked “ineligible” following the first round of voting. Here’s what happened.
The EU has passed the EU Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act, which seeks to “ensure the ethical and human-centric development of this technology and prevent abusive or illegal practices, which also demands transparency about what data is being used in training the models.”
And finally, Paul Farhi ponders in the Atlantic whether American journalism is facing an “extinction-level event.”
GLOBAL REPORT
JAPAN: “Rie Kudan, the winner of Japan’s most prestigious literary prize, has explained that part of her new book has a unique ghostwriter: ChatGPT. The 33-year-old author, whose latest novel “Tokyo-to Dojo-to” wowed the Akutagawa jury, who found it “so perfect that it is difficult to find fault with it”, revealed at the prize giving ceremony that she had “used the full potential of AI to write this book.” She explained that “around 5% of the book is made up of sentences generated by AI”, quoted word for word.”
USA: “Nearly all the copies of a small-town Colorado newspaper were stolen from newspaper racks on the same day the Ouray County Plaindealer published a story about charges being filed over rapes alleged to have occurred at an underage drinking party at the police chief’s house while the chief was asleep, the owner and publisher said.”
SOUTH KOREA: “As interest in Korean literature surges around the world, the publishing industry is actively participating in international book fairs to introduce Korean books. However, ongoing conflict between the publishing sector and the government regarding subsidies is expected to lead to a reduction in the scale of book-related events and their participation this year.”
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there.
– Will Rogers
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