There came a time, early in my career, when I was faced with a difficult situation: I needed to earn more money. But since I generated my income from publishers and others, there was no simple way I could get them to pay me more for the same volume of work I was already doing.

My choices seemed to boil down to the following:

• Work longer hours
• Leverage the work of others
• Lower my professional standards to spend less time on each piece
• Automate my work to produce more material in less time
• Speed up the internal processes involved in writing.

I spent many weeks contemplating the details and ramifications of each strategy and came up with the following thoughts and conclusions.

Work Longer Hours

At first blush, this seemed the simplest answer to my problem. If I could earn (in the old days) $100 working an eight-hour day, simple math told me I could earn $125 by working a ten-hour day. What could possibly go wrong?

But as I dug into the details and implications, I began to see some of the problems this strategy would entail.

For example, I was already working as many hours a day as I comfortably could. Working longer hours would reduce the time I could spend with my wife and child. I wasn’t sure it was worth the extra money to cut back on the most important parts of the life I was working to build.

Working longer hours on paid writing projects would also leave me less time and energy for the unpaid writing projects that were dear to my heart and possibly stepping stones to a better career.

Even worse, working longer hours would require more effort, and that would tend to leave me even more tired at the end of the day. If not immediately, then eventually this additional fatigue would cause me to think and write less well. I would inadvertently begin to allow more errors—not just typos, but errors in thinking and in factual accuracy and depth—to creep into my writing. Perhaps my stylistic flair and creativity would degrade as well.

I wanted none of this to intrude into my professional life.

Leverage the Work of Others

This approach is the basis of success in the world of business. After all, Henry Ford did not build Model-Ts with his own hands. Nor does Elon Musk actually construct the cars, rockets, satellites, and other products that are the foundation of his businesses—and his incomes.

In the old days, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, and other Great Masters relied on students and apprentices to do much of the work required to move their masterpieces a long way toward completion, and today writers like James Patterson do much the same with the written work they crank out.

So it made sense for me to try to hire other writers to do at least the initial parts of some writing projects that publishers and others wanted to buy from me.

However, this strategy never worked for me, partly because I could rarely find suitably talented or skilled trainees and apprentices to work for me. But even when I did, I invariably felt that supervising their work took more of my time and effort than simply doing that same work myself.

Because leveraging others didn’t pencil out for me, I stopped thinking of this as a viable way forward (although I have continued to hope I’d find someone suitable).

Lower My Professional Standards to Spend Less Time on Each Piece

This is one of the classic approaches to success in American business: lower production costs as a means to increasing profits.

However, lowering my standards was something that proved hard for me to abide. This is probably because—at least to me—writing professionally is only partly a business. It’s equally—perhaps more so—an art form, a product of my creative energies, and even a reflection of my personality.

Delivering work that is only “B” quality when I could have pumped it up to “A” quality not only conflicts with my personal values, but also causes me emotional and psychic pain. For whatever reasons, I feel deeply there’s a minimum standard of writing that satisfies me, and when my work fails to meet or exceed it, I just feel bad.

Automate My Work to Produce More Material in Less Time

Back in the 1970s, I hung around with people who were experimenting with hobbyist computers. I was hoping that these early computers could provide a degree of automation to my writing that would reduce the total time required for me to complete at least some of the work I had on my professional plate.

But that was a pipe dream—at least until 1979, when I discovered that dedicated word processors were on the market, and for the most part, they worked pretty well. Later, I found that home computers could run word processing software powerful and reliable enough to help me write better and faster than ever before.

I jumped on that bandwagon and have never looked back.

Speed Up the Internal Processes Involved in Writing

Logically, this is a sensible way to try to earn more. Because of the way my mind works (I’m always looking for ways to do things faster, better, and easier), this approach has long been in either the back or the front of my mind. Why not apply this same brand of thinking to the internal processes of writing?

The problem was—and remains—I don’t really know how to do this. I’m pretty certain that I have done it, but I don’t know how.

I have some thoughts and feelings on how I manage to write much faster today than I did in years gone by, but I can’t swear they are true, or that—if true—they will work for anyone else. However, I offer them here:

1. I research what I am writing. The less I know about a subject, the more hesitant my writing becomes. Pounding away at research eventually gives me the confidence—and the knowledge—to write freely and quickly.

2. Having fed the process through research, I allow what I’ve learned to ripen in my mind. I don’t try to force my writing. The best way for me to write faster is to hold off until I feel ready to write. I’ve become confident that when I’m ready the words will gush out of me quickly and well. So far, I’ve been right about this.

3. I get a first draft done. Some writers claim they agonize over every word, phrase, sentence, paragraph, and page. They can’t move on to the next word, phrase, sentence, paragraph, and page until every word they have already written is perfect. This has never worked for me. My method has been to write all the way through the end—using whatever words seem okay at the time to get the thoughts out of my head and onto paper (or screen). I’m going to polish the material anyway, so I find little value in holding up the flow of thoughts just because my first attempt is not perfect. My writing mantra is essentially: “We’ll fix it in post.”

4. I have several projects in mind and in progress at once. When I bog down on one, I simply switch over and try pushing forward on a second one. Or a third. I trust my subconscious to be working on my projects 24/7 without my awareness. It’s another angle on number 2 above.

So while my title to this piece about earning more from writing asked whether to work longer hours, my answer is firmly “no.” Once I’m working as many hours as I comfortably can, I have found it’s better for me not to try to increase my income by throwing more hours at my projects. It’s better to find some other way.

Robert Moskowitz is an award-winning independent professional writer who has written and sold millions of words in just about every format over five decades. He instinctively sees the big pictures, breaks each one down into coherent slices, meaningfully prioritizes and sequences those slices, and then executes the tasks inherent in each slice in very productive ways. Put more simply, Robert knows how to succeed as an independent writer, covering all the bases from soliciting assignments to delivering polished work, from pricing jobs to budgeting and managing personal finances, from organizing a conducive office environment to establishing and following sensible guidelines regarding life, work, and productivity. Having done all this, and having paid attention to how he did it, Robert is now in a position to pass along what he knows to others.

If you want to be a professional writer, then you should seriously consider treating your work as a business. And that means developing a business plan.

As a newbie to the professional writing industry, you probably won’t need a complex plan; you may even be able to scratch out a totally adequate business plan on the back of an envelope. But if you’ve got some experience under your belt, or you have major ambitions, you’ll benefit from a more robust, comprehensive, and heavily detailed plan.

Either way, having a business plan gives you a road map for what to focus on, what to do next, what to expect in the future, how to handle the unexpected, and how to assess the progress you are making toward your goal of becoming a successful professional writer.

What Will You Do?

The first part of your business plan should contain a simple but complete, high-level statement of your planned professional activities:

• What products and services will you offer?
• To whom will you offer them?
• How will you make yourself known to these potential buyers?
• What performance milestones will you aim for?

Do some clear thinking as you write this part of your plan, but be ready to come back to it with refinements after you figure out the details in the sections to follow.

Products and Services

In this section, try to describe the work you expect to be doing in more detail.

Start by naming and characterizing each of your products and services: scripts, novels, booklets, plays, speeches, etc. Then specify the relevant details, such as word lengths, audiences, and formats.

While you’re at it, try to identify the benefits of your products and services. What’s special about you and your offerings? Why would someone want to hire you or buy from you? What differentiates your products and services from those of your competitors?

Incidentally, if you think you don’t have any competitors, you’re almost certainly wrong. You probably haven’t found them because you haven’t done enough research into the market(s) you plan to enter.

Sales and Marketing

In this section of your business plan, try to include all the important details about how you will obtain paying clients.

• How much will you charge for each product or service?
• Will you advertise? Where? How often?
• Will you participate in trade shows or display at conventions? Which ones?
• Will you mail or email sales and marketing materials? To whom? Saying what?
• Will you make personal connections within your network? Where? When? How?
• Will you pay for sales and marketing help from an agent? A publisher? A collaborator?
• Will you develop a web presence? How? With what sales and marketing messages?

Try to list, describe, and specify enough details so that you could—if you wish—simply hand off this information to a sales and marketing agency and afterward feel confident that they will implement your plans as you intended.

Practical Matters

When starting a business, it may be beneficial to work through several practical matters that will effectively translate your dreams and rough ideas into a tangible business entity. Such matters as:

• Where and when will you work?
• Who will do your billing? Accounting? Taxes?
• What will be the name of your business?
• How will it be organized: as a sole proprietorship, a limited liability company, or a corporation. And what state will it be registered in?
• Who will own the business?
• How will you ensure compliance with applicable laws and get answers to the inevitable legal questions?
• Are you a party to contracts or agreements (non-disclosure, non-compete) that limit your ability to do what you are planning? If so, how will you handle these limitations?
• Where will you obtain start-up capital?

Management and Decision-Making

Who will run your business? You alone, or you with others, or just these others? What authority will management have, and not have, to impact your everyday work and your ability to make deals (and other business arrangements)?

Will you have any advisers, partners, or collaborators? What influence will these people have on your work, deal-making, and business activities?

Growth

What’s your plan for growing this new business? Will it always be just you, or will you bring in others as contractors, employees, partners, coaches, or people in other roles to help you grow your business?

How will you measure your business’s growth? In terms of income? Number of people doing the work? Number of items sold? Some other way? Remember to measure what is important to the future of your professional writing business.

Include goals in your business plan that emphasize the success you’d like to achieve as a professional writer.

Finances

In the financial section, project the amount of money you will need to operate your business. These will be yearly projections for the first five years.

Once you’ve calculated these expense figures, add up the money you expect to earn as a professional writer. Take into account the prices you will charge and the quantity of products or services you expect to sell each year. Since you can’t nail this down to the exact dollar, work with a range of likely minimum to likely maximum income for the first five years you’ll be in business. Also list cash on hand, loans, investor capital, and equity.

Now compare your anticipated income against your anticipated expenditures. How long will it take until you break even? How long after that until you recoup the money you spent and make a profit and also save for retirement?

Be cognizant that your new business might accumulate significant value as it grows. For example, any assets it owns might become valuable, including its contracts, its relationships with solid customers, its inventory and unspent earnings, its real estate or other property, and so forth.

All this work to develop a business plan can be fun, as you run through all the possible scenarios and contemplate your potential success as a professional writer, as well as meaningful.

If you don’t get the business plan right, you’ll be depending on luck for your success. And it’s highly unlikely you’ll be the one in a million writer who lucks into success as a professional. If you do get your business plan right, though, your chances of success take an immediate leap into the realm of the possible, the do-able, and even the likely.

One Final Thought

Many people make the mistake of thinking that just by stating a goal, or writing it up as part of a business plan, that you must achieve it. Totally untrue. Any goals you state—and intend to achieve—are simply distant milestones to help guide your direction. To achieve them, you must actually do the necessary hard work and do it as well as you can.

Robert Moskowitz is an award-winning independent professional writer who has written and sold millions of words in just about every format over five decades. He instinctively sees the big pictures, breaks each one down into coherent slices, meaningfully prioritizes and sequences those slices, and then executes the tasks inherent in each slice in very productive ways. Put more simply, Robert knows how to succeed as an independent writer, covering all the bases from soliciting assignments to delivering polished work, from pricing jobs to budgeting and managing personal finances, from organizing a conducive office environment to establishing and following sensible guidelines regarding life, work, and productivity. Having done all this, and having paid attention to how he did it, Robert is now in a position to pass along what he knows to others.