✍️ Make Writing Your Job: New Resources to Help You Build Your Writing Career
Our roundup of what we've been doing for you lately here in the community!
Hey writers —
It’s been a wild few weeks over here. Between wrapping up three (!) of my book ghostwriting projects for clients, onboarding new team members for ✍️ Make Writing Your Job and our newest job board over at 📣 Make Marketing Your Job, and prepping for my upcoming month offline in China — we’ve been in full sprint mode behind the scenes.
You’ve probably seen a flurry of emails from us lately. If your inbox is feeling a little crowded, just a heads up: you can always manage your settings by logging into MakeWritingYourJob.com, making sure you’re signed in, click on your profile on the top right, and scroll down to “notifications” to control which sections you want to get email updates from.
That said, I wanted to pause and give you a quick catch-up — because a lot has happened in the community that you might’ve missed.
🙌 We’ve launched a new personal essay pitch call. Hosted live panels with working writers. Shared marketing strategies for self-published books. And kept the writing job board + pitch list running 5x a week — with dozens of new freelance writing and pitch calls for writers in every drop.
(Not to mention our weekly roundup of grants, residencies, and contests — including a recent opportunity to get flown out to Berlin, expenses paid, to write in one of the world’s most creatively charged cities with a ❗️ $5,000/month stipend.)
All of this is possible because of our amazing team who works behind-the-scenes on each issue with me. You’ve probably seen some of our newesletter curators hanging out in the Subscriber Chat — they’re the ones who are going to help us keep the engine running while I’m (mostly) offline next month. I’m beyond grateful for them — and for you. This community has become something really special, and I don’t take that for granted.
So whether you’re looking to pitch your first personal essay, land a high-paying ghostwriting client, or finally figure out how to market your memoir — we’ve got you covered.
Here’s everything you might’ve missed (but will be glad you didn’t):
💻 Submit Your Personal Essay Pitch - $500 for Your 500-Word Essay
Our new call from pitches is open! We’re paying $1/word for your personal essays and stories about the first dollar you made from writing, and we’ll publish your piece to our community of 15,000+ subscribers as a part of our GuestStack column:
(P.S. Want to read the last personal essay we commissioned? Check out Rachel Warmath’s great piece about the intimacy of memoir ghostwriting and how it changed the trajectory of her life here on GuestStack. You can also read more of the interviews we’ve done with bestselling authors and top Substackers on our GuestStack column here.)
🙌 Learn From Your Fellow Writers Who Have Landed Jobs On the Writing Job Board
Want to hear from real writers who have landed real, high-paying jobs from our writing job board? Watch the replay of the panel we hosted with several book ghostwriters and editors from our community to her their tips:
Oh, and don’t forget to sign-up to attend our next live class happening this Wednesday, 10/1 at 5pm PT on how freelance writers can stack marketing skills to raise their rates without adding more clients:
📚 Learn How to Market Your Self-Published Books
Self-publishing books? Listen to my conversation with PR pro (and my publicist for my upcoming book Write for Money & Power) Haley Raymond we had on Substack Live:
Want to understand why so many top Substackers and authors are choosing self-publishing? Read my latest piece:
I’m also going live with superstar book marketer Renee Puvvada on Tuesday 9/30 at 10am PT to talk about how self-published nonfiction authors can market their books (you can click here to get notified that we’re going live!)
Renee’s the real deal — she’s sold over 10,000+ copies of her self-published book, made over $120,000+ in book royalties, and has helped her clients do the same. She’s also helping me with the marketing of my upcoming book, Write for Money and Power.
In summary? We’ve got a lot of resources for you to make writing your job — in however way sparks the most joy for you.
Questions? Drop them in the comments or subscriber chat.
See you around the community!
-Amy & the Make Writing Your Job team
Hi Amy and team...is there any plan to have a Portfolio PDF critique session? I'd love to get honest feedback on the latest iteration of my Portfolio PDF and it would be great if either the MWYJ team ran the session, or opened it up to other paid subscribers. After the PDF, my next step is website portfolio and actively seeking a first client to build the list! Thank you!