Why Money Mindset Is Important For Writers
By: Christie Adams - Writer
Tags: Writers Life, Writers On Medium, Money Mindset, Money Mindset For Writers, Authors

Writing, Writer, Money Mindset, Abundance

I’m on a mission to get you writing and making money doing it is a bonus!

Pixabay — kalhh

Let’s finally put the myth of the starving artist to bed!

You’ve got three resources.

Time.

Money.

Lottery Win / Inheritance.

I’m going to discount the third one for now, if you’ve got that, fantastic, I wish you luck and enjoy. Bye!

For the rest of us mortals, let’s crack the money mindset blocks.

We’re working with time or money — they’re your real resources.

You can either decide

- I’m going to pay somebody to do something, or

- I’ll do it myself.

- I’m going to write that book or

- I’ll pay somebody to write it.

- I’m going to do that marketing and create some ads or

- I’ll pay somebody to do it for me.

You can either use your time or your money.

If you don’t have money yet, you have to put your time in.

Once you’ve got your money coming in, you can then pay other people, outsource and use your time for what you’re good at, what you’re passionate about.

Whatever you’re doing, you should be using your zone of genius to do it.

Don’t outsource anything if you don’t know what you’re doing. If you don’t know how to do it, at least get a bit of an overview and learn a little bit about how to do it.

This means when you employ somebody, you’ll know exactly what they’re doing, how much they should be earning and how much the value they’re bringing to you.

Okay?

Money is your friend.

Write it down, stick it on the fridge, in your phone. Money is your friend, shift your money mindset.

Money brings you loads of good stuff. Doesn’t it?

Think of all money like water, you have to let it flow.

If you’ve got a little pond in the garden and it’s full of water but never touched, nobody ever refreshes it or puts any new water in it or empties the old water out.

It just stagnates.

It stinks.

It makes things ill and it gets unhealthy.

Think of money as a river, that it flows and it brings energy with it.

The more you put in at one end, the more comes out at the other end. If you’re not spending the money and letting it flow, you’ll stagnate. If money comes in, money goes out and it buys you all the stuff that you like, it’s your best friend. *

*Note from Christie:

If you know whose quote or idea this is, please let me know so I can reference them here.

Shift your relationship to money, or the lack of it, so it’s no longer something you’re scared of.

I don’t know if it’s just a British thing. I think American mindset around money is very different.

Where are you, and what is your view of money?

In England very few people in offices know how much their colleague earns unless you’re in the public sector when it’s disclosed.

It’s not spoken about. You don’t go to your friends and ask them how much they’re earning. It’s just not a very British thing to do.

It’s changing slowly, but asking someone what they earn is seen as a bit rude.

Shift from that mindset.

You don’t have to brag about your money but think of it as your friend.

I’ve struggled with this, I’m British after all, but I am finally come to terms with it.

The more money you have coming in, the more you can help people.

We’re being made to feel guilty about a lot of stuff right now, the media are throwing it as us 24/7.

If you’re feeling guilty for wanting money or having money, DON’T.

If you feel bad about it, you can give it away, and you can donate it to a good cause or support others in their work, via Patreon or similar sponsorships.

The more you get in, the more you can give out and the more you can help people.

Financial targets

You’ve got to be very honest. Is your financial plan scribbled down on a ‘post it’ note? If you want to get good at money, get good at money!

How much do you want to earn v how much do you need to earn?

Sit down, pen and paper, old school and work it out.

What are your outgoings?

What’s your income?

What do you want those numbers to be in 1 year, 3 years, 5 years?

You can work out a sliding scale to see how you can get there.

Example:

You need to earn £20,000 a year to cover all my outgoings.

You’d like to earn £50,000 a year, break that down.

£50,000 a year is £4,167 a month.

Sounds a bit more achievable than £50,000 right?

Break it down into usable chunks.

That turns out to hit £962 a week.

So much less intimidating than £50,000!

How about just £138 a day?

Just think about it, that’s achievable.

You can see yourself getting there, can’t you?

You may need investments. If you want to earn that £50K it doesn’t have to be cash coming in. It could be index funds, ISAs, investments, Bitcoin etc.

If you’re going to build your business and keep it long term, don’t forget as a writer that your legacy goes on for 70 years after your death, then you’re going to need to invest.

You’re going to need a financial plan.

Resilience

I definitely recommend resilience building, look at what’s happened with the virus in 2020. Suddenly people’s income has shifted massively. Some has gone up through the roof, others not so much.

Create a safety net, because life happens.

If you’re a writer you will not become J K. Rowling or a Stephen King, money-wise at least, from one book. It just won’t happen.

You need to write lots and lots of books. The people who earn a consistent income from books, write a lot of books.

Disclaimer:

I’m not an accountant but I have worked in financial planning, it’s something you need to learn about.

Remember this is about shifting your money mindset.

MONEY IS MY FRIEND!

What is important, to you, for a good quality of life?

Your income isn’t everything!

Maybe you’re feeling the pinch right now.

Do you catch yourself complaining…

‘I’ve got no money. It’s all right saying I can earn all this money and sell books and everything but I haven’t even written my book yet. I just want to pack in my job and concentrate on the writing.’

You have to start somewhere. Take action everyday to achieve your goals.

Don’t work alone.

Get a coach, a mentor, an accountability buddy.

Find your people.

Fans will support you. That probably isn’t family to be fair. It’s probably the readers who like your chosen genre, so don’t worry if your family don’t support you, because that’s really common.

Here’s one guarantee.

If you don’t actually get those books out, you won’t earn anything.

If you’ve written a book and you haven’t published it yet, it’s not earning you any money or even earning you publicity or attracting your future fans.

Write your book, get it out, then write and publish the next one.

What’s your money mindset?

Remember

MONEY IS MY FRIEND!