‘Write What You Know’ Pays the Bills
By: Andrea Laiacona Dooley
Tags: Writing Advice, Writing Challenge, Expertise, Writing Tips, Writing

‘Write What You Know’ Pays the Bills

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

In the past two months, I have written thirteen pieces for which I was paid at a lawyer’s hourly rate. That’s because I am a labor arbitrator. I hear contract disputes between unions and employers, and write decisions resolving those disputes. Despite the fact that my title is not formally ‘writer,’ I make close to $1 per word, sometimes more, for the decisions that I write.

My writing work is obviously pretty niche. I practiced labor law for many years before starting my arbitration practice. But I get paid for my writing, and you can, too.

Identify your areas of expertise

There are thousands of writing opportunities, and hundreds of those haven’t even been identified yet. The first step in finding these opportunities is to identify your areas of expertise. Start with your work. What knowledge have you developed in your profession? You can be a heavy equipment operator or a barista. Both those jobs require knowledge most of us don’t have. Then think about the skills you have in that job. Public speaking, advocacy, and customer service are all skills that most people want and don’t know how to do.

Moving beyond your work, identify areas of interest, or hobbies that you’ve developed. All of them are fodder for writing ideas. Next, think about the roles you play in the lives of others: parent, spouse, sibling, offspring. What are the stories you have to tell about those experiences? Now think about the things you hate that you’ve gotten pretty good at dealing with, like chronic illness, a long commute, your in-laws calling you by your wife’s ex’s name, long-term COVID.

You don’t have to have a unique viewpoint on all of these, although it helps. I knew a woman who had a rare form of cancer. She chronicled her illness in a blog that was unique because she didn’t see herself as a Happy Warrior, learning to appreciate the world while she beat cancer. She was angry, she was hurt, and she was incredibly perceptive about the surreal experiences of living with and dying of cancer.

Do some writing — or at least take some notes

You cannot pitch yourself as an expert in a subject until you’ve demonstrated that you have some ideas that make your voice worth paying to write. I’ll use my profession as an example. I am expected to write legal decisions that are logical, concise, and readable by a lay audience. How could I write one before I even had a case? Fortunately, I took a class where we wrote a sample decision based on a hypothetical story and got feedback from experienced arbitrators. Now I had a writing sample. Lawyers pitch their writing skills with sample writings on relevant topics.

Even if you don’t have a full-blown article written, having notes is incredibly helpful. After giving speeches on various topics, I’ve turned my notes into articles or blog posts. Keeping a journal of ideas or jotting down thoughts on your calendar is a good way to generate prompts. Thinking about some of your areas of expertise may not generate any ideas right away, but keeping the list handy will be useful for exploring new topics.

My father launched his writing career on his growing interest in BDSM and Leather. There was very little published on the topic in 1991 when he moved to Chicago and discovered the gay Leather community. He pitched a column to Gay Chicago that year. Over the next 25 years, he published 13 books on the topic. I can’t promise you that kink paid all his bills every year, but I can’t deny that the man is a prolific writer.

Specialize in your topic

Now that you know what you can write about, and have some new ideas for related topics, dig deeper. A colleague was putting together an article documenting the effects of COVID on the cases that he was hearing and solicited ideas from me and others. I shared some decisions I had written on his topic and then realized I had a more specific issue that had arisen in cases from local governments. That spawned an article that is being published by a section of my state bar association journal in a few months.

Some of your ideas may require research or interviewing people. These skills may be outside of your comfort zone, so start slow by talking to friends and family about their experiences, or with other hobbyists about trends that they are seeing. Make sure your research comes from reliable sources. Researching will also help you learn whether there are already too many experts writing in your field. By reading work in your chosen area, you will find the gaps and figure out which stories have been told too often.

Identify outlets for your writing

There are always writing opportunities in your existing area of expertise. No matter what you do, someone wants to read about it. There is professional writing for clients, like I do, as well as industry magazines, newsletters, and blogs that need content. There are plumbing magazines, stamp collector newsletters, and thousands, if not millions, of parenting blogs. No matter what you know, someone wants to read about it.

Start with the publications you read. Now look for publications with similar titles. Look at the organizations you belong to. Your church, your union local, and your neighborhood are all areas that are likely to have periodicals that need fresh content.

Tailor your expertise to the outlet. For example, there is a weekly newspaper in my neighborhood that has a columnist who reports on animal adoptions at the local shelters, highlighting dogs that need homes, and providing tips for integrating new animals into your family. She has been writing this column for as long as I can remember. There’s another column about the local real estate market that does a deep-dive on a single house each week, describing its history, its upgrades, its disclosures, and how it fits into the overall housing market. You can write about literally anything you know about and find a forum that has readers.

Make your own outlets

Many of us have toiled for years on our blogs with very little to show for it financially. Blogs, however, are not the end goal. They are the place your writing can live until it finds a new home. When the pandemic started last year, I pulled together old blog posts, notes from speaking engagements, and an outline for a beginner’s guide to labor arbitration. I spent several weeks pulling that content together and in July, I self-published a 100-page book.

More recently, I was asked to moderate a panel at a conference and the organizer asked whether I knew of any relevant articles we could share with the audience. I wrote one and shared it with the panelists to get their feedback. Now my writing will be a part of the proceedings of the event and will be distributed to everyone who attends.

Work on the writing regardless of the content

Writing is not just a profession; it’s a skill. It’s a very portable skill. Like any other skill, you can apply it to any professional or personal interest. The best way to earn money as a writer is to write what you know for the people who want to know about that topic. Don’t get hung up on being an expert; write what you know and tell the reader what you don’t know. Maybe your expertise is that you are a total newbie. Leaving the reader with questions you share will bring them back to find out what you’ve learned. Articles can be written in a series format.

It’s more important that you do the writing than you hone the perfect article or story. Make the writing the point, and share it with readers. A lot of my time as a writer is spent writing for clients, but being self-employed in my specialty has also given me the flexibility to work on my memoir, short stories, a mystery novel, and my personal blog. I love that I am not bound to being a lawyer, I can be a writer, too.