Don't Quit Your Day Job

By Terry Whalin @terrywhalin

From time to time through the years, I’ve met authors who lean in and confide to me, “I’m all in on writing my book. In fact, I’ve quit my day job so I can write full-time.” When I hear this information, I appreciate this author’s commitment but also worry about the wisdom of such a decision. Maybe your dream job is to write fulltime. It’s something I want to address in this article with some ideas for you.

Several times, I have been working at a terrific job and to my surprise, I was fired. My past experience in these positions has been useful to me. We can grow from these experiences in our past (something I’ve tried to do) and none of us know what will happen in our future. Each of us have today to take action. Often at writer’s conferences, I hear this conventional wisdom: don’t quit your day job.

Through the years, I’ve met many authors who have written bestselling books and kept their day job. Over 40 years ago I met bestselling author Jerry B. Jenkins at an Evangelical Press Association meeting. Late one night three of us as magazine editors were playing scrabble against Jerry--and we lost. He is a world-class scrabble player. At the time I was a missionary magazine editor with Wycliffe Bible Translators.  Jerry was an editor at Moody magazine, part of the Moody Bible Institute.

In his books and teaching, Jerry talks about working a day job, coming home and spending focused time with his wife and children. Then after they went to bed, late at night Jerry devoted several hours to his writing. Many people assume this 21-Time New York Times bestselling author was an overnight success with his books. As he writes in the foreword of 10 Publishing Myths,the mega-bestselling series Left Behind was his 125th book. For many years, Jerry kept his day job and was not an overnight success. 

As I’ve met and interviewed various bestselling authors, I learned about a number of authors who have a day job and wrote their books outside of their work. Sarah Sundin is another example. For many years she was a pharmacist and wrote historical novels.

I encourage you to read this article about Famous Authors Who Also Had Full-Time Professions. You will be surprised at some of the well-known people who wrote while keeping their full-time job. 

Is writing full-time your dream job? It could happen. I’m writing this article to encourage you to take several actions in this process:

1. Without thinking about it long and hard, don’t quit your day job. As I mentioned, no one knows the future and you want to make wise decisions in this area.

2. Begin to develop multiple streams of income such as editing, coaching, and other sources outside of your writing. There are many different ways to make money with books. Follow this link to a free webinar where I list the details about a dozen different ways.

3. Learn to mix and match the different activities in your life (day job, writing, marketing, newsletter creation along with sending it on a regular basis plus many other tasks).

Each of us are on this journey called The Writing Life. Your path will be different than mine. To discover it, you will have to try many different things. Some of them will fail while others will succeed. You will be able to lean in and continue the ones which succeed. 

What have you learned about quiting your day job? Let me know in the comments below and I look forward to hearing from you.

Tweetable:

What is behind the writing conventional wisdom: don’t quit your day job? This prolific author and editor gives his insights and possible actions in this article. (ClickToTweet)

New Podcasts:

In these articles, I’ve encouraged you to use PodMatch or some similar tool to book and record podcasts. Last week one more podcast recording launched:

 

Joe Rooz (@JoeRooz) and I spoke LIVE on the Joe Rooz Podcast about 10 Publishing Myths Busted: What Authors Must Know. Listen and watch at: https://bit.ly/4pXO8gN 

Daniel Lucas (@dsl_lucas) and I spoke LIVE on the sixth season of the Abstract Essay Podcast. Listen at: https://bit.ly/45qLwRv 

Currently I’m working with my third publisher as an acquisitions editor. During these years, I’ve spoken with many authors about their expectations, dreams and desires for their books. I find many unrealistic expectations. Many aspects of the publishing process are outside of anything an author can control. I wrote 10 PUBLISHING MYTHS to give authors practical help. You can get decades of insights in 10 PUBLISHING MYTHS for only $10, free shipping and over $200 of bonuses.

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