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How to grow and balance your streams of income as a writer or copywriter.
By Nick UsborneThis article is about using your writing skills as a means to generate a balanced andgrowing income over time.What I describe here is what I have done personally to balance and grow my ownincome. For you, the details will be different, but I believe you will find the model useful.A little background. I have been a freelance copywriter for 30 years now. I have donewell, but a few years ago I paused and realized that I was simply working one month ata time, without any longer-term plan.I decided to take a closer look at my base skill – writing – and figure out some other ways to generate an income. I wanted something beyond “get a client, write the job, billthe client”.Below you’ll see a diagram showing the four separate streams of income I havedeveloped. These won’t be the same for you, but there are probably three or four waysin which you can generate separate streams of income from your writing.
 
First, let’s look at these four streams of income. (The figures on the left indicate levels of income, but don’t actually represent dollar amounts. The bottom axis simple shows thepassage of time over a four-year period.)1. Copywriting.This is what I have been doing for the last 30 years. It has been my core writing skill andstill generates a certain amount of income. That said, I spend less time on this now thanI did a few years ago.2. Coaching.With 30 years of copywriting and freelancing experience behind me, I realised I waspretty well qualified to help others who wanted to take a similar path. So I begancoaching. It was a new stream of income for me, and it took me several months before Igot my first client. But now it has become a significant source of income for me. Inaddition, I enjoy it a great deal.3. Publishing.Again, I am drawing on my own writing experience to write guides, courses andprograms to help others. Some of these published materials sell for as little as $20,others are sold for close to $500. Of course, there is a lot of work involved in creating aprogram that sells for $500, but the returns are worth it.4. Affiliate marketing.This started out as a hobby. I thought I would use my online writing and marketingexperience to create some hobby sites of my own. The idea was to create websites witha ton of content that would then earn me money through Google Adsense and affiliatecommissions. Again there was a lot of upfront work involved and it took quite a while for me to see any significant returns on my investment of time. But now my income fromthese sites has become quite substantial.>> There is a balance among these four separate streams.I knew that I wanted to develop a variety of different streams of income, all of thembased on my copywriting and freelance experience. I have settled on these four, butactually explored many others.Some of the other potential sources I discounted simply because I didn’t think I wouldenjoy doing them. Others I ignored because they didn’t fit with the balance I was aimingfor.What do I mean by balance?Let me take you through each stream, one at a time, and show you what I’m talkingabout.
 
First, freelance copywriting is a stream of income that depends on my regular attention.As always I have to find clients, do the work and then invoice for the work. If I am notworking, then I’m not generating revenues. If I take two weeks off, this revenue streamstops dread in its tracks. But for as long as I work on it, the income is reliable and prettygood.Coaching is the same in many ways. I have to get clients, work with clients and bill myclients. If I have time off, then I cease to make money.Publishing is different. First I have to invest hundreds of hours writing the materials. Thisis a period when authoring and publishing is time-hungry and creates no income at all. Icouldn’t do it unless I was also copywriting and coaching. I balance my work week sothat copywriting and coaching pay the bills while I invest time in the publishing side.The payoff comes if and when the published product sells well. Publishing can makeyou some money, or a ton of money, depending on how well each published piece sells.And if you take your two-week vacation while your published item is selling well, youcan relax in the knowledge that you’re still making money even when you are away fromyour desk.There is a downside in that most books, guides and courses see a spike in salesfollowed by a decline. Very few remain “bestsellers” indefinitely. If you like that spike inincome, you’ll need to go back to your keyboard and start on a new project.The final element in my balanced “portfolio” stream is the writing of content-richinformation sites.If anything, it takes even longer to write a substantial website than it does to write acourse or book. And it takes longer to get a good return on that investment of time.But...once you start making a healthy four figures a month from these part-timeinformation websites, that income continues indefinitely and, for as long as you keepworking on the site, albeit part-time, the income level will rise.Rather than make you scroll back up the page, here is that chart again.
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