Basics of Being a Professional Writer

Series Summary

The world of a freelance writer is fraught with dangers and dead ends. But, when a freelance artist works hard, networks her fingers to the bone, and negotiates pay like a tenacious wolverine, she just might make a nice-sized place of herself in the world of professional writing. Some of the oldest names in literature were freelance writers: Shakespeare had a job writing copy for the local middle school gazette, Moses ghostwrote five books before making a name for himself, and Salman Rushdie wrote greeting cards and birthday cake taglines before becoming the famous author he is today. So, whether you are young and foolhardy or just looking for a career that will let you work from home, I hope freelance writing works for you.

In this free video series, expert writer Rebecca Sato will show you how to become a professional writer. She handles how to write proposals, manuscripts, and first chapters, how to get paid, how to stay professional, and how to handle writer's block. Rebecca also teaches you the ropes of writing as a business, how to develop characters, how to keep the big picture in mind, and more. It is all here! You'll be a professional writer in no time!

Video Transcript

"REBECCA SATO: Hi, I'm Rebecca Sato. You can find out more about me at rebeccasato.com. That's S-A-T-O. And I'm here with ExpertVillage.com to tell you about how to become a successful writer. And what I'm going to deal with is more the psychological, emotional, spiritual side of writing, the creative process versus the pragmatic business side of writing. If you want to find out more about that, then I did another video series about how to start a freelance writing career and that, pretty much, will tell you how to run the business side whether you're a copywriter, a ghostwriter or a novelist, kind of some of the things writers need to be aware of. But let's get back to what we're going to talk about. We're going to talk about how to become a successful writer. Well, I don't think that any successful writer will really argue this. The first thing that you really have to do is believe in yourself. At some level, you've got to believe in yourself. You've got to know that you have what it takes to be successful. So how do you do that? Well, we'll talk about that."