Hello! Dominique Gibson is back with another post. This post is a continuation of the other post I did a couple of weeks back about my funding options as an author. If you want to check out my first post I did when it came to this subject, you can click on the link down below to take you straight there.
My Funding Options as an Author
This is part two of this post. In this post, I will show you what my professor’s response was to my different options and her views about my response:
Professor’s Response
Dominique,
You sound so much like me! I’m not an “all my eggs in one basket” kind of person. I thrive knowing I have multiple income streams at any given time. This is probably a result of having own my own business for more than 10 years and realizing how one major incident (like the pandemic – or in my case the great recession) can totally devastate a small business that’s been going well for many years.
You look like you’ve really considered as many varied options as you can. When possible see what you can double dip. For example, if you are teaching, gather than knowledge into your How-To book or it class packets/videos that people can purchase from your website.
Some advice about consulting – interview your clients before taking them on. This will help you avoid the PITA clients (Pain in the Ass) who typically are the ones who complain the most, ask for the most revisions or help or free work on your part, then refuse to pay the bill, trying to negotiate for a lower price. They are not worth the time, angst and effort and will almost never provide a good recommendation for you to other clients. Make sure clients know you have the option NOT to work with them if you so choose, and create a clause for it in your contract. This has saved me on more than one occasion. Additionally, always have a signed agreement. Each party should know what they can and cannot expect from your services in writing.
My hope is by sharing this, I will be able to help other writers consider their options when it comes to sitting on that one dream of being a full-time writer.
See you soon.
Dominique Gibson
Dominique Gibson knew she wanted to be a writer ever since she sat down at her plastic table and wrote her first book out of sheer boredom at eight years old. Years later, she decided to go get her Bachelor’s Degree from Columbia College Chicago. She is obtaining her master’s degree in Creative Writing from Southern New Hampshire University. When not writing, she is busy teaching two year olds at a daycare center in Skokie, IL. For more information, check out her website at http://www.dominiquegibsonauthor.com.
