What is Your Dream Writing Job and What are You Doing to Get it?

We all think about our writing goals for the year when the new year comes around. Now we’re at the mid-point. Are your writing dreams still alive and well? Are you working towards your goals?

I think it’s important to always have that “dream job” in the back of your head, whether or not you think it’s ever going to happen. It reminds you why you love being a writer, and it gives you something to strive for.

I’m going to tell you a bit about my “dream writing job,” and what I’m doing to get there. And I’d love it if you would share your own goals and how you’re working towards them here in the comments (or share a success story if you’ve reached those goals already). Do you want to hit a certain income level? Do you want a full-time writing job? Do you want to be a freelance writer if you’re not already? A professional blogger? A published author? Tell me.

My Dream Writing Job

My ideal writing job wouldn’t involve clients. That’s not because I don’t love my clients - most are fantastic to work with. It’s because I want to be earning my primary income through my own websites, blogs, and informational products.

I’m shooting for the end of 2009 at this point. I figure when my blogs are collectively earning $4-5k per month, I’ll either quit taking on new clients or I’ll take on far fewer to focus my full-time hours on my sites (so I can continue to build the income from there). I think it’s a realistic goal and time frame. I talked last year about how I took my business blog alone to $2k per month. Right now, several are making a few hundred dollars per month, and slowly growing as I’ve been getting back into regular postings. That’s going to be the key for me - keeping the blogs alive with fresh content.

So essentially I guess you can say my goal is to be a full-time professional blogger. I’ve always advocated “writing for yourself,” so I doubt that’s a big surprise. Of course I’ll also be doing other projects like e-books and hopefully spending more time writing books to either self-publish or pitch to publishers (I have an indie music marketing series I’ve been dying to spend time on and self-publish for a few years now for example, and have several books in the works that I’ll likely pitch to publishers).

What I’m Doing to Get There

The biggest focus at the moment is to get my “final blog lineup” in order. I’m building two new blogs that I’m hoping to launch Saturday (AllBookWriting.com and JennSays.com). That would put me at 10 active blogs that I’ll be trying to post to regularly (and monetize). I’ll be building and flipping a few others as well, but they’re not a part of the long-term plan.

I’m also putting a lot of effort into keeping things updated. I’m trying to get myself into a better set routine, so I never feel overwhelmed by the number of blogs. When all ten are live, I’m thinking most will be 2-3 day per week blogs (this one, the freelance writing jobs blog, BizAmmo.com, and NakedPR.com will usually see more posts).

I’m re-evaluating monetization plans for the bigger blogs right now. I’ll be removing some ads, incorporating others, adjusting placements, and altering designs / themes if necessary. I’m also looking into quite a few affiliate products that may be worth promoting. I’ve purchased a few, am testing them, and if I actually like them, I’ll refer them on my various sites.

I’m also plotting informational product plans for certain blogs - like the Web Writer’s Guide e-book series for WebWritersGuide.com. I’m hoping these types of things will become a primary income source from my blogging.

A final thing I’m doing is starting to build email lists (such as for my PR blog). Why? Because those will be valuable promotional tools when it comes time to pitch my book on a related subject to potential publishers.

I’ve got the “big picture” in the back of my mind at all times, doing little things now to make that “dream job” a reality within a reasonable time frame.

It’s your turn. What do you want to do as a writer, and how do you plan to make it happen?