My writing mentoring (probably) won’t make you millions

Is that a weird thing to say?  It feels like it.

I’ve been trawling the internet for writing mentors in the name of research.  I wanted to know: how do others do it?  What are their approaches?  What do they say to potential clients?

The answer to that last question seems to be: “I’ll help you make lots and lots of lovely money”.

“I’m sharing the EXACT script and template I used to secure a $9.2k writing commission in this month’s training!” shouted one.  “I’ll show you how to write an Amazon bestseller in ONE weekend!” cried another.  “Make £2-5k per month from writing, even if you’re a COMPLETE BEGINNER!” trilled the strapline on someone else’s website.

I haven’t worked with these people, so I’ve no idea if their methods are successful.  Maybe the last eight years of slogging my mental guts out as a freelance writer and author have been utterly mis-spent.

I don’t think so, though.

For one thing, writing an Amazon bestseller isn’t as hard as it might first appear.  I mean… someone managed it just by uploading a pageless book with a picture of their foot on the cover.

For another, it isn’t easy to make serious money from writing.  Granted, I could have made more if I’d taken on projects I didn’t really want to do, but even then I’d probably have failed to make the six-figure sums shouted about by the social-media blowhards.

That doesn’t make me a bad writer.  It does make me a determined and realistic one.

I’d honestly rather not earn the big bucks (if I was even capable of getting them!) if it meant churning out garbage words day in, day out.  If I wasn’t going to write the way I’ve always wanted to write, it wouldn’t have been worth throwing my previous HR career away and taking a huge risk on the unknown.

My writing mentoring is based on this exact premise.

As in: I’ll help you develop your writer’s voice and use it in a way that feels natural, delightful, and personally rewarding.  You can use it to write the book you’ve always dreamed of writing, or launching a brand-new freelance writing career.

(If you’re doing the latter, it’s essential that you get to know your natural writing style first.  If I hadn’t done that myself – albeit unwittingly – I wouldn’t have had a writing career at all).

Maybe the big bucks will come, and maybe they won’t.  The likelihood is that, if you’re any good and you keep at it, the small-to-medium bucks will come eventually.  And maybe those will make you glow with pride, because they’re a direct result of you doing something you love.

One more thing.

My mentoring isn’t bound by a fixed contract or a set number of sessions, because I would have hated all that.  I wanted a knowledgeable and insightful mentor with whom I could work flexibly, because sometimes you don’t need them and sometimes you really, honestly do.

That’s the kind of writing mentor I aim to be.  If you like the sound of it, let’s talk.