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hey guys maybe this thread is the most urgent thing on our mind and what I suspect the most urgent thing on the minds of those who browse this board. how can i leverage my ability to write somewhat well into a job that's higher than minimum wage? Is it possible? Writing is hardly even a skill it feels. Maybe I just have nothing. I have a child's skillset.

I think social media is the highest paying job where you need the least specialization. You likely need to be a heavy social media user though.

>technical writer >report writer >engineering transcriptions >improving translated material >developing marketing statements >editing PR statements >drafting reports >editing reports >developing standard operating procedures >writing promotional and official flyers and pamphlets i dont know, all these seem above minimum wage, though if you work minimum wage, you might leverage your ability to prevent yourself from being a writing slave (not all useful skills should be told to your employer because they will try to get them for as cheap as possible) Another example is having microsoft office proficiency is something you should not make known unless it is in your advantage, because someone who should know it may try to get you to do their work for them

>>2927 >>2927 i have Microsoft office and latex proficiency. I don't think I know anything about anything to get any of those jobs you listed. Man this is rough

you could give freelance journalism a shot. although you have to also be good at coming up with insightful things to say (or at least good at playing the SEO slot machine). if your *only* skill is writing, then these >>2927 are pretty good suggestions. the general field is usually called "communications", at least in the united states.

>>2930 I don't know where to start with that. Where would I even go

>>2928 >>2930 >>2931 good point... try: https://www.bls.gov/ooh/media-and-communication/home.htm

Is emacs worth picking up I'd you're not a programmer for /lit/ reasons? What can it offer

>>2935 I'm not sure emacs is the way to go if you're not programming. Personally, I use Vim and I know others who are big on GUI editors like BBEdit. If you're just writing, I think you want to keep your audience in mind. If you just want to write, say, fiction, then maybe having something in MS Word will work since the editors will want to dig into it. For journalism, I suspect the same. Basically, you need to know what your target market accepts. Regardless of what you do, you need to know what passes for acceptable work in the field you've chosen and start from there. For example, If you want to be an essayist, then you'll have to come up with insightful essays and find a way to get them out there for review. The Creator's Syndicate might be a good place to start. They started out with comics syndication, but have moved on to opinion pieces and other works. You can find them here: https://www.creators.com/ For journalism, you might want to look at indie newspapers and do some free or extreme low-pay work just to build a portfolio. For technical writing, finding a software project that needs documentation might be the way to go. In all cases, it's all about building a portfolio of work so that you can go to a larger organization and show off what you've done and any acclaim the work has achieved. It won't happen right away, but if you chip at it, things will happen in time. My thoughts, anyway.

>>2936 Ah man I don't know where to find smaller journalism or tech writing stuff. I have no portfolio I'm starting from 0. This is like kicking dead whales down the beach

>>2941 Use the creaters link posted earlier and submit tech articles. That site specializes in submitting viable articles to multiple publications. For news, try this: https://indymedia.org/or/index.shtml Its's very left-leaning, but it's a start. A better way to get into journalism is to enter some curriculum for it. Or, conversely, become a pundit. The Young Turks are like that. They began has hard-left YouTube commentary and start nabbing interviews. Now they're seen as fringe, but a legit presence in the political news/commentary field.

Messed up

>>2936 This is all good advice. I'll offer some more: If you want to leverage your ability to write you need to know how to write. It really is a skill that needs to be practiced. Learning to write better involves three major parts: Practicing, Reading, and Community. Practicing: Get in a habit of writing everyday. Focuswriter is a great way to do this since it's a distraction-free environment and gives you stars for writing a bit during a day and keeps track of streaks. But don't worry about what you use to write too much since it's easy to waste time choosing tools when you should be writing. I like vim for programming, taking notes, and writing blogposts, but for writing fiction I use traditional word processors. If you don't know what to write, just write about your day or make up a crazy character. You can write something then delete it if you're embarrassed by it. Reading: Like how any good psychologist would read books or papers about psychology, or how any good musician would listen to music, it's always beneficial to read. In this same vein you should read books about writing. There's obvious choices like On Writing or The Oxford Essential Guide to Writing that you can find on libgen for free. You need to learn the rules of writing and grammar, how to make a paragraph interesting for the reader, and all sorts of tips that professional writers have learned over years of practice. Community: Get in touch with local writers, talk to people even if you think you're 10 times smarter or 50 times less talented than them, read websites/blogs/twitter associated with whatever part of writing you want to get into, etc. A good way to do this is find authors/writers you like on wikipedia, then find sources of quotes they have which are usually hosted on some writing website. I found a leddit link of resources which could be a good starting point: https://www.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/25jt4p/lets_compile_a_comprehensive_list_of_resources/ But more importantly than online is meeting people in real life. The relationships you make with people, especially when young, bear fruit over time as you and them improve. Universities and meetup.com should have some organizations.

>>3006 I have no friends. I don't want to read books on writing.

>>2931 >Where would I even go Medium or the "community" section of most trendy online publications (Buzzfeed, Atlantic, etc.). If these options are detestable to you, you could attempt to build a following on an independent blog, but you're still going to have to promote the soykaf out of it on social media. Eventually, hopefully, someone will decide to actually pay you to write for them, but you need to have a portfolio before that can happen. As for the skillset, it kind of depends what you want to do with it. If you're somewhat thoughtful when it comes to cultural criticism you could write editorials and cover news and whatnot. Nobody cares about dry news reporting anymore. If they want that they're watching CNN. You have to put some insight into it if you want people to read you. If this doesn't sound like something you'd be good at, there's always consumer product reviews. Having a gimmick can help, but being good at SEO will be even better. The basic SEO tip is to find a niche that isn't over-exploited... i.e. don't review video games (unless you've got a great gimmick) because everyone reviews video games, instead write about office chairs or some soykaf.

Is journalism at all an option in this day? How would you even get started

As a former English major, I really encourage you not to pursue a career in "writing". Please USE writing in your career, if it helps, but I am telling you, the best earning alumnus I know of is only earning like $60,000 >>3127 (as a journalist, by chance) and he lucked out big time.

>>3174 60,000 is more than enough. 30,000 is more than enough I genuinely cant do anything else unless its something like stock shelves.

>>3127 You are probably going to have another job to get by if you go into journalism but yes, people get paid for it still.

maybe you need to do some market search and get people like the youtubers gamers, you can try talk about some topic that you really like, take special care in the narrative... youtube killed blogs. dont know, get some ads viewed by that or something and get paid.

>>3188 you're so real bro