Is a professional writer just someone who makes money writing? Then we might as well call anyone who gets paid for doing anything a pro. The word implies more than that. It means a commitment to producing the best results possible. It means not just being paid for work, but being paid for good work.

Professionals know that a career is an ongoing effort, not a leap to stardom. It’s a matter of constantly developing better skills, both at doing the work and at marketing it. Jeff Goins’ “7 Things Professional Writers Know That Amateurs Don’t” makes some excellent points on this topic. He explains that “success in any field is more about commitment to a process than it is about finding one magic trick that will make it all come together.”

Is the customer always right?

A professional knows that the customer’s needs come first, but this isn’t the same as “the customer is always right.” Imagine an electrician who left out ground wires because the customer didn’t want them. That would be gross negligence, not professionalism. Being a pro means choosing customers who have reasonable requirements and maintaining high standards.

If a customer wants a list of SEO keywords in an article, I provide them. But if the only way to do it is to use bad grammar and stupid-looking repetition, I’ll back off from the job. In fact, if “SEO” is in the one-line description of a job, I generally avoid it entirely. An article which is worth reading will get more readers than a piece of junk that’s stuffed with keywords, but not all clients understand that.

Living with rejection

Writers who are just getting into the business tend to take rejections personally. They’re part of the job. Often it’s not that a piece is bad, but just that it’s not right for the customer’s needs. Other times the customer is just stupid. Deal with it.

Every rejection is a piece of information. The lesson to learn may be to improve your writing, to take a different approach, or to try a different customer. A rejection which makes clear points, even if it’s harsh, is useful. The generic “not suitable for our needs” rejections are the least useful ones. If an editor rips your work apart but says “try again,” that’s actually encouraging. It says your work was worth the time to analyze its problems. Try again, and you might make it.

Keeping the flow going

Being a professional means doing the work whether you feel motivated at the moment or not. This is one of the toughest things to accomplish. It’s easy to step away from work when you’re stuck. Taking a break can actually help, as long as you come back to it before long. But if you’re a pro, you have to commit to getting a reasonable amount of stuff done every day. Many writers commit to a certain number of words or pages per day. I’m still experimenting with different approaches.

If you’re really a pro, you approach your writing with responsibility and pride. You love what you do, even on the bad days. That makes you someone worth doing business with.