Category: Working

Expand Your Hobby into a Career by Julie Morris + Podcast

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Title over photo of hands planting a small plant. Pixabay: rawpixel
Pixabay: rawpixel

Expand Your Hobby into a Career by Julie Morris – Happiness Between Tails

#Careers #Passion #Hobbies #Business Do you have a hobby you wish was your career? Career and life coach Julie Morris switched from a career that was hell to one that’s now heaven for her. Share your thoughts, experiences, and questions by recording them on my Anchor by Spotify page — or comment at HappinessBetweenTails.com — or email me. Like what you hear? Buy me a coffee. http://buymeacoffee.com/SupportHBT — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/depe9/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/depe9/support

For a podcast/audio version of today’s post, check out AnchorFM! There you’ll also find links to subscribe, hear, and share episodes of Happiness Between Tails by da-AL via most any platform, from Spotify and Apple Podcasts, to Google Podcasts and Pocket Casts, along with RadioPublic and Castbox and Stitcher and more, plus an RSS feed. The full list of 50+ places is at LinkTree.

The first step toward a dream can be the hardest. Blogger Julie Morris is also a career and life coach. She thrives on helping others live their best lives. It’s easy for her to relate to clients who feel run over by life because she’s been there. After years in a successful (but unfulfilling) career in finance, she decided to bust out of the corner office that had become her prison. Today she helps busy professionals like her past self get the clarity they need to live inspired lives that fill more than just their bank accounts.

Here’s her advice for turning a passion into profit…

3 Tips on How to Expand Your Hobby into a Career by Julie Morris

Whether you want to start a side gig to earn extra money or want to start a full-fledged business, you need to know that not everyone is cut out to be their own boss. While it sounds like a great idea to set your hours, work for yourself and not answer to anyone else, starting a business is quite an undertaking. You need to be sure that you have the right characteristics for owning a business and that your products or services are marketable and can turn a profit. 

1. Ensure You Have What It Takes to Start a Business

Running your own business is anything but easy. You’ll face financial and professional challenges, make decisions at a moment’s notice, handle customer complaints and poor reviews and manage your taxes and expenses. To determine whether you’re cut out to start a business, Plexus has identified the several signs that you were born to be the boss. If you don’t have all those qualities, never fear. You just need to know where there may be gaps in what you’re capable of so that you can hire others to help fill them.

3. Understand Your Tax Responsibilities

It can be so exhilarating to start your own business that you can forget your tax responsibilities. Plus, the government needs to see that your hobby counts as a legitimate business in order for it to be classified as such. The difference between a hobby and a business affects your taxes quite significantly, so make sure when you leap into business ownership that you have solid records and are doing all you can to fit the business mold.

It’s take a lot to turn your hobby into a livelihood, but with the right planning and strategy it really is possible. With a little extra elbow grease and tenacity, you could change your life.

Do you have a hobby you wish was your career?

Authors! Novelists can be anyone we want to be!

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Novelists can imagine ourselves into whatever characters we choose! Ones who’ve already published, like Valeska Réon, from Germany (given that I’m the soon-to-be self-published author of the upcoming “Flamenco & the Sitting Cat”) inspire to me to no end! I found this photo of her while I was searching for something else (isn’t this always the case?) — and love it so much that I’m sharing it in the hopes that it’ll inspire you too!…

Image by Valeska Réon from Pixabay

I don’t understand German, but I love how boldly she assumes identities on her video channel.

Valeska Réon and her many personas include her dogs.
Valeska Réon and her many personas.

In addition to a host of careers she’s had and currently pursues, she loves dogs — she often features them on her Instagram! See what Valeska’s up to later here.

Valeska Réon with her black and white dog.
Valeska Réon and her dog indulge in a black and white moment.

How do you re-imagine yourself?…

How I Got Published (Big Time) by Lance Akiyama

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How does an author get their book published by a big company, as opposed to doing it on their own? Hard work and good fortune figured into how a big-time publisher of how-to books reached out to Lance Akiyama. Together, they’ve put out four books (including a revised version of one) by him about how to make cool stuff from rubber bands, duct tape, and more.

Do you have first-hand experience? I’m gathering a following of fiction lovers who might enjoy my soon-to-be-published books, “Flamenco and the Sitting Cat,” and “Tango and the Sitting Cat.” Other authors have posted on Happiness Between Tails about their book experiences here and here and here and here and here and here.

Read on for Lance’s post about how he got published. He notes that non-fiction vs. fiction call for different methods…

Lance Akiyama, author of "Duct Tape Engineer" and more.
Lance Akiyama, author of “Duct Tape Engineer” and more.

How I Got Published (Big Time) by Lance Akiyama

My process for getting published was pretty unusual. I had created a series of free project tutorials on Instructables.com, which ranks pretty well if you search Google for ‘engineering projects for kids.’ At some point, my publisher’s editor had a book idea for a series of gadgets that were powered by rubber bands and made from household items. She went searching for someone who could realize that vision, found my work, and offered me the book deal! I don’t think many people have offers to become an author just drop into their inbox, but that’s how it happened.

DIY project books are a bit different than publishing a novel. There’s no outline phase. Instead, there’s a tinkering phase; I had to experiment with about 30-40 project ideas before settling on 20-ish and then spending more time fine-tuning those ideas so they could be easily recreated at home by the reader. The editing phase is more focused on the clarity of the step-by-step instructions rather than the plot or character development. And finally, I had to take hundreds of pictures in my tiny home studio. Well, ‘studio’ is a generous term. Really it was a folding table with a cloth backdrop that was set up in my bedroom. But eventually all the pieces came together, and the publisher’s design team polished up all the content into a great-looking layout!

The next few books followed a similar pattern: my editor had an idea, asked me if I wanted to author the book, and then tinkered & wrote & produced all the materials. But after 4 books plus one revised edition, I think I’m ready to take a break from writing!

Cover of "Duct Tape Engineer" by Lance Akiyama.

About Lance Akiyama: he’s an avid tinkerer, and voted Most Likely to Survive the Zombie Apocalypse. He currently holds a full-time position as a science curriculum developer for Galileo Learning, an innovative summer camp company. His mission is to inspire the next generation of scientists, engineers, and artists with hands-on projects that make kids think, “I can’t believe I made that!”

Have you published a book?

7 Tips for Authors by Rhiannon

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Want to write and publish a book? Blogger Rhiannon Brunner (who has also contributed to HBT here) has written and self-published many of them! A resident of Vienna, Austria, she writes about whatever interests her. Her books are in German. Soon she’ll translate them into English. Here she encourages us all…

Author/blogger Rhiannon Brunner with her cat, Carry (big sister of kitten Maze).
Author/blogger Rhiannon Brunner with her cat, Carry (big sister of kitten Maze).

7 Tips for Authors by Rhiannon Brunner

If you’re thinking about writing a book, these are my experiences that I’d like to share to encourage you. Some see themselves as warriors, others as traders or craftsmen. Through my blog and books, I have come to see myself as a “bard,” as a storyteller. Let me inspire you and accompany you on your writing journeys.

Since childhood, I’ve loved reading stories. To this day I adore how a good book shows me new worlds. My first steps in writing started when I was a little. A few years ago, I realized how important writing is to me. My trigger was wanting to find a good present for my mom.

Since then, I haven’t been able to keep my fingers off the keyboard. Becoming an author is a work in progress. Accepting input is necessary for growth. Every book is like your “baby” that you send into the world. It doesn’t matter how good it is — you still love it and wish it all the best on its way.

TIP 1: Go for it! No master has fallen from heaven yet, everyone started small. Set the first step for your book.

TIP 2: Hold on! Writing a book requires that one invest time and commit to finishing. It doesn’t matter how good your “baby” gets. Just get to the end.

TIP 3: Open yourself to input! There is always someone better than you. Ask for advice if necessary, but never let anyone pull you down. If the criticism is constructive, it will help you.

*** These first three tips are essential — all else is variable. ***

With my books, I started from scratch. I researched bloggers and “professionals.” I searched for tips on the homepages of publishers and organized writing guides for myself. Some helped, others did not.

TIP 4: I dare you! I don’t like to leave projects open or to cancel them. If you want to write a book, sit down and finish it.

TIP 5: Perfection does not exist.

TIP 6: Hang in there! Again and again, I looked for writing experts. I didn’t have any luck, so I began to experiment. I gave my manuscript to others to read and wondered how accurate their opinions were. Some advice I put into practice, some I didn’t. Not every input is meaningful and helpful. Make sure that it helps you to improve and that it doesn’t dissuade you. Go with your gut feelings, even small ones. You don’t need flattery, merely sincere advice.

TIP 7: Open yourself to input. Constructive criticism can sting, but it helps with further development.
You don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Make the best of everything.

Good luck!

Hope for Novelists and Other Writers by da-AL

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Do you have an elevator speech? Book writers are told that they need an ‘elevator speech’ — a one-minute pitch for when they inadvertently meet their star-maker. It’s also useful for talking about one’s book with everyone else.

Theoretically, that is. My elevator speech rarely gets past the first floor.

Bunny rabbit outfitted person reads paper.
Ryan McGuire of Gratisography is a smart bunny.

But I love my books, which is why I keep at them. My two novels are in the final edit phase as I build an audience of followers (that means you, dear reader) who I hope will be interested in them when they’re self-published. They’re narrated by a 40-year-old woman, in the form of letters to a deceased grandmother.

“An epistolary novel: written in the form of a series of letters.” Merriam-Webster Dictionary

The Hope Part of this Post: This video reminds me of me pitching my book — and Maria Keogh Semple’s “Where’d You Go, Bernadette” did great!

Here’s part 2 of her pitching (this time to another very successful author), which is also shown comically yet realistically…

Semple’s book is so successful that Cate Blanchette is starring in a movie version of it!

What’s been people’s reaction when you tell them about your books?