The Secrets to Successful Writing

I’m sorry, because I receive a lot of DMs and I often take forever to reply, or I don’t reply at all. It’s not because I’m a snobbish asshole (well… maybe a little), but because my life right now is a minefield where every step is a risk.

But between bouts of being immobilized by fatigue, I read everything, and sometimes I try to respond as thoroughly as possible. The request this morning is perfect timing. Because these are questions I’ve been spilling my thoughts on for years.

These tiny questions carry a ton of layers in their answers. I’ll try to address them as simply and directly as possible.

I’m not sure I fully grasped the meaning. If it’s simply about writing being something that benefits you, then just write what’s on your heart, when you want, and share it with everyone. That’s the most beautiful way to practice writing. In every session, you’ll create something you love, and a bit like a baker who pours love into his cakes, it will always be better.

If the question is: how do you make money from writing, then we’re dealing with a completely different beast. There is some to be made in writing. Even if it’s far from being a well-paying industry. In terms of effort to income, it might even be one of the worst returns on investment out there. But if you’re still here, good, you are crazy and it’s a good thing if you want to succeed when 99% of writers will never make $100 in their lifetime.

To start, you need to understand that the money in this industry is concentrated in a few groups.

• The excellent writers

They’re anomalies. You can count them on one hand. They are insanely gifted. When you read them, you can see beauty through their work. Reading their work makes you feel alive.

The perfection of their lines doesn’t necessarily stem from the craftsmanship itself, but rather from the fact that they embody what they represent. They manage to breathe life into their work. Their work is full of energy. They have a soul in a spiritless world.

• The ones passionate about the right industry

Imagine you’re good at writing. And you’re good at crochet. Oops. That’s cool, but unfortunately your audience is now limited. Now imagine you’re good at chess, which is exploding every year right now, or finance, in a world where everyone is getting poorer. You have an edge because of the combination.

If you want to make money, ask yourself first: is money flowing in my industry? The more money there is, the less you’ll need to be good. And if there’s zero money in that industry, you can be the best, you’re still cooked.

• The connected ones

If you think writing is a fair game, it’s not. There are cabals. Don’t ask me how I know. But on many platforms, the content that gets shown to people is engineered by those who have the power to put it forward. It can be favoritism. It can be direct payment to be promoted. The writer who walks in with nothing but his balls and his knife, thinking it’s a fair environment, is completely wrong. Writing is as rigged as the world.

• The opportunist

Game is game. And yes, it’s possible to leverage trends for profit. The opportunist doesn’t love writing. The opportunist wants views and money. He finds what will get attention, exploits it, and moves on to the next trend. There are dozens of them everywhere on every writing platform. Their lines are as empty as a TikTok addict’s brain, but they perform because they perfectly understand the rules of the game. If your definition of success is likes, this is the path to take.

• The extractors

Paradoxically, some of them are the most profitable. They’ve understood that there’s a dream dominating millions of people around the world. So they sell courses on how to become a writer when they’ve never written anything. After all, they’re not wrong. If there are idiots who would rather buy baking lessons from a marketer instead of a passionate baker, that’s on them. They’re running a giant Ponzi and they know exactly how to leverage dreamers. They extract them like little cash cows.

Among all these paths, you can choose one, or mix several together. A complex alchemy that will build your success… or not.

Once you’ve read all this, and assuming your goal is to move toward the group of good writers or those passionate about the right industry so your words can pay you.

Everyone says the competition is fierce. Wrong. There’s mostly no competition anymore. The world is turning into a giant pile of slop where everyone generates tons of inauthentic crap on repeat. It’s turning our feeds into open-air landfills.

In an ocean of trash, the moment something shines, you see it. And that’s what will happen more and more in the years to come. When I look at successful writers on Substack, aside from the extractor group, none of them are writing with AI. They write compelling, interesting stories. It’s funny, it’s sad, it drives you crazy, it moves you… A natural selection is already happening.

I’m anti-AI. I’m not hiding it. I think it’s going to destroy the brains of people who use it, and burn the neural connections needed for any kind of outside-the-box creativity. For now, they’re having fun and think they’re clever with their new toy. In five years, when they will no longer be able to compute a simple idea, checkmate. It feels like a prerequisite to not touch AI if you want to be part of this new wave of the post-robot art renaissance.

Second, the other secrets aren’t really secrets. I’ve studied great writers from all nationalities for years. Their lives, their biographies, their routines… And most of them share three common factors:

• They were delusional about themselves.

  Any sane person would look at Voltaire, London, Ayn Rand, Kafka, Nietzsche life’s… or any great writer, as insane. They had fierce delusions. They believed only in themselves. They had an ego strong enough to absorb violent waves of criticism. They thought they were ahead of the world and that the world was wrong.

  Do you have the mental strength to stand firm when the world tries to break you because you shared what you believe in? Do you have an ego strong enough not to shatter under the hate you’ll receive? Whatever you write, the moment you get a hint of success, the world will try to break you.

• They were all heavy readers.
  The midwit will try to convince you that you don’t need to read to become a great writer. It’s the same idiot telling you to use Claude to produce more. Reading is your greatest treasure. And even if you write non-fiction, read fiction. Alternate one fiction book and one non-fiction book each week. Do that for a year and your writing level will skyrocket.

• They were all prolific writers.
  I studied how many words most great writers produced in a lifetime. The bare minimum is one million. The average was three million. Some went up to ten million. One million words at 500 words a day is 2,000 days, which is about 5 years. For just the beginning of mastery.

So here it is. After the millions of words I’ve written online, I’ll save you from buying a $500 course by giving you the three simplest and most efficient pieces of advice if you’re serious about dedicating yourself to this path.

• Believe in yourself

• Read one book a week

• Write at least 500 words a day, whether it’s windy, raining, snowing…

I’d top it off with this: never take a break, because the algorithm will assassinate you. If you’re planning time away, schedule your content for the entire period you’re gone.

Do it consistently during at least three years.

And maybe, starting from nothing, you’ll be able to climb the Everest of becoming a writer who makes money with his words.