by Vincent Davis @vbdavisII

What makes someone a professional writer? Or better yet, what gives someone that ethereal, esoteric title of “author”? Is it when you get published? Is it when you make your first best sellers list?

I’m under the impression that being a professional is more about your habits and actions than it is about your book sales or the number of titles you have on the market.

It’s about how seriously you take your craft.

There are a lot of writers that are full of hot air and big ideas. They dream of what it would be like to quit their jobs, express themselves creatively through the written word, and then make it onto the Oprah show to talk about their latest projects. You’ll find plenty of folks like this at writers conferences. They love to discuss with other people, develop new best-selling concepts, and go home with incredible stories about how inspired they are. There is nothing wrong with this. Being a tourist is always fun!

But if you want to become an author, a professional writer, then you have to do more. You have to put pen to paper and develop the habits that will take you from unpublished (or published and lethargic), to being a full-blown pro.

Here are three habits every author should work to develop if they want to be a pro:

1. Track your word count.

If you read much about writing, you’ll have heard about a thousand different pieces of advice about word count. Some say 1,000 a day. Others 1,666 a day (50,000 a month). Some say 500 solid, well-thought-out words. I try for 2,000 a day. But, I’m here to say that the number isn’t as important as the practice.

Some people live on their writing and make it their full-time job, while others have a full-time job, kids, or are studying for a degree. Not everyone can hit the same word count without forfeiting important parts of their lives. But everyone can be a professional.

Start tracking your word count. You’ll discover a lot about your writing habits, such as when and how you write faster and more efficiently. That level of record keeping will also keep you accountable to yourself. It’s a lot harder to go a week without writing when you have a blank spreadsheet starting back at you. No matter how many words you want to hit per day, set a goal and try to hit it. Track the amount of time you spend at the keyboard and the number of words you get down. This will give you lots of useful intelligence about your writing life and help you hone your craft as you move forward as a pro.

Pro Tip: Check out the app “Word Keeper” on iPhone or WriteOMeter on Android. These super cool apps will gave you a boost over the ol’ pen and paper, allowing you to track your word counts, see totals for months, weeks, and days, and see charts that can give you new info about your habits. You can use these tools to reward yourself for hitting your goals as well!

2. Write every day.

The writing craft is a lot like your muscles. If you don’t use it, it’ll atrophy.

Even going a few days without approaching your keyboard can result in a fresh dose of writer’s block the next time you do. When you make a consistent habit of “going to work” as all professionals do, and sitting down at your desk, you’ll get into a flow state.

From October to December of 2017 I wrote two books. How? Because I wrote every day. How many have I finished since then? Nada. Ziltch. Why? Because I’ve focused on other things. I write some, sure. Sometimes I write for days in a row. But have I made a habit of writing every day? Nope. And I can tell you from recent experience that it is so much harder to do this when you aren’t doing it daily.

“Objects in motion tend to stay in motion. Objects at rest tend to stay at rest.” So get to moving! Start a rhythm. Every day. The same goal. If possible, the same time of day. Let the forward motion keep propelling you forward. In my experience, that is so much easier and more fulfilling than simply trying to write when you find time … and kicking yourself when you don’t.

3. Develop a Team

No writer is an island.

When you look at the Best Sellers list, you typically only see one name in the author column, but you can rest assured that there were dozens of others hearts and minds that went into crafting that best seller. You need to find your team.

The truth is, there is no such thing as “self-publishing”. If you really do it yourself, your book will almost certainly languish in obscurity. That isn’t a knock on your skills as a writer. It’s an observation that individuals don’t typically contain the vast amounts of skill and knowledge that is required to make a book a best seller (or even a seller at all), and even if you are some kind of book savant, having only one pair of eyes on a book is very dangerous.

You need:

• Beta readers (those who can tell you what’s wrong or right with your book from the get-go)
• Advanced readers (those who read the finished vision first and will be ready to leave a review on the launch date)
• Professional editors (Your English-teaching cousin doesn’t fit the bill. I’m sure she’s brilliant, but there is an art and a science to editing that requires a lot of training and experience.)
• Book cover and interior designers (there is a science to this as well … and people do judge by the cover)
• A launch team (spread the word like wild-fire)
• A marketer (who knows how to work the distribution algorithms and metadata, run ad campaigns, and strategize price promotion to get your book in front of the right readers).

You might not need every single one of these people on your team, but … you definitely will need most of them. So, do some thinking, find reliable and like-minded people, and build your dream team! You don’t have to do it alone, so why would you?

These are my top three habits for professional writers. What would be on your list? We’d love to hear from you in the comments below!

Vincent B. Davis II is an entrepreneur, soldier, and freelance writer. In December 2016, he founded Thirteenth Press, LLC. His first novel, “The Man with Two Names” is available on Amazon now. You can connect with him on Facebook, Twitter, or on his website at vincentbdavisii.com. He loves hearing from other authors!