How Did Your Writing Business Hold Up This Year?

I always do a bit of reflection at the end of the year. Do you do that? Some of mine is personal and some is business, but a lot of it is the state of things as a whole. As I look back on 2025, I’ve been thinking about what the year looked like for writers.

Some writers I've talked to and heard from saw a pretty big income drop. Others earned more than they expected. Most, however, experienced some version of both at different points. The writing world changed for sure, but it didn’t seem to follow one clear pattern.

There was one commonality: AI showed up in almost every story. It influenced how clients made decisions, how they scoped projects, and what they thought they needed. We can acknowledge that without letting it take over the story, because this story isn't about AI. It's about you.

You are still the most valuable part of any writing process. You bring unique human thoughts, understanding, and direction to the table. The tools being used might change, but the work of making ideas make sense is still human work.

I thought with this week's newsletter we'd go practical and do an essential business growth exercise. Before you move into next year or start developing new plans or goals, let's look at what this year looked like for you.

What happened with your business?

I sit down and look at actual facts and figures every year, because I'm almost always wrong about how I think the year went. Not big wrong or delusional, just not as exact as I should be. Here are some of the questions I ask myself (and then look up the answers) that you might like to use:

• Where did your work come from?
• Which projects supported your income?
• Which parts of your business slowed down?
• Which parts picked up?
• What did clients ask for more than usual?
• What did clients stop asking for?
• Did you have more repeat clients or new clients?
• What was your average per hour income (not rate) per client?
• What was your profit margin?

Answering these question will give you most of the information you need to decide how you want to shape things next year.

If your income dropped, you have options.

Did your income numbers change for the negative this year? I know a lot of people had that happen. Here's my two cents, it's still possible to make a living writing. Some people will be able to make a great living writing. But most of us should be diversifying our income. One way to do that is to add services that connect to writing but aren’t limited to delivering finished content. It gives you a way to keep writing central to what you do while creating more stability so you can meet needs your clients already have.

One important note: Only offer services you can legitimately do well. If you want to try something new, that's fine, but make sure you have the knowledge and skills to do the work. That might mean training, education, or a significant amount of practice. Do your homework and make sure you can deliver the work you’re promising. I cannot tell you how many clients I've worked with over the years that were sold services that the freelancer didn't deliver. It gives the entire profession a bad name. So don't change your title because someone online said it will raise your rates. You can fake confidence, but you can't fake ability.

Potential services to consider

Here are a few writing-adjacent services that may be a good fit with the work you already do:

Content consulting

Do you already help clients figure out what they need or why something isn’t working? That's not a "I'm being nice to them add-on." If you're not charging for it, you're giving away free consulting.

I used to give away SO much value for free. I thought I was doing a good thing. My clients loved me! And why not, they were getting thousands of dollars of knowledge because I was a people pleaser. Then I had a client tell me at the end of a discovery call, "This is great! We just paid a consultant $4,000 for a solution to this problem, and what you just shared is a much better option for us."

That call forced me to sit down and reevaluate how I engaged with my clients. I decided to start offering consulting packages.

Consulting simply makes that problem-solving and thinking work that is so naturally a part of what we do an official service we offer our clients. You might review existing content, look at gaps, or recommend updates and next steps.

Other forms of writing

You may not need a new skill, just add a new category. Instead of focusing solely on blogs, or SEO writing, think about writing email sequences, website updates, articles, or scripts.

Content strategy

This one does require training. Could you learn it on it's own? Yes. But most of the information you find online is contradictory and/or wrong. Strategy requires you to do in-depth research and analysis before offering a roadmap solution for your clients. If this interests you, it can become a strong offer once you learn the framework.

Ideation

Some clients want help coming up with ideas. This might be in the form of content planning (different from strategy), topics for blogs and newsletters, or outlining pillars and clusters they can use in their content planning. Coming up with those ideas is easy for you, but it's a stressful process for most people and many companies happily pay for ideation.

Editing

Writers often overlook editing even though it fills a real need. You can offer developmental editing or revisions for marketing material. There are a lot of ways editing can help fill in income gaps.

Shaping AI-generated drafts

Clients who use AI often end up with drafts they don’t want to publish. They want someone to turn the draft into something usable. As a writers, you're well-positioned to offer that service.

If you choose to expand your services, choose one direction to go in at first. You probably don’t need a full rebuild of your business or a long list of offers for clients to choose from. Pick one new service, test it, and see what happens.

As you plan for next year

If you had a banner year this year, congratulations! I'm so pleased for you!

If your business took a downturn, or you're struggling to find clients, you may need to reevaluate a few things and test out the idea of branching out a bit.

Whatever you decide, the important thing is moving forward with intention and a clear understanding of where you want to go.

Want a little help with your planning? We have a free resource for you! Here is a goal-setting workbook that will help guide you through the process. And here's a link to a private podcast that will walk you through the process.

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