At the risk of stating the obvious or, worse, being tautological, I think the mark of a professional writer is that he or she behaves professionally. What might professional behaviour look like?
You expect to be paid.
You belong to a professional association that represents writers.
You take account of legal issues like copyright.
You insist on a contract before agreeing to anything….
… and you negotiate the terms rather than accepting the first offer made.
You are continually honing your craft, whether through writing blogs, attending courses or reading books about the craft of writing.
When online, you are courteous, respectful helpful. Authors have a reputation for being arrogant. Don’t give anyone reason to use you as an example of that!
Many of these points are covered in a couple of series on the Writers’ Know-how website — and if they haven’t been then they soon will be. Rather than put all the links to the other articles in the list above, which I think can be as disruptive as footnotes strewn throughout a text, I thought I’d let you explore for yourself. The two series are:
10 attributes of professional writers
In addition, you can find reviews of books from a writer’s perspective, as well as reviews of books about writing, by trawling through the Bookshelf.
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