My dear friend Lara Zielin is an incredible role model for creatives — she works all day, then comes home and cranks out her own personal writing AND maintains two blogs.
Lara has sold two young adult novels and is working on a third. She’s learned a lot about writing and the publishing industry and is sharing that wisdom on her newest blog, Help for Writers.
I was honored when she asked me to write a guest post on treating your writing like a business. I’ve been earning money as a writer since I was 17, but I think Lara asked me less because of that and more because I’m an MBA-type who wears a suit to work and works with Excel for a living.

Here’s how she introduces me:
Colleen Newvine Tebeau has a unique skill set that’s one part business guru, and one part creative entrepreneur. She has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Central Michigan and an M.B.A. from the University of Michigan. She worked as a reporter and editor at daily, weekly and monthly publications before flipping over to the business side. Today she’s director of market research at the Associated Press in New York. She also has her own blog, Newvine Growing, which is about living life intentionally, and continues to freelance to scratch her writing itch.
All that is to say Colleen gets writing both from a purely imaginative standpoint and from a more practical standpoint.
I asked her to stop by Help for Writers to chat about why mixing the corporate and the creative can be a breakthrough for writers.

If you’re interested in my thoughts on the three mistakes creatives make, the benefits to treating your creativity like a business — and what it means to treat it like a business — then check out Help for Writers.
Tell Lara I sent you.