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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/40867
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I like to compare writing to other jobs:

- **Chef in a Restaurant:** Should you serve your customers what they like to eat, or should you cook what you like and eat it yourself?

- **Architect:** Should you build the house that the owner wants to live in, or the house that you want to live in?

Ideally, your personal taste coincides with the taste of a large enough market segment for you to make a living. Artists (and cooks and architects) who like what the masses like can become rich and famous.

But usually when someone asks this question, they have found that what they enjoy is at worst unpublishable and at best a small niche and won't pay enough for them to do it full time.

It is a basic fact of live that most people will have to spend most of their working lives doing things they wouldn't do if they had the choice. In this, **a writing career is no different than a career as an accountant or carpenter**. You can choose a job that comes as close as possible to what you like to do, but you will always have to work on things you don't enjoy.

So what you can do is either:

# 1. Work a job you dislike and write what you like as a hobby.

# 2. Write what sells.

There is a third option, but this requires extreme networking and marketing skills, above average good looks, an outgoing, likeable personality, and probably a good portion of luck:

1. Write what you like and **_sell it_**.

Original score: 1