Last month, Jennifer Lawler wrote an excellent guest post on developing multiple streams of income. In the post, Jennifer discussed why it’s important to diversify; for one thing, you’ll have other income generators to turn to if one dries up.

I always sing the praises of diversifying on this blog and to my e-course students. And boy, do I follow my own advice. Here are some of the products and services I offer, both paid and free (which help me promote my paid services). I include links where appropriate so you can see how much goes into each one:

• magazine writing
• general copywriting
• copywriting and editing for universities
• adoption profile/”dear birthmom” letter writing (I’m starting up the website in a week or so)
• two e-courses
• Renegade Writer e-courses (taught by outside instructors)
• phone mentoring for writers
• query letter critiquing
• free query letter packet
• Review Copy Helper (a list of about 200 publishers and how to request review copies of their books)
• free teleclasses for writers
• The Renegade Writer Blog

Like I said, diversifying is a good thing, and that’s what I’m doing. But after a certain point, it gets to be too much. There are 12 items on my list, and each of them has its own to-do list with dozens of tasks. For example, for the Renegade Writer e-courses, I have to tell instructors how to build a successful course, put their course info on the website, edit their course lessons, design and password-protect their web pages, and market the courses. For the phone mentoring, I need to market the service, handle payments, send clients forms to fill out, study and think about the information they send me — and then conduct the phone call. And for the Renegade Writer blog, my tasks include brainstorming and writing posts, finding and uploading photos, and moderating and answering comments.

Some of the items on my work list require hardly any work. For example, I probably receive one update request per month for the Review Copy Helper, and the copywriting site has been pretty much dormant for a year. But they take up psychic energy: I should market the copywriting, I should be more proactive in updating the Review Copy Helper.

However, it’s great to have so many forms of income, I love what I do, and even with all this I work only two days per week. In terms of my career, magazine writing makes up a large portion of my income, and the rest of my offerings are lots of little things that each bring in a small to moderate amount of money. If I were to suddenly lose all of my magazine writing income, the rest of my services wouldn’t pick up all the slack, but they would probably keep us from starving.

But it’s gotten to the point where I feel scattered. I have ADD — and I mean that literally — and while it helps me bounce from one task to another quickly, it also makes it hard for me to focus when I have so much going on.

Still, whenever I come up with an idea for a new product or service, I run out and implement it right away, without considering how it fits into my career and life goals. I guess that’s a plus: I’m very action-oriented and usually see projects through to completion. But every small offering I add is something else that’s knocking around in my brain, even if it pretty much runs itself like the Review Copy Helper.

I’m thinking now of how I can consolidate and simplify. I don’t want to stop doing the magazine writing or e-courses/mentoring, because I love them. But some things will have to go.

Diversifying is good to a point, but you shouldn’t just add new products and services willy-nilly. Instead of having a bunch of little things that bring in a little bit of money each, try to find a few larger offerings that bring in a moderate to large income each. For every product idea you have, consider whether it will help you meet your career and life goals. Will adding teaching university courses or public speaking to your arsenal boost your income enough to be worth the time you spend training in those areas? Or will they just add to your psychic load without giving you much in terms of income or happiness? [lf]

If you liked that post, you might also like:

• What would you like to see on this blog?
• New Renegade E-Courses Start Next Month
• We Ask, YOU Answer: Should I list copywriting creds in a query?
• Travel Writing Workshop starting July 14
• Can You Make Money Writing for a Source? Here’s How to Find Out