By: Shaunta Grimes
Validation can mean a couple of things to writers.
It can mean that something has happened to validate the audacity of even calling yourself a writer in the first place. Someone really enjoying your work. Someone paying you for it. Someone publishing it.
That’s why even a tiny bit of pay can feel incredible. If someone was willing to pay you anything at all for your work, it means that they liked it. They really like it.
And maybe you aren’t wasting your time. Maybe there’s some hope for you.
It feels fantastic.
And then there’s the idea of validating an idea.
When you validate an idea, it isn’t about you as a writer. It’s about figuring out whether or not the project you’re thinking about is something that anyone, at all, wants to read.
Some things don’t need much validation. They don’t take too long to write and it’s worth just doing the work and seeing what happens. Blog posts come to mind. Social media posts.
But there are things that will take you weeks, months, or even years to finish. Maybe you’re writing a book. Or you have an idea for a course or some service you’d like to offer. Or you want to start a whole blog for a specific niche.
Before you invest in something that will eat up so many of your resources (meaning your time, energy, and money), then you might want to take the time to validate the idea with potential readers.