Are you scared to put your side hustle on LinkedIn?

Do you have a side hustle? A passion project you do in addition to a day job? The kind of activity that, given a perfect set of circumstances you’d happily make your main vocation? 

Is it on LinkedIn? Why not?

Now, I admit, up until recently, my side hustle was not on LinkedIn either. In fact, when my current boss at the day job interviewed me two years ago this month, he actually brought up my author business. It was the first time anything like that had happened. It surprised me, but it also should have served as all the incentive I needed to update my LinkedIn profile.

Yet I didn’t. In fact, it was actually a conversation with a co-worker last week in combination with my inaugural advertising of my latest book—Have Yourself a Merry Christmas Murder—on LinkedIn that got me to rethink how I view my LinkedIn profile

A Side Hustle is Legit Experience

My co-worker used to run a cookie baking business. It was her creative outlet that soothed the other side of her brain that spent forty hours a week as a technical writer. Her baking and decorating cookies was her creative outlet. 

But her business wasn’t all sugar and flour and fondant. She had expenses, accounting software to deal with inventory and pricing, the physical act of selling the cookies, and the time to dream up new ideas. In short, she ran a small business.

And so do I. 

As an independent author, the fun part of the job is the creative process to come up with a story and write it. Yes, this part can be challenging, but isn’t that part of being creative? So after the book or story is done, then what? Well, I have to format it, package it, distribute it, and tell folks where to find it. 

It’s a small business. There are tools and resources to help get the work completed, but it’s still on me to make sure it all gets done. I manage everything, constantly learning new things and expanding my experience and my skills. It makes me a better author entrepreneur when I sell my books, but that experience can absolutely be channeled into my responsibilities at my day job to make me a better corporate marketing writer.

So why did I hesitate to put it on LinkedIn?

My co-worker said she thought the creative side of people was the thing you were supposed to keep “hush-hush.” Yet the creative side of folks is often the thing talked about at parties or in break rooms. It’s one thing if you, for example, sculpt with clay and adorn your home with your creations, but if you sell your wares, then you have zero excuse to update your LinkedIn profile.

So, if you have a side hustle, leave a comment and let me know what it is. And then go update your LinkedIn profile.