From Writer for Hire to Authorpreneur: Owning My Voice Through Books
By Alexander Wee Gonzales
August 14, 2025
The public may know me first as a Forex trader and a financial markets educator, but I was a writer long before I charted my first market. My journey as an author formally began in June 2024 with the debut of my first book — The Art of Forex.
If my path into the financial markets began in 2012 with stock trading, and into Forex in 2015, then my first taste of professional writing started in 2009 — somewhere in the middle of my first year in college. Unlike most writers who began out of passion or self-expression, I began simply because I needed money.
Pre-Writer Years
At the time, I was hunting for part-time work that could give me a steady flow of cash. Lucky for me, freelance writing was starting to boom in the Philippines. It was the perfect setup — remote, output-based rather than time-based, and paid well enough for a college student like me.
Now before I started freelancing, writing was already a hobby. I wrote blogs, short stories, and reflections, and had often been told by my literature professors in school that I had a talent for it — perhaps even enough to make a career one day. I figured this was my chance to turn my talent into profit.
After a few weeks of applying, I got my first client. For several months, I enjoyed a steady flow of work and a reliable income — until one day, the projects stopped coming. When I asked if there was more work, the client told me, “I suggest you brush up on your grammar first and reapply when you’re confident you can write better.”
My early days as a writer when I was still in college
I took that comment to heart — and I’ll admit, it stung my confidence. For someone who had always believed in their writing, it was almost enough to make me question if this path was for me or not. But I needed the money, so I wasn’t about to stop. I didn’t “pause to improve” as advised — I simply kept looking for clients, taking on projects, and writing. When work from one client dried up, I learned to let go and move on to the next.
Upscaling In My Craft
Over time, through hundreds of projects, my writing got better and better. Because of the many clients I handled, I could pretty much write anything. From blogs, news articles, reviews, to even eBooks. As long as you handed me a writing project, you could trust me to give you high quality work. I also developed a skill that gave me an edge over a number of writers in the industry-- speed.
Not only could I write well, but I could also write fast. This was a crucial trait to have especially when deadlines were tight and competition was fierce. For my whole college life, I was a freelance writer. Aside from studying and attending classes, I'd write articles during breaks and dismissal so I'd have more money. Writing became somewhat like a lifestyle to me.
Cafes as a staple working place for freelance writers
In fact, every internship I landed had writing at its core. My freelance experience gave me an edge, allowing me to secure spots in well-known companies. It was in these companies that I expanded my craft beyond just online content writing into more PR-related work such as hard news columns, press releases, and other communication pieces that demanded a high level of precision and skill.
Even after graduation, writing remained central to my career. My first corporate role was as a scriptwriter for an animated video production company. From there, I moved through several digital marketing firms as a content writer, eventually working my way up to project manager and content manager.
There was even a period when I returned to full-time freelance writing so I could have the flexibility to focus on my Forex trading career. Yet, writing remained at the core of nearly everything I did.
Career Shift and Focus
I did step away from writing for several years when I co-founded the Forex trading school, The 30-Minute Trader, with my partners Job Zamora and Ots Jimenez. My focus shifted entirely to trading, coaching, product development, and business management. For four straight years, I didn’t take a single writing gig — and eventually, I began to think I had outgrown writing altogether.
But I guess there are some things you just don't outgrow. You see, the Forex education industry in the Philippines was a very young one when I entered— you could even say barely out of its diapers.
With youth comes growing pains — and in our case, the biggest problems in the industry were hype-driven gurus and outright scammers selling unrealistic dreams while quietly delivering disappointment. I made it my mission to bring as many people as possible into our academy, not to sell them illusions, but to teach them a grounded, logical, and self-aware approach to trading. This was my way of ensuring that the general public did not have a negative view of our industry.
Coaching became my main medium of reaching out to aspiring traders
Yet I noticed a gap. We were reaching collaborative learners who thrived in our community model — but we weren’t serving those who preferred to learn in solitude, by reading and reflecting without external pressure. Some people don’t seek a classroom or a group; they seek the quiet discipline of a book in hand, digesting each idea in their own time. And because I had spent years as a freelance writer, crafting content that people could learn from on their own, I knew a book would be the most natural and effective way to reach them. That’s when I picked up the pen again — this time, not for profit, but for purpose.
Return To Writing and Beginning of Authorpreneurship
It was in June 2024 when I first began shaping The Art of Forex. My aim wasn’t merely to create something that would sell. I had ambitions far beyond profit or legacy.
The drive behind the book wasn’t a neat, measurable goal — it was an itch. A restless, almost uncomfortable energy that demanded release. Most artists know this feeling well. Whether you paint, write, sculpt, or compose, there’s always that burn — that needs to bring a message to life and hurl it into the world. How the world receives it is irrelevant. What matters is that the message is born, given form, and set free.
The itch that I’m talking about is truth — the truth about what Forex trading is really about, how one can truly succeed, and whether all the glam and glitz is just smoke and mirrors. And I wasn’t alone in feeling it. The more I observed the industry, the more I saw that same restlessness in the public — a growing frustration with empty promises and emotional selling. My personal drive to write aligned perfectly with what people were secretly craving: a clear, honest account of the reality behind the trade.
So the drive was there, the main idea was conceptualized, the next part was the execution. At that time I had a hard time creating my first sentence since I haven't written any professional pieces in years. But I pushed myself to write the first few words of my book anyway. Words slowly became sentences and sentences eventually became paragraphs. In time, the Art of Forex was born and made to life.
The Reception
I will admit that I was really nervous when I started marketing my new book. What if no one buys? What if the people that do buy don't like the book? What if I'm stuck with hundred pieces of inventory that I can't get rid of? Surely these are some of the biggest questions that would go through the minds of most self-published authorpreneurs like myself.
After all, solo authorpreneuers don't have the backing of traditional publishers. The only thing they have is their skills and their business acumen. They literally need to start from zero-- which is exactly what I did. As a solo authorpreneur, the only thing I could do was to bet on myself when there was no one else who would.
So all the worries and doubts that I had about whether my book would succeed or flop was valid.
But my gamble paid off as The Art of Forex sold steadily and won the trust of its readers. Their feedback fueled The Art of Forex Volume 2 and its companion eBook The 8 Hidden Enemies of Forex Traders. By the time Volume 2 launched, we had already passed 1,000 copies sold of Volume 1 — a milestone that confirmed something important: there was a real audience hungry for the truth I was sharing.
The Art of Forex Volumes 1 and 2
My Future Projects
Although I have reached a very heartwarming milestone, my journey as an authorpreneur doesn't end there. In fact, these two books are just a warmup. I've already completed a draft of the book outline of The Art of Forex Volume 3 which delves deep into the science of Sentiment Analysis, one of my favorite trading topics.
But I’ve decided to push this project a little further into the future. While Volume 3 is close to my heart, I believe timing is everything — and right now, the conversations I’m having, the people I’m meeting, and the business structures I’m building are all pointing me toward a different book that needs to be written now. It’s a project outside my comfort zone but deeply connected to another passion of mine: entrepreneurship.
That said, my next book will be about startup entrepreneurship. It will explore how to structure startups so they can scale without exhausting their founders — turning fragile ideas into sustainable, self-sufficient companies. If you’re a founder who wants to build something that lasts, this project is for you.
For me, this isn’t just about books. It’s about building a body of work that changes how people think — about trading, about business, about the structures that hold both together.
My Message to Aspiring Authorpreneurs
If my story proves anything, it’s that authorpreneurship is never an overnight leap. If anything, it’s a long climb built on years of honing your craft when no one is watching. My own path began in cramped college corners, freelancing between classes, taking any writing job I could find, and learning to deliver quality under pressure. Those years taught me speed, precision, and the discipline to keep creating even when the work was thankless.
So when I returned to writing after years in trading and business, I carried that same grit into my first book — not because the path was certain, but because there was a truth that needed to be told, and I knew a book was the best vessel for it.
Celebrating The Art of Forex's 1000 copies sold milestone
If you want to enter this field, start there — with a message that matters enough to push through doubt and the courage to stake your name on every word that you put out there for the world to see. The money, the trust, the recognition— they come later. But none of them exist without that first, unshakable decision to create a message so strong that it pushes you to make it come to life.
