The writing world might be coming around to the whole Lean Startup thing.
Whether it's writing, writing for comedy, programming, etc.
That's partly why people who have merely dabbled in programming over a long period of time will have a very hard time catching up to somebody that has truly immersed themselves.
I'll hire a passionate aspirant with a cool portfolio spanning only two years over a 20 year professional with zero side projects in most cases. (Save for when expertise cannot be expected to be "picked up" in a reasonable amount of time.) The word portfolio here is key.
The first version of the Lean Publishing manifesto, which addresses this exact point, is here: https://leanpub.com/manifesto
Disclosure: I'm the cofounder of Leanpub, and our entire startup is a bet on this being true.