OLD POST ALERT! This is an older post and although you might find some useful tips, any technical or publishing information is likely to be out of date. Please click on Start Here on the menu bar above to find links to my most useful articles, videos and podcast. Thanks and happy writing! – Joanna Penn
There's also been a rash of super blog posts, and in this article, I want to round a few things up and add my perspective to the mix.
On the end of the gold rush and the year of the quitter
Kris Rusch has restarted her excellent Business Rusch posts, so immediately go and read them and subscribe. In her musings on what indie authors learned in 2014, Kris names 2014 as the ‘year of the quitter,' when many authors discovered that writing is hard, publishing is hard and making a living with your writing is hard. Achieving real success is also difficult, the gold rush has ended and that there is definitely a mid-list indie.
My take on this is to nod my head in agreement.
I never thought writing was easy, and after 6 years of blogging and creating online, and 3 years of doing this full-time, I know that success is hard. I still haven't met my initial goal of matching my income from the day job. But then I was 13 years as a business consultant, and the first 5 years of any new business aren't exactly boom years!
I've never seen a gold rush on my own books, and I know most of you won't have either. It's certainly more common with romance writers, or those few who made the 99c jump before others. There will always be those who hit the zeitgeist, but you can't count on a lightning bolt or lottery win.
I self-published my first book in early 2008 – pre Kindle, pre mainstream print on demand. I've self-published fiction and non-fiction and I've seen a trickle of income that has slowly ticked up to an average $1500 – $2000 a month. My highest income month has been around $3500 from book sales. I think that makes me a mid-list indie and I'm pretty darn happy with that after only 6 years in the business. Many authors have been writing for many more years and make a lot less than that.
I'm grateful for every day I don't have to work in a cubicle [cue happy dance!]
All I have done since 2008 is write, put my work out there and build a business online by attempting to offer education, inspiration and entertainment consistently over time. It's what I intend to keep doing, because I love it!
Change is the only constant and all that. Luckily, I am a change junkie and surfing the stormy seas is fun for me. If it's not fun for you, then try traditional publishing, or stick to writing for fun. Otherwise, time to adapt.
Things will continue to change in 2015, there will be bumps and bruises, but some things never change for creative entrepreneurs. Here are some principles that will help you survive, whatever the conditions of the market.
(1) Write what you love for people who love to read that type of thing
My books are filled with supernatural power, international locations, explosions and high body count. They are based on my own travels and in-depth research.
My fiction is about good vs evil – that's the theme that obsesses me. So I will continue to write what I love to read, and the fact that it doesn't sell as well as romance or sci-fi or fantasy isn't the point.
Russell Blake had a post on the new landscape of books where he talked about the cheaper price phase being over.
That means you need to up your game, that suddenly story and craft will matter more, and that simply being cheap, with a homemade cover and lackadaisical or no editing, won’t cut it.”
Again, this is not news. It's what many of us have always said and always practiced, eschewing the fast money for the long term quality product that will sell over time and make customers happy.
Blake also says, in his 2015 predictions:
“The importance of brand will increase … Authors who want to have careers doing something besides chasing the next fad will have to develop a brand in their readers’ minds that’s worth paying for.”
That's my aim. Grow a list of readers who love the books I love and want to read more books in a similar vein. When I find an author I love, I don't really care how much the book costs (within reason). I just pre-order immediately a new book is announced. That's what I want readers to do with my books. That's what you need to do as well.
You will get what you focus on.
If you focus on writing, improving your craft, on learning more about the best practices in the industry, in building relationships, on positive enthusiasm and helping others along the road, you will build a career as an author slowly but surely, and for the long term.
For anyone concerned about income, this is for you.
Along with many others in 2008, I was laid off from my day job. 400 of us in my department were handed a piece of paper saying goodbye, two weeks pay and that was that.
I swore then that never again would I be dependent on ONE stream of income.
As much as I love Amazon, if sales on one platform is your only stream of income, be concerned. If you have a day job, by all means, stick with one distributor. But if this is your business, being dependent on one retailer means things will eventually get difficult.
But I take this even further for 2015.
If selling ebooks in the US is your only stream of income, be worried.
It makes me crazy when I read blog posts, tweets and comments that focus only on the US market.
Sure, it's the most mature digital market but there is a HUGE world out there that has barely discovered digital. The rest of the world is the next big growth industry for ebooks.
Stop being so short-sighted. Think 5 years ahead. 10 years ahead.
I was talking to someone recently about how many African nations have skipped desktop computers and have gone straight to mobile. The cellphone business is booming in some of the fastest growing economies in the world. Do you want to bet that these people read on their cellphones? I saw the same thing in India. People want to learn, they want to be inspired and entertained. They want to read.
On a more personal level, I spoke in Stockholm in September. They haven't even got Amazon yet, let alone
KDP or other ways to publish. The Swedish authors and book reading audience are raring to go!
A few weeks ago, I spoke in Auckland, New Zealand at the first cross-genre indie author event. The blog posts and tweets afterwards expressed excitement at finally finding a like-minded community in a country that still has $35 print book prices and a restricted literary culture.
I also gave my 9 year old nephew (also in NZ) some money for Christmas books. He said to me, “I love reading print, Auntie Jo, but I can get four times as many ebooks for the price of one print book so I will buy them on the tablet instead.” He also uses an iPad for school.
Yes, NZ is a small market but it's used as a test market for a lot of new technology for the English speaking world so it's worth watching.
My book royalty income 18 months ago was mainly concentrated on sales from the US, UK, Australia and Canadian stores. Now, my books sell in 62 countries and my income streams from smaller markets grow every month.
I am SO super-excited about the growth in the global market. I hope you can be too.
Create multiple streams of income from your books
I've gone into this model before, but read this post if you need a refresher. Your income streams can be:
- Print – print on demand through Createspace or IngramSpark
- Ebook – by distributor e.g. Amazon, iBooks, Kobo, NOOK, Google Play, Smashwords/Draft2Digital for subscription models and smaller vendors
- Audiobook – ACX.com for US and UK authors. Other options for authors in other countries – see Making Tracks by J Daniel Sawyer and Audiobooks for Indies by Simon Whistler
Multiple these formats by language if you are getting into translations. I have German, Spanish and Italian and the moment, for print and ebook, with my first German audiobook coming in 2015, along with Portuguese and more in Spanish and Italian. More on translation here.
Think wider. How can you create more income streams from your books?
I've recently read and highly recommend Tony Robbins' new book, Money: Master the Game. In it, Tony discusses the All-Season investing approach which anticipates the various market changes that inevitably occur in economic cycles. The idea to to have your investments in different quadrants so you can weather any type of market. The same approach can apply to our creative businesses.
My business card and email signature say: Author Entrepreneur. I do not make a full-time income from books. It could be a full-time income if I lived somewhere else, but I live in central London! You can see my last income analysis here if you're interested in the split.
In my experience, unless you are one of the very few making hard core cash from writing alone, you either need a ‘day job,' or you need to make income from other sources. I love writing books, but I don't want to lose the love by forcing myself into a crazy production process.
My muse loves research and travel and that adds to my creation time. I'm happy with that, but I don't want to go back to the day job, so while I write books at a reasonable clip, I also have other streams of income.
Multimedia courses, merchandise and affiliate income
Many non-fiction authors offer multi-media courses through sites like ClickBank or Udemy. The Self-Publishing Podcast guys are now doing this for Write, Publish, Repeat, as is J Thorn, with his Finishing a manuscript in 60 days course. I have been selling courses for the last 4 years but have recently moved away from them to focus on more evergreen products that don't need updating. I may revisit that decision at some point.
Lawyer and indie commentary blog, The Passive Voice, now has a good selection of pithy t-shirts as well. I've had a look at Zazzle before and have thought about a ‘creative' range – this is something I am certainly considering but the quality needs to be good. [I'd love to hear about other merchandising examples or service providers that you think are good for authors. Please do leave a comment below.]
If you have a content-rich website with decent traffic, you can make an income stream through affiliate links, which is a commission payment on sales. I have a small income stream from this method, but I am scrupulous about only recommending things I both use and am happy to recommend.
Currently, I
Professional speaking and audiobook narration
One of my other primary income streams is professional speaking, which also feeds my travel junkie soul. I've written extensively about this in my book, Public Speaking for Authors, Creatives and Other Introverts, if you want to look into that as an option.
In 2015, I will be adding another income stream from audiobook narration. I've been podcasting for 5 years now and after narrating my own non-fiction books, I'll be opening up for royalty share deals with other authors with decent platforms. Audiobook income has been a revelation for me in 2014, and I believe this is a growth market so I want to be involved. I also LOVE the royalty split deals as it means ongoing revenue for the long term, which is what we all want.
There are many other creative ways to make money from your skills, from your books and your knowledge. But in the end, it all comes down to creativity. I love all these other ways to make a living but I'm an author first, so I want to …
(3) Write something magnificent
This quote from Penelope Trunk caught my eye in a post about workplace revolution.
“I want to be writing the ideas people read late at night, with a glass of wine, to dull the searing impact of the life they’ve already chosen.”
Personally, I write for those people who are still stuck in the cubicle jobs that I once was. For those people who cry with frustration and unhappiness as I used to. For those who spend their commute plotting escape and their lunch hours reading escapist fiction to get out of their heads for an hour or two.
Yes, I want to make a good living but I don't want to write books that are a waste of my time and yours. I want you to wake up thinking about something I have written.
I want to keep you up all night.
I want you to remember me when I die.
I hope we can all do this in 2015! Happy writing and all the best for your creative business this year.
Please do join the conversation and let me know what you think about all this in the comments below.
Images: Flickr Creative Commons uphill climb by James Jordan, reader by Pedro Simoes, create by Jacob White
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1 2 3 … 5 Next »As one of the excited Auckland event attendees it's comforting to hear that NZ is a market to watch!
I began writing in 2013, and in some ways it's fantastic to be entering a matur(ing) market. We have you guys' experience to draw on, there is so much information available, and we know that if we're not in it for the long haul, there's no point in doing this at all.
But like many have said, the only thing we can be sure of is change.
Which is AWESOME cause we have a chance to be even more creative. I have a part time day job, but I'm definitely thinking merchandise (I write for children, and I've been looking into Zazzle as well), I'm having a web game developed, definitely doing audio books, thinking of soft toys and jewellery... The list goes on. I'm having fun with my stories, and I think that's the best way of going about it.
On a side note, I have 3 criteria written on my wall for judging my writing: is it true to myself? Does it empower? Am I proud of it? My overarching goal is a body of work I am proud of.
Fantastic Zee! and yes, NZ is a great emerging market - I was stunned by how far the book market has to go which means you guys have the first mover advantage :)
Those criteria for writing are great - everytime I think about writing something that is not epic, I release that to the wind!
I agree with all of this just about 100%. I've written since I was aged 9 because I had to, I was compelled to not because I was driven to make money from it. Of course, like everyone, I dream wistfully of being able to give up the day job and be self-supporting - who doesn't? - but that's the long haul if it ever happens. And you're right Indie Publishing is hard but traditional publishing can be next to impossible and its a way of building your voice, really finding out work works and developing.
It took me 3 years of being determined to get out of the day job in order to make it out - and I love every day of this life :) You just have to decide what direction you really want to go in. All the best with your writing in 2015.
Three years staff that then. Although I've just published my second novel after a gap of two years, the first was the :-)how-to-get-this-out-of-my-system book where I tested the water. Now comes the real test... ;-)
In 2015 it's clear that there will be yet more significant challenges to 'making it' in this career, but I cant help but be super inspired, enthusiastic and positive, reading your posts. :) thank you for all you do!
Thanks Meg - I like to represent the positive, happy end of the indie spectrum :) My glass is ever 3/4 full!
Thank you so very much for your excellent content.
Thanks for another great and inspiring post! I agree with everything except that traditional publishing is a good place to go if you don't like change. I've done both tradition and indie pub and neither one is insulated from change, at least not at all but the highest levels.
I think you'd be great as an audiobook narrator. I was listening to one of my son's video games and the narrator there sounded so much like you that I looked up in total surprise. You didn't do some of the character voices for Shadows of Mordor, did you? :)
Thanks Becky - and no, I didn't do any character voices for games, but maybe that's something else to consider :)
You're probably right about trad pub, but it seems that some authors are insulated from dealing with publishing and money aspects - if they want to be. You were clearly always an indie at heart :)
Great inspirational post Jo. This post (and others) have really got me thinking . . . I feel you're so right in the prediction of what lies ahead, diversification and ensuring multiple income streams surely is the key.
I have always suffered from starting too many projects and not being able to get on top of them, (my achilles heel as a creative person!) So, for 2015 it's going to be homing in on the one or two important things that i haven't quite hit in 2014. This DOESN'T mean starting again -wiping what's been done -going off down a completely different road . . .(as i hear so many people saying at this time of year).
I have a day job but also a part time print and graphics business, and I have just not tapped into this enough in respect of what I might be able to do for other authors . . . got to get that one sorted!
On the subject of merchandise, Zazzle are good - not the cheapest but they do offer lots of promos once you've used them a couple of times. As a print/media middleman with trade accounts all over the UK the one I would recommend for anyone doing it themselves is Clothes2Order: their range is extensive, their user interface is clear and the quality is very good. - I have designed, ordered and had printed various garments from them and all have been good and they beat their on site delivery deadline every time - worth a look for anyone thinking of going down that road.
Now, off to read your recommended posts from some of the links in this blog.
Thanks Tom - and I'm glad you agree on diversification - within reason of course! We mustn't go completely all over the place, but setting up multiple streams for the long term is a good idea. I'm sure many people in my audience would be interested in the print and graphics business - many authors want to outsource print interior design for example.
Thanks also for the recommendations for merchandise - I'll check those out.
I made a brief foray into T-shirts with Spreadshirt, based in Germany. Quality was good, but getting the price down enough to make any profit was tricky.
German quality is usually good :) but I hear you on the profitability. One of the reasons I haven't gone there at the moment!
Great advice! I've been following you, Johnny, Sean, and Dave for a while now and look forward to the times when I can watch your videos without interruption. Maybe I've missed something (and the odds are good that I have), but have any of you done something on marketing to other countries? I do fairly well in the US and UK, but only sell a handful in a few other countries. And I have no clue how to market to them. Any advice would be appreciated.
Also, I was under the impression that AXE wasn't really a viable income option anymore. I've read blogs where the writers say they never make their investment back if they pay out of pocket, and few narrators want the 7 years of splitting profits for the same reason.
Hi Kristy,
In terms of global marketing - all online marketing can be considered global. The visitors to this site and my podcast, as well as Fb and twitter etc are from all over the world - over 50 different countries to this site alone. This is why it's important to think global and have your books available everywhere. It drives readers nuts if you haven't distributed to their country when you launch.
On ACX, I do royalty split deals and very happily share 50% of the royalty with a narrator - with no money upfront. Considering this was only introduced in April 2014 for UK authors and a year prior for US authors, I find it hard to believe that it has already been dismissed by some people. Perhaps they are the "get rich quick" type, for writing & audiobooks etc is not a fast income stream business model - but it sure as hell is a good one longterm and I believe audiobooks are only just beginning.
Oh I distribute everywhere, probably even to non-English speaking countries. I don't know where they all live but I've heard from readers in Ireland, Africa, and Australia, which is very cool.
I guess I didn't realize that ACX was that new, so you're probably right that expecting too much too soon was the motivation behind the blogs I've read. I'll have to get serious about looking into that. Thanks. :)
I just made an offer (and had it accepted) to a narrator on ACX yesterday with a royalty split. My perfectionist husband thought the narrator's sample was great. My book is part memoir and I found a narrator that is a Catholic homeschool mom like me, so she really "gets" the book. So far the process has been so easy. And with NO cost, you really can't lose. The only thing I don't like is the exclusivity with Audible for 7 years. :( But I figure I can try it with my first book and can always distribute more widely with book #2.
I'm also thinking about diversifying in other ways--merchandise and video courses,--so I'm going to look at Joanna's links now. Thanks for all your great articles!
Fantastic - and all the best with the audiobooks. It is exclusive to ACX but the distribution is to Audible AND iTunes so that's something :)
I have a friend in Sweden who is more culturally fluent in English than most English people and I help her with the other English (US) when she flips between the two. Most of her friends speak/read English too and they're constantly gnashing teeth at how difficult and expensive it is to get quality reading. A lot of the international restrictions mean they can't access the usual ebooks and the international postage is a killer.
There is a market there for the taking! (and a marketplace to build, devs)
Indeed, the Swedish authors I met were super excited about the potential of going indie and the rise of ebooks. A lot of Scandinavians also have the English fluency thing going for them, so I suggested they publish in English by doing the initial translation themselves and then hiring an English editor to make it more professional - exciting times!
I want you to remember me when I die.
That.
Books are our children. They enable us to live on. A lucky few become immortal because of the words they have written. We can but aspire.
Completely agree with your post, and your views on what provoked it – the all-pervading sense of gloom. I've been more involved than most in trying to get to grips with all the VAT stuff, and it's reminded me why I'm a creative, not an accountant! As creative entrepreneurs, we do need to understand and be in control of our financial lives, but stay away from some of the whirlpools that can suck us down into despair.
Happy new year, Joanna.
Thanks for what you've been doing on the VAT stuff, Henry - but I agree with avoiding the stuff that makes us frown too much, and that makes me frown!
Here's to immortality :)
Great post, Joanna. I also read with interest the Kathryn Rusch and Russell Blake posts, and combined with your own over the last couple of months I see three major truths in publishing (Indie especially):
1. To the extent there were easy money gimmicks, they're done.
2. In the absence of hype, quality will out.
3. As you and Dean Wesley Smith have been saying, the key is (a) production and (b) multiple streams of income
Best wishes for 2015 - I'm looking forward to following your journey.
Thanks Michael - and I have never found the easy money :)
Yep - "Easy Money" was the realm of the few, the previously-well-know, and the lucky.
My word for 2015 is "wonderment." I want to bring wonderment into my life as I write and wonderment into my readers' lives as they read. I have spent too much time in the past worrying about marketing. This year the writing comes first and we'll see what follows.
I'm really surprised you didn't reference the EU VAT changes that took place on Jan 1 Joanna. While I think most writers would agree with you in principle about marketing outside of the US this move may end up causes writers to become even more single minded. It's not even so much the tax as it is the enormous hassle involved. Some are pulling back from selling in any EU country, others are choosing to take a stand of "Come and get me sucker!" defiance. Should be interesting to see how it goes, but I wouldn't expect many US writers to invest a lot of time or resources marketing in Europe until the dust settles on this issue. Personally, I'm turning my focus to Canada. :-)
The law only applies to direct sales - so if you're selling via a merchandiser that handles the VAT for you, you're OK e.g. through Amazon, iBooks etc
I did cover this on a post in Dec.