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 several years of blogging and creating online, and several years of doing this full-time, I know that success is hard.
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 to build a business.
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 what began as a trickle of income that has steadily ticked up. I think that makes me a mid-list indie and I'm pretty darn happy with 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 always continue to change, 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.
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 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 2014. 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!
Also in 2014, 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 initially was mainly concentrated on sales from the US, UK, Australia and Canadian stores. Now, my books sell in 83 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.
Multiple these formats by language if you are getting into translations. Learn more about your intellectual property rights, including translations to other languages, from this podcast with Dean Wesley Smith.
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 a recent 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 too have created courses on How to Write a Novel, and on the business of being an author-entrepreneur, Creative Freedom.
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.
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.
There is a technical barrier to entry with this, but if you fancy giving it a go, you can learn more here. You can also listen to an interview with J. Daniel Sawyer on this topic.
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!
Images: Flickr Creative Commons uphill climb by James Jordan, reader by Pedro Simoes, create by Jacob White