As authors, we can create a business online by bringing in multiple streams of income, powered by content marketing.
Here's just a basic list – then we'll go into these in more detail (click on the red title for each item below for more detail).
- Product sales – Digital e.g. books, online courses. Physical e.g. t-shirts, journals, mugs and other merchandise
- Service sales – consulting, coaching, professional speaking, freelance writing, copywriting
- Advertising or sponsorship – this can be based on traffic e.g. YouTube videos or by niche e.g. a pet food company sponsoring a pet based blog. This can also include fan sponsorship through Patreon
- Affiliate income – ethically selling other people's products or services and taking a percentage of the sale
What is content marketing?
In order to run a business, you need customers to spend money on products or services, which puts money in your pocket and provides value in return.
But how do you get customers to come to you?
With books, the customers are already shopping on the retail stores like Amazon, Kobo and iBooks, so you just have to maximize your chances of being found. If you can write lots of books, that IS your content marketing strategy. Your books are the content that drives people to your other books. But if you're not writing a high volume of books and you want to expand into multiple streams of income, then you have to find some other way to attract customers.
There are many online businesses that power their customer acquisition primarily through paid advertising. I do use some paid ads but mostly, my business is powered by content marketing.
This is the idea of the author platform: it's basically a way for you to be able to contact customers, whether by email list, a blog, podcast or subscribers on social media.
[Note: If you need to build your own author website, check out my free video tutorial on how to build your own site in under 30 minutes.]
Content marketing is essentially creating quality content that is entertaining, inspirational or educational in order to attract a certain target market.
This can be through written articles or blog posts, podcasts, audio, video or images, all of which can utilize your writing skills in various ways.
Remember: There does need to be a point to your content if you want to make money!
The aim is that people are attracted to your content and join your email list, subscribe or Follow or Like you or end up buying your books/products/services. It's called the freemium model – you give away quality content for free and people start to know, like and trust you and then eventually they may buy your products or services.
If you have a website, open it up and look at it as if you had arrived for the first time.
- Is there a way to subscribe to your email list?
- Is there a clear enticement to do so, using something of value that the customer actually wants?
- Is there a Shop or a Books link or a Store or a Buy button?
- What do you want the customer to do next?
A secondary benefit of an online platform is to build your authority and brand online, which provides other opportunities such as speaking, podcast interviews and being considered a thought leader in your industry.
This site, TheCreativePenn.com, is content marketing aimed at authors and writers. It has:
- Podcast audio interviews with transcripts
These are on specific topics relevant to authors, usually educational and inspirational, and provide a lot of value for free. The headlines have been optimized for keywords, making it clear what the content is about.
I started the blog in December 2008 and the podcast in March 2009 and I've been consistent in providing education and inspiration every 2-3 days since then. It’s the engine that drives my business and without it, there's no way I could have left my job in 2011 and now be running a multi-six-figure company.
I have something smaller for my fiction site at JFPenn.com, where I write articles and make videos about my research process and also interview other thriller authors. The aim is to connect with other authors but also to provide insight and interesting content for my readers. I’ve also started www.SupernaturalThrillers.com as a way to build a reader audience around the sub-genre I write in.
It's not all about the money. It can change your life!
A blog, podcast or YouTube channel these days is more like a global publishing platform. It's your way to directly connect with people who love what you do and are interested in your take on the world. This might also be an Instagram account, a Facebook page or any way you have to reach people.
But let's focus on writing since we're writers!
Blogging empowers you because it gives you a way to amplify your voice, to create something new in the world, to change people's lives, to connect with other people and to potentially earn a living.
I absolutely credit my blog at TheCreativePenn.com with changing my life.
It enabled me to develop my writing voice – from the corporate form of expression and business writing with no personal touch, to a much more relaxed and open style of communicating through text, video and audio.
My content attracted people who were interested in self-publishing even before the movement became mainstream, and I found a community of new friends who have been important on my journey. These friendships enabled me to branch out into fiction, and have directly led to me getting an agent as well as hitting the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists.
These intangible benefits naturally happen as part of sharing value about your niche online.
Blogging helped me to develop my position as a thought leader in the independent author space. Podcasting brought another dimension as I was able to add other people's voices to the mix.
Content is the engine that can drive people to your website.
For even more tips on content marketing for authors, read this article.
This is an excerpt from How to Make a Living with your Writing, out now in ebook, print and audiobook editions.