The Creative Penn

Writing, self-publishing, book marketing, making a living with your writing

Writing Discipline And Mindset For Authors With James Scott Bell

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Writing Discipline & Mindset JS BellIn this wide-ranging interview, James Scott Bell and I discuss aspects of making a living with your writing, including discipline and writing tips, plus mindset and how art and commerce can play happily together!

 
 
kindle midlistIn the intro, I mention the demise of Oyster's subscription service but why I'm excited that there might be something happening at Google. Plus the latest longitudinal Author Earnings report that shows that if an author debuted in the last 5 years, they are making more money as an indie than through traditional publishing. This doesn't surprise me at all, but it's fascinating to see it in the data.

Thank you also to everyone supporting the show on Patreon!

We have reached the first big milestone which means I'll be doing private Patreon-supporter only monthly Q&A shows. Patrons will be able to ask questions and these extra audios will go out ONLY on the Patreon feed, so if you'd like to join in, you can support the show here.

99designs-logo-750x200pxThe corporate sponsorship for this show pays for hosting and transcription. This podcast episode is sponsored by 99 Designs, where you can get all kinds of designs for your author business including book covers, merchandising, branding and business cards, illustrations and artwork and much more. You can get a Powerpack upgrade which gives your project more chance of getting noticed by going to: 99Designs.com/joanna

James Scott BellJames Scott Bell is is the best-selling and award-winning author of thriller novels, zombie legals, historical romance, and lots and lots of excellent books on the craft of writing. He’s a professional speaker, teaching novel-writing and other skills for writers.

You can listen above or on iTunes or Stitcher, watch the video or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and full transcript below.

Today we're talking about his book, How to make a living as a writer.

  • The audience of writers that James writes for and the influence of freelance writers on today's indie authors.
  • What James is interested in currently including boxed sets for his writing craft books and investing in the future by paying for exposure in alert newsletters.
  • Writing quotas and production plans and why this structure actually encourages creativity, as well as how to figure out what your production goal should be.
  • Combining study of the markets with what you love to write and merging those with a production schedule.
  • The strategies James uses to hold himself to his production schedule, including the ‘nifty 350'.
  • makealivingwritingWhy writing prolifically isn't enough to earn a living writing. Why studying the craft of storytelling matters and where raw talent falls into this mix.
  • The importance of the marriage between art and commerce for those writers who want to earn a living from their writing.
  • On the sense of joy readers experience when a writer is having fun.
  • The challenges of shifting from writing non-fiction to fiction and how non-fiction authors can use their strengths and apply those to writing fiction.
  • James' beginnings as a writer and letting go of the belief that unless you're born with the talent to write you can't do it.
  • The challenging feelings all writers face including whether they'll be able to do it again.
  • On the advantages for indie authors of not being locked into a contract and being able to test the market with new ideas and a variety of book lengths.
  • Why writers need to grow ‘rhino skin'.
  • On the options available for hybrid writers and when to leave emotions out of publishing choices.
  • Why writers should operate like a movie studio.

You can find James at JamesScottBell.com and on twitter @jamesscottbell. You can find How to Make a Living As A Writer here on Amazon.

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Don’t Go Exclusive. Build A Long Term Career As An Author On Multiple Platforms With Liliana Hart

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Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:03:47 — 51.3MB)

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If you want to build a long-term career as an author, you need to grow your readership on multiple platforms, with multiple quality products. Today, superstar indie author Liliana Hart shares her experiences and tips.

Long term career on multiple platforms Liliana Hart

[To clarify, this is a discussion between two authors with a lot of books who both make a full-time living writing. If you're a new author or have fewer than 3 books, here are the pros and cons of exclusivity. And here are my recommendations for a first time author. Both of these do suggest going KDP Select if you are just starting out.]

author earningsIn the intro, I talk about the latest Author Earnings report which shows that indie books now make up 42% of all Kindle books bought on Amazon. Many of those don't have ISBNs (including mine) so are not counted in the publishing industry reports showing a flat or declining digital market.

I also mention the article from a Huffington Post author this week urging self-published authors not to put out 4 books a year. This sparked a whole load of witty rebuttals, including this one from Larry Correia. I would add that, as independent creatives, we can do what we want, so listen to this interview with Liliana and then decide what your own definition of success is. Then go write 🙂

Plus, last call for the free webinar on Using Scrivener to write, organize and publish your books with Joseph Michael, the Scrivener Coach. Join us live on Thurs 24 Sept at 3pm US Eastern, 8pm London or you can also register to get the recording.

This podcast is sponsored by Kobo Writing Life, which helps authors self-publish and reach readers in global markets kobo writing lifethrough the Kobo eco-system. You can also subscribe to the Kobo Writing Life podcast for interviews with successful indie authors.

lilianahartLiliana Hart is a New York Times, USA Today and Publishers Weekly bestselling romantic suspense and mystery author of over 40 books.

She's also an entrepreneur, running the SilverHart author resources site as well as SWAT Academy and Camps for authors with her husband, former Chief of Police Scott Silverii.

  • Liliana's writing and publishing history, including loads of rejection and experiences of not being able to fit into a common marketing slot with traditional publishers.
  • The changes Liliana has seen each year in the indie publishing world, the lure of KU, and why thinking like a business is the best long-term strategy.
  • The advantages of iBooks, including pre-orders, giveaway codes and reviews, as well as comments on audiobooks on iTunes.
  • ACX and the disadvantages of royalty splitting.
  • dirtylittlesecretsForeign language translations and the global market.
  • The future in publishing and why it matters to pay attention to the business side of publishing, including contracts with translation companies, for example.
  • Liliana's writing resource site that provides information for those writers doing research about public safety professionals (police, fire fighters etc.).
  • Work-life balance and juggling a writing career with raising children.
  • Why obstacles will always exist and how those who are successful in business get around them.

You can find Liliana's books at all online stores and at LilianaHart.com. Her new site for writers is at SilverHartWriters.com

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Lessons Learned From 4 Years As An Author Entrepreneur

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Four years ago in Sept 2011, I gave up my job as a business consultant to become a full time author entrepreneur.

Joanna PennEvery year since, I have reflected on what I have learned along the way. To recap, here's the post when I gave up my job, here's lessons learned from year 1, year 2 and year 3.

Things have definitely changed since I started out!

In the last month, I have reported on the breakdown of my six figure income and I have hired my husband out of his corporate job to join me in the business.

Here's what I have learned in the last year.

Lesson 1: Understand and embrace Plato's Chariot

I have written before about the struggle of maintaining my two author brands and the two halves of my business. I have attempted to divest myself of some things in the last year. I even considered giving up the podcast (shock horror!) but recently, I think I have finally understood why I need both halves to be happy.

The lesson of Plato's chariot is that there is a dark horse and a white horse and both must run together, in parallel, in order that the chariot may run straight and true and win the race.

light and dark

J.F.Penn, my dark horse, writes stories.

She loves to get lost in a world of research and adventure and she is happiest alone, plugged into the sound of rain and thunderstorms, writing words that create books that readers can escape into. J.F.Penn is a chronic introvert, she does not play well with others. Her role model is Stephen King, beloved dark fiction author of millions of readers.

Joanna Penn, my white horse, is passionate about creative entrepreneurship and the empowerment of the creative.

She loves to teach people about how they can write, publish and reach readers as well as make a living with their writing. She loves to help writers realize their potential in this new world of digital opportunity. Her role model is Tony Robbins, self help speaker and changer of millions of lives.

Plato's chariot allegory is about the soul, but it works just as well for these aspects of personality. I need both of these to be whole. You mainly see Joanna here, happy and smiling but I also embrace what emerges when I let J.F.Penn run free on the page.

Now I understand I need both, I have begun to allow them equal space.

Can you apply this same idea of balance to your life?

For example, what about writing vs marketing? Or the artist vs the entrepreneur? Or your writing life vs ‘real life?'

Lesson 2: The indie movement is diverging from the traditional industry

signWhile I don't like the ‘us' and ‘them' dichotomy, I am increasingly feeling it as the indie movement matures.

It's almost as if we are living a parallel life, creating and selling in a shadow industry that is not even measured by the traditional industry statistics. We are also less bothered about what the other lot is up to, increasingly focused on our own separate business models.

I think that the term shadow industry as applied to self-publishing was first coined by Joe Konrath, but has also been picked up by Author Earnings to describe the 30% of ebook sales that do not have an ISBN.

However much some people may care about ISBNs, many indie authors don't use them anymore.

You don't need an ISBN to publish an ebook on Amazon, where the majority of indies make most of their money. You don't need one to publish direct on Kobo, iBooks, Nook or Draft2Digital either. You can get a free one from Smashwords. You can get a free one from Createspace to publish a print book, but ebooks are where the shadow industry really lies and these ISBN-less indie sales are not counted in any reports trumpeted by the publishing industry media.

Indies can just get on with writing books that readers want to buy, selling them through the distributors and making an income entirely ‘off the grid.'

More and more I see indie authors who are doing well just getting on with it under the radar. You don't know their names. You don't have to. They are not submitting to publishers or agents. They are reaching readers and making money on their own terms.

And I believe this will become the model for more and more creatives over time. I make a good living without a publisher, without a ‘job,' as do many others.

As Orna Ross writes in her brilliant manifesto for self-publishing,

“I do not ask anyone for permission to publish, or for a pat on the back, or for a contract that insults my skills and existing readership … I acknowledge that I am more nimble, and closer to the reader, than any other player in publishing. I understand this gives  me more power than any other individual publishing stakeholder (though only if I claim it) … I am proud of my self-publishing status.”

My plan for Author Entrepreneur Year 5

My plans and focus for the next year include:

  • Continuing to build my fiction body of work as J.F.Penn. I have more in the ARKANE series to come, as well as a spin-off series from that. I'm working on my first co-written novel and will hopefully do more of that as I am learning the importance of collaboration. I also have a ton of other ideas to work on. Now my process is more organized, I expect to put out 4 more novels in the next year.
  • Now I have my husband, Jonathan, working in the business, we are going through a process of streamlining and organizing TheCreativePenn.com site which is pretty huge after nearly 7 years of content in the form of text, audio and video. We're redoing email lists and will be changing the design as well as loads of other things. It's a big piece of work! I also have more non-fiction on the way and expect to do more collaborations with that too.
  • Creative Freedom Banner 350 x 175 AI'll also be doing more online courses. I still love speaking live but I can't reach a global audience that way. The Creative Freedom Course is my flagship product now, but I will be adding a whole load more online training courses in the coming months to answer all the questions I get daily in my email inbox.
    This indie movement will only continue to grow as it expands into the rest of the world, so I am preparing for massive growth in the coming years.

I look forward to sharing the next year with you!

Please do leave your comments below and join the conversation – I value each and every one!

 

Author Entrepreneur: Increase Your Revenue

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Author Entrepreneur- Increase Your RevenueThere's a learning curve for all indie authors, which I have covered before in the arc of the indie author.

But once you get the hang of the process – writing, editing, publishing, marketing – then you start to think about the business side.

If you want to make more profit, then increasing your revenue will be next on the list.

Derek Sivers sold his company CD Baby and now sells ebooks about starting a business in foreign markets at Woodegg.com. I read this interview with him and he talked about how to increase cash-flow in a business. It struck home as true for authors as well.

There are four basic ways to increase your revenue:

(1) Increase the number of customers you serve

There are a couple of ways to do this:

book browser on iphone

Book Browser function on iPhone Kindle app. All KU books shown.

a) Use KDP Select and go exclusive to Amazon in order to take advantage of the enhanced visibility on the platform that way. I noticed that the Kindle app on the iPhone changed recently to add a Book Browser function, which is entirely dominated by Kindle Unlimited. The emails I get from Amazon are also increasingly KU dominated. As a READER, I have tried KU and didn't like it – mainly because I like owning the books and don't want to borrow them – but clearly it is a very popular service. If you're a new author with only a couple of books, this is definitely the way to go, and many authors are exclusive with all their books. Here are the pros and cons of exclusivity.

b) Publish on multiple platforms and take advantage of a completely different audience who shop elsewhere. This is my preferred approach. Although Amazon’s KDP Select program offers benefits, it limits your sales to people who buy on that particular platform. Amazon may also dominate in the US and UK, but Kobo dominates in Canada, and iBooks dominates in many other global markets. In 2014, I published Pentecost and Desecration-Verletzung in German, kobo writing life map March 2015and in Germany there is a challenger to Kindle in the Tolino reader, which has 40% of the market so is not to be ignored when publishing. I've now sold books in 65 countries – the pic left is my sales from Kobo Writing Life. It makes me happy just looking at it!

c) Use marketing and building your platform to attract more customers. There are a LOT of different marketing avenues for authors. I suggest focusing on the one or two methods that you enjoy and make it sustainable for the long term. Whatever you do, make sure that building your email list is a key focus.

d) Publish in multiple formats and multiple languages. If you only publish in ebook format, you will only attract ebook readers. By using print on demand as well as audiobook formats as well, you will reach different customers. If you publish only in English, you will only reach those readers. Indie authors are now branching out into self-publishing in foreign languages or selling rights to those markets.

e) Expand your streams of income. You can increase the customers you serve by adding to your portfolio of services and products. For example, I serve a different customer base through public speaking and live events, and others use online video or audio courses to reach new customers.

(2) Increase the average size of the transaction by selling more

  • This can be done by having multiple books that customers might like within product lines. If a customer buys one book and enjoys it, they are likely to want more. This is why many authors write in a series, and why many Arkane Thriller Boxsetpublishers prefer books in a series, or within a similar brand.
  • If you have more books available, the customer may buy more. The power is in the backlist, which is why being an author is a long-term game. At the London Book Fair 2014, I talked to Barbara Freethy, who has over 35 books and, as I write this, is the bestselling KDP author of all time with over 4.5 million books sold. She mentioned that when someone new discovers her books, she sees an overall effect as they dive into her backlist.
  • Bundling is another way to do this. You can do ebook boxsets as a single author and charge more for a single transaction, which is also a great deal for the customer. For example, I sell ARKANE Books 1-3, Pentecost, Prophecy and Exodus, in a box-set for $5.99. If bought separately, they would cost $9.98, so it's a good deal for everyone. All you need to do is create a file with multiple books in, and get a cover designed that looks like a boxset, which you can get from Fiverr.

(3) Increase the frequency of transactions by customer

This can be done by releasing books and products more often, so that loyal customers return. It's also important to use an hm wardemail list to capture their information so that you can tell them when you have a new product available.

  • Some authors are doing this through serialization and novellas. H.M.Ward's Ferro series is a good example of this, currently with over 18 books in one particular series with many of them 20,000-30,000 word novellas.
  • Others are doing this through co-writing. For example, Jeremy Robinson's Jack Sigler Chess Team series has several co-authors writing in his world.

(4) Raise your prices

There are a couple of ways in which authors are doing this:

  • price comparisonCharge more for all books. When you're first starting out, you often need to lower the barrier to entry so that people will try your books with little risk. But as you become more established and more people are aware of your books, you might find that people are happy to pay more. For non-fiction in particular, if you can help people with a problem, they are more likely to pay more. Amazon KDP now has a pricing feature on the publishing page which will analyze books like yours and suggest a new price point. You have to be selling a decent number before it shows any data. As right, it suggests that my Business for Authors should be at $9.99, but I still keep it at $7.99 at the moment.
  • Make the first book available for free and then raise the price of others in the series. If you do the math right, you'll see that you can make more money this way than using a 99c entry price point.

Do any of these ideas resonate with you? How will you increase your revenue? Please leave a comment below.

Top image: Flickr Creative Commons piggybank by Images Money

Write Books You Love. Think Global. Consider Multiple Streams Of Income

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Write books you loveThere's been much teeth-gnashing in the indie community in the last month with lots of posts about quitting, about income dropping with Kindle Unlimited and the new EU Tax Law, about this or that changing.

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.

first book

Me with my first book in 2008, still in the pin-stripes! It's since been rewritten as Career Change

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

readerI don't do rainbows and kittens and happy endings.

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.

money(2) Think global. Think multiple streams of income.

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.

worldAs a UK resident who has lived in many countries around the world, and with family members from Hungary, New Zealand, Nigeria and Canada, I always have an international viewpoint on things.

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

auckland

Rangitoto Island from Kohi Beach, Auckland, New Zealand. From my Dec 2014 trip.

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.

KoboWritingLifeSalesAug2014

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

your rightsMultiply these formats by country. So I am selling in 62. How many are you selling in?

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.

money tony robbinsIf you only have one product (or one book) and one market (or one distributor), you won't be able to weather the changes will HAVE to occur, since status quo is never an option. I've always taken this approach to my business and will continue to diversify in 2015.

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.

t-shirtSome authors are also doing merchandise. My favorite example is comic creator and author, XKCD, since my husband has been a fan for years and has lots of his t-shirts. Hugh McLeod has a similar model at GapingVoid with Motivational Art for Smart People – brilliant branding!

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 Ad18-250x250recommend the Learn Scrivener Fast training, Joel Friedlander's Book Design Templates, Jim Kukral's Author Marketing Club and I use Amazon affiliate links for books. If you want to look at the affiliate method in detail, I recommend Pat Flynn's Smart Passive Income blog.

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.

audiobooks for indiesThere is a technical barrier to entry with this, but if you fancy giving it a go, Audiobooks for Indies by Simon Whistler is a must. You can also listen to the interview with him here on this topic, including the moment I decided to become a narrator!

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.

createOn my wall I have a sign that says, ‘Create a body of work I am proud of.‘

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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Most of the information on this site is free for you to read, watch or listen to, but The Creative Penn is also a business and my livelihood. So please expect hyperlinks to be affiliate links in many cases, when I receive a small percentage of sales if you wish to purchase. I only recommend tools, books and services that I either use or people I know personally. Integrity and authenticity continue to be of the highest importance to me. Read the privacy policy here. Read the Cookie policy here. I hope you find the site useful! Thanks - Joanna