Independent authors know the truth of this concept. We no longer live in the cyclical publishing paradigm. Gone are the days of putting all our efforts into just one book for a short time. While it is true that new books will have the greatest success the first few months after publication, an author’s goal is to draw in as many readers as possible. To do this, we need books available to our readers. We can’t make a living producing only one book a year that sells well for three months. What we need are well-written books that are published in a timely manner to satisfy our readers and reach new ones who will then purchase the other books we’ve published in the past.
If you choose traditional publishing for your book, you still need the freedom to produce other books that will satisfy your readers and keep you (the brand) in the front of their minds. This is especially true for novelists. You may not be a fast writer, or you may only feel comfortable writing one novel a year, but you need the freedom to write other works on a more frequent basis. The ebook has returned the short story to a level of importance it has not enjoyed in decades. Prequels, novellas, and side stories about popular characters have all become important products for writers who are trying to make a living from their books.
Independent authors didn’t start the paradigm shift; in fact, it was prolific best sellers such as Stephen King, John Grisham, and J.K. Rowling. Just about anything with these authors’ names on them sells. Consider movies, many of which are based on books, but in most instances the authors are rarely mentioned other than in the credits. But a Stephen King movie always points back to the author, likewise with Grisham.
Rowling proved the concept of the author as a brand when she started writing with a pen name after her Harry Potter series ended. The books under her pen name only saw modest sales until someone leaked her secret. Once people knew that J.K. Rowling had written The Cuckoo’s Calling under the pen name Robert Galbraith, its sales went through the roof. In fact, within 24 hours of the leak, The Cuckoo’s Calling went from number 4,709 overall on Amazon’s sales ranking, to number 3. The publisher didn’t sell the book, the author’s reputation did. That’s why you are a brand and everything you do under your author name is important.
Here’s another example: James Patterson had a great career as an author, but found a way to become even more prolific by working with co-writers. Nearly every book attributed to him recently is actually a co-write, but his name is splashed big across the covers and the books have been big sellers. That’s because Patterson is the brand, and his involvement with the books is enough to make his avid readers willing to buy them. How much Patterson is actually involved is a closely guarded secret.
Some might argue that these authors are outliers, or people who have had stunning success but don’t represent the industry as a whole. And while their sales are phenomenal, their success only highlights the truth of the publishing industry. We might recognize the authors’ names, but very few of us would know who publishes those authors. And while many well-known authors have characters or certain books that have risen to great prominence, it is the authors themselves who have proven to be an enduring brand.
Readers are incredibly loyal to their favorite authors. When a reader finds a book they like, usually the first thing they do is look to see what other books the author has written. Writers who write for a living embrace that concept as a reality and base their business decisions on it. My own sales success is stunning proof. My first three books never sold more than a hundred copies combined until my fourth book was published. When Wizard Rising found an audience in January of 2012, those readers went back and bought over 650 copies of my other books in that same month. Why? Because I had made myself into a brand. From that point on, I made it my focus to build the brand awareness of my name.
You may be wondering why I’m building a case for understanding the author as a brand, but I see writers every day who don’t understand the importance of the concept. They create silly names for their Twitter handles or their Facebook author pages. They allow their personal messages on social media to be negative, polarizing, and unprofessional. They allow family members and friends to do work for them that holds back their success.
Take book covers for example. We’ve all seen the horrible book covers some indie authors use, then we hear that a spouse or even sometimes their child did the artwork. I’m always flabbergasted to hear that these authors who are so desperate to be taken seriously have let their personal feelings influence their business decisions. Once you start thinking of yourself as a brand, all of that changes. You are not just a part-time writer, you’re an entrepreneur building a business. You can’t think of your success as tied to any one book. Writing for a living requires you to be a producer of information or entertainment in an ongoing manner. Even if you choose traditional publishing over indie publishing, it is your job to present yourself as a confident writing professional to the world.
Your brand is forever, so considering it as such forces you to think beyond just the next book. What do you want your legacy as a writer to be? How do you define success? Does everything you do build toward your brand? By that I mean do the posts on your Facebook page, your Twitter and Instagram accounts, and even your Pinterest page reflect the books you write? Do all those social media accounts point back to your books on Amazon, or iBooks, or the Nook store? If you are writing books as a way to build your primary business interests, then perhaps this doesn’t apply to you. But if you want to make a living writing, you have to ensure that your name is a brand and that it is always present on all your work.
I’ve seen book covers where the author’s name is so tiny that unless you pick up the physical copy and study it you won’t see who wrote it. From an artistic perspective I can understand the desire for the story or subject matter to be desirable on its own, but most readers want to know who the author is. They may not recognize your name initially and buy the book based solely on the merits of the story or subject, but once they do know your name they’ll be looking for it.
There are a lot of ways to promote your brand, and hundreds of great books on branding. It will never hurt for you to learn as much as you can about promoting yourself, so I recommend rotating a book on marketing, branding, or business into your reading list on a regular basis.
Chapter 10
Writing For A Living
Making a living in any creative endeavor is difficult. In most cases, people who are creative are rarely good at business. That was certainly the case for me. I doubt I could have done as well before I had learned some hard life lessons along the way. The most important lesson I learned is that we are all responsible for our professional lives. We have a myriad of options when it comes to how we will earn money, but even if we work for someone else, we should consider ourselves private contractors. In his book Rich Dad Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki emphasizes choosing jobs to learn, not earn. In other words, select the jobs that will teach you the skills needed to pursue your dreams, not simply the opportunities that pay the most.
I always imagined that I would have a breakout best seller. And then the crushing reality of the actual publishing process knocked me down and nearly destroyed my dream, but I managed to get back up and keep working toward my goal. Yes, writing for a living takes work, but when you are writing what you are passionate about, it doesn’t seem like work. I love what I do for a living, but it is work. I have a blast writing my stories, but I don’t enjoy revisions. I love publishing my books, but I don’t always love promoting them. We take the good with the bad in any situation. And earning a living as a writer is no different. It takes work, talent, and to be honest, luck.
Learn As Much As You Can
Learn as much as you can about publishing. Not just traditional publishing or self publishing, but the industry of publishing books. Whether you write fiction or non-fiction, you should always be learning. I believe that the most successful people in any industry are committed to learning as much as possible about their field. Our industr
y is changing fast and we need to keep our ear to the ground and stay abreast of the innovations and opportunities around us.
Unfortunately most of the best places to learn about publishing are skewed to favor either traditional or independent publishing. For instance the reports that publishing houses are releasing about the ebook market is that ebook sales are down and physical book sales are up. I have no doubt that this information is true for those publishers, but unfortunately they used this data to back up what they want to believe, which is that the ebook market is fading away and that printed books will always be in high demand. What these reports don’t take into consideration are the sales of the ever-growing number of independent authors. Only the retailers and the individual authors know these sales numbers. The retailers don’t share their sales numbers but many independent authors do and most are reporting strong growth. I know for myself personally, sales continue to grow, although the way people are reading my books has changed again with the advent of Kindle Unlimited. As I wrote earlier, KU doesn’t report how many copies of my books are read, only how many pages of my books are read. So while I sold slightly fewer books in 2015 than I had the year before, I had a significant increase in royalties through the KU program.
So while traditional publishers claim that ebook sales are declining, they fail to report that in many cases people are buying physical books because the publishers have significantly raised the price of their ebooks. I just looked up Stephen King’s latest short story collection, The Bazaar of Bad Dreams, on Amazon where it was listed for $14.99. The publisher controls the price of their ebooks and despite the fact that Amazon insists that they will sell more books if they keep their ebook prices at $9.99 or below, the big publishers have raised ebook prices across the board. The crazy thing is that when a book is priced above $9.99 the seller only receives a 35 percent royalty as opposed to 70 percent if the book is between $2.99 and $9.99. The publisher inflates the price of the ebooks to encourage the sale of more physical books. They could make more money and sell more books if they priced their ebooks lower, but they feel that less expensive ebooks are bad for the print side of their business, which is the area of publishing that they still control.
Consider the numbers: At $14.99 the publisher’s (and subsequently the author’s) royalty is $5.25. If they sold the book at the recommended price of $9.99 they would actually earn $7.00, but they refuse. Why? Simply because they want to remain a relevant business and they fear that if readers switch to ebooks there won’t be a need for publishers. It’s all about self-preservation, but unfortunately they refuse to acknowledge that higher ebook prices might have something to do with their report on the ebook market. If you choose to pursue a traditional publishing deal, just keep in mind that you need a solid exit strategy so that you don’t go down with the ship if things don’t work out with your publishing company.
Another thing that might be playing a part in the resurgence of physical books in the market is the popularity of adult coloring books. These books can’t be “read” on ebook readers and have to be made of paper. So even readers who prefer to read on e-readers, tablets, and smartphones have to buy physical copies of adult coloring books. Does that mean that ebooks are no longer relevant or does it just mean that outside factors have affected sales? Perhaps the publishing companies, like almost every other organization, promote the facts that are most beneficial to them.
Independent publishing sources can be just as biased as the news coming from traditional publishing. You may even favor one side over the other, but always stay open to the news from the other side, so that you’ll have a balanced understanding of the industry. There are plenty of industry publications and bloggers talking about the latest developments in publishing and I read many of them. Just be aware that there are also predators in the publishing industry who want to trick you into paying them for one service or another. That isn’t the kind of information you want to pursue, so always check out the claims of anyone promoting themselves as experts or of being able to do something for you that sounds too good to be true.
Write Another Book
Throughout my career and the time I’ve spent researching our industry, the one key component to success I’ve found is to keep writing. Whether you want to break into the traditional publishing market or go indie, you need to be writing on a regular basis. Don’t fall into the trap of hanging all your hopes on one book. You may think it is the best book ever written, but rarely will one book get you where you want to go. You may have a long wait before the sales of your books earn you enough in royalties to have a significant impact on your income. And waiting to hear from agents, editors, and publishers is a long, lonely process. Keep yourself busy while you wait by writing your next book.
Develop the habit of writing on a daily basis. If you’ve ever looked into writing a book you’ve heard this advice. Writing is a skill that you will continue to develop all your life, so the more you write, the better you will be at it. Learn what works for you, such as where you like to write, what type of outlining works best for you, how you like to make revisions, etc. I like to listen to movie soundtracks while I write, and while I usually write at home, I also enjoy being outside when the weather is nice. What doesn’t work for me is working in busy places. I can write anywhere as long as I have good headphones to block out the noise, but a lot of movement around me is distracting.
Push yourself to write things that you’ve never written before. Experiment with new styles and new ideas. The point is to keep your skills sharp, especially when you’ve just begun the process. Perhaps you’ve finished your first book; push yourself to write the next one. Try writing a sequel, or go in a different direction entirely—just keep writing.
When people ask me the most important thing they can do to try and find an audience for their books, I always tell them to write the next one. Yes, marketing is important and you can have success with ads, but what readers want is to find an author with enough books to keep them busy for a while. Some readers will even check to see if you have more books just in case they like the first one. So keep writing. That is the key to every writer’s success.
Know Your Audience
If you hope to make a living writing books, you have to know your audience. Obviously if you write in certain genres you’ll have an idea of who your audience is. For instance if you write young adult romance it’s a safe bet that teenage girls are reading your books. That’s not to say that other people won’t read them, but your audience is made up of the people most likely to be interested in your books.
My audience are fantasy lovers, of course, but they are also avid readers. Most read at least one book a week and many read several each week. These are the people who love that ebooks have opened the door to books for them like never before. Ebooks are more accessible, more convenient, and of course less expensive than paper books. For a long time I didn’t bother printing books because my readers weren’t interested. I do sell paper books every month, some to people who don’t like ebooks, but mostly to my readers who want physical copies of the books for sentimental reasons.
Why is knowing my audience important? There are several reasons, one of which is that it helps me to price my books. I know the price range my audience is willing to spend for books. When I price my books within that range, I have confidence that my readers will buy my books quickly and help me get onto the best seller lists that propel my books to new readers. Secondly, knowing my audience helps me know what types of stories to write. When I wrote the sequel to Wizard Rising, I included a few chapters from a dragon’s point of view. I wanted the beast to simply be a problem my characters had to deal with, but my readers were so sympathetic to the dragon that I kept him around. I even brought more magical creatures into my stories because that is what my audience wants. I can balance the needs of my career with my artistic sensibilities in a harmonious way because I know my audience. And finally, I know how quickly my audience will consume my books. My readers aren�
��t looking for stand-alone summer reads, they want a long story told over a series of books. I could write a book a month and my readers would still want me to write faster. Knowing your audience is a key to being able to write for a living.
You get to know your audience the same way you market yourself to readers. Talk to them, listen to them, and share with them. Readers want to know you, and you need to know your readers, so it is a mutually beneficial relationship. If your audience is really narrow, you can read market research on the demographic that you are targeting, but in many cases your audience won’t fit so easily into one demographic. Still, make it a point to know the people reading your books and you’ll find that the benefits are enormous.
Make Smart Choices
Another component to writing for a living is making smart choices, especially about your book’s title, cover, and the genre you write in. So many aspiring writers describe their book as being a mashup of so many genres that you wonder if it can really make sense. Most readers don’t like that. They aren’t looking for something exotic; they know what they like and they want books that fit into a specific genre. You may write spy thrillers that have a romance angle—that’s perfectly fine. But when a book is a time-traveling romance with super heroes in a dystopian future where zombies have become real and only werewolves and mermaids can save the planet, you probably won’t have much luck. Book genres are like radio stations: You can’t appeal to everyone or you’ll end up appealing to no one. You wouldn’t tune into a radio station that mixed country music with gangster rap and death metal.
Pick your genre carefully, and I always encourage people to write what they love. At the same time keep in mind that certain genres sell better than others. The most popular genre at the moment is romance, and if all you really care about is making money from your books you would do well to consider writing romance novels. Romance is followed in popularity by mystery and crime, which is followed by sci-fi/fantasy, and then Christian (which contains both fiction and non-fiction). And the reality is that all that could change in the blink of an eye, which is why keeping up with the publishing industry is so important.
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