Writing Life | CW Hawes

Not For The Money

How much does an indie author make? That is a good question. And one that probably has a skewed answer.

A 2015 survey conducted by The Guardian stated that the average self-published author makes less than $1000 per year. And a third of the authors surveyed made less than $500 per year.

Even though the survey is over six years old, I’d hazard a guess the numbers are still fairly accurate because the number of authors and books in the marketplace is much greater now than it was then. So it’s possible that the figures are even worse today than six years ago.

Now there are indie authors who make big money. When I started in 2014, there were romance authors who made upwards of a couple million a year. Mark Dawson and Michael Anderle take in around a half-million a year from their books, according to the last figures I read.

But I would wager most self-published authors today make very little, if any, money. None of the ones I know are rich.

Last year I had my second best year, earnings wise, of my 7 year self-publishing adventure. I earned royalties of $274. I sold 160 books and had 15,900 Kindle Unlimited page reads.

Which I think is pretty good, considering I didn’t spend a dime on paid advertising. My production costs were also minimal. So most of that money was pure profit.

Sometime ago I received an email from an author who was crowing about his first six-figure month. He’d made $100,000. Then in a fit of honesty, said he’d spent $80,000 in advertising to get that $100K.

In other words, he wasn’t a six-figure author. He was a low five-figure author. Beware of the numbers when the writing gurus speaketh.

And if you factor in production costs (cover, editor, etc), that author probably made less than $20K.

Which is why I made note at the beginning of this post that the numbers are probably skewed when authors talk about what they make from their writing. Especially the ones selling courses, because they need to impress you with their success in order to take your money and feed your dreams of success.

Not that you can’t be monetarily successful. You can. It just takes a lot of money and a lot of time. And a wee bit of luck.

Of course you can hire someone else to do your marketing. Which will take even more of your money.

Given the constant barrage of success stories that we authors hear, and then looking at our own often “pitiful” results, the question begs to be asked — is it worth it? Is it worth all the time and effort expended to end up making a couple hundred bucks?

I can only speak for myself. And for me, the answer is yes. YES!

Very simply, I’m doing something that I love and I’ve gathered an audience over the past 7 years. Not a large audience to be sure, but an audience nevertheless. And that is a very good feeling. There are people out there who like what I write.

Back some 15 to 20 years ago when I was writing poetry and getting it published in ezines and magazines — I got paid exactly nothing. Nothing!

In fact, everybody got paid nothing. Money was a non-factor. The late Jane Reichhold once told me that even poets who were being published by the big poetry publishers made very little, if any, money. Certainly nothing they could live on.

Her recommendation to me was to hang on to the day job and just write. Or get a degree and go into academia so I had a day job and university support to get more poetry published.

In the world of poetry, success has to be defined in a way that doesn’t include the dollar. Because there is no money in poetry. Poets don’t write for money. They write because of some other motivation.

I’ve carried that mindset over into my fiction writing. Success does NOT have to be measured in terms of dollar bills.

So why do we fiction writers think our worth or success has to be measured in currency? When most writers have not and cannot support themselves with their writing? I find the attitude somewhat puzzling.

Oh, I know we fictioneers look to all those who’ve made a living from their pen and we want to do the same. Funny thing, though, is that we never look at the many more who never could make a living from their pens. Those writers get lost in the myth of making money from books.

Throughout history, most writers did not make money from their pens. Throughout most of history writers tended to be men of leisure. That is, they had a means of support apart from their pens.

Only in the 1800s did it become possible for a person to make a living from writing, and especially writing fiction.

Even so, the number of people deluging publishers with their manuscripts was far greater than the number of writers the publishers published. And that has always been the case with traditional publishing. Many submit, but few are chosen.

Today, anybody can publish anything. Thanks to the indie revolution. And that kind of democracy, I think, is a good thing.

There are over 7 million books on Amazon and the number grows daily by over 3,000 new books. The chance of getting your book seen is next to zero. Even with paid advertising, Amazon won’t show your ad if no one buys your book.

Let’s face facts. The book market is glutted as it never was in the past. There are simply too many books and too few readers.

Having come to this realization, I am very pleased that I have my small fiction audience. In addition, my blog gets between 200 and 250 visitors each month. Not a lot, but it is more than nothing.

I will continue to build my mailing list as I look for my 1000 true fans.

I’m retired. I don’t need to make a living from my writing. I have an income. And I dare say, most people who want to be writers also have an income. They don’t need to be full-time writers to make a living. They can be part-time writers for the fun of it.

Very few of us are in the position of Louisa May Alcott who had to make a living from writing because her father was a dreamer and a wastrel and didn’t provide for his family. She turned to writing in order to put food on the table and pay the rent. She took over the breadwinning role using her pen, because it was one of the very few channels open to women by which the possibility existed to make significant money.

Most of us are like Edgar Rice Burroughs and Earl Stanley Gardner. We don’t like our jobs and want to do something else. And we think writing is an easy way to make money.

The fact of the matter is that writing is easy. However, writing well is not.

I write not for the money, but for the sheer love of writing. It’s the love that keeps me going. It’s the obligation to my audience, small though it is, to give them stories they want to read. To entertain them. To not disappoint them. In a sense, it’s not about me — it’s about them.

So all you writers out there, I urge you to write for the love of it. Write for those who want to read your stories, no matter how few they be. It’s not about the money. It’s about doing something that adds value to your life and the lives of your readers.

Comments are always welcome. And until next time, happy reading!

Share This!

7 Years and Counting

Sunday, 14 November, was my 7 year independent author-publisher anniversary. Time flies when you’re having fun. And I’ve been having lots of fun.

Publishing stories and books, seeing them in actual and virtual print, is the realization of a dream I’ve had for as long as I can remember.

These past 7 years I’ve met all manner of wonderful and delightful people. I’ve written well over 30 books and stories. Most I’ve published. Some are exclusive to the fans on my mailing list. (Hint, hint.)

Anniversaries, for me, are times to not only celebrate, but also to reflect on the past and contemplate the future.

When I look back to 14 November 2014, a lot has happened. 2015 saw the beginning of massive changes on the indie publishing scene.

The easy money and fame quickly became a thing of the past. Competition skyrocketed. There was the rise of the middlemen and the marketing gurus, with their get rich quick schemes.

Starry-eyed wannabe authors came and went. Some writers still talk about the book that’s coming out soon. And there are some who are indeed livin’ the dream — they struck gold. They quit the day job and get to tell stories for a living.

I confess I’ve never been money motivated. Money’s nice and makes living a whole heck of a lot easier. Nevertheless, there are things that are more important than money.

Seven years of doing this indie gig, I am not monetarily better off. It’s cost me more than the royalties I earned. But money isn’t everything.

Let me count my blessings:

- - I’m having fun.
  - I’m writing and publishing what I want to write and publish. There are no gatekeepers telling me NO.
  - There are people who like my stories. People who think my stories add value to their lives.
  - I’ve met writers whose books have added value to my life.
  - And did I say I’m having fun?

Before turning to fiction, I wrote poetry and had hundreds of poems published. People recognized my name. And that was a good feeling. People found value in my poems. So you see money isn’t everything.

So what’s on the docket for year 8 of my writing adventure? The answer’s pretty simple: more stories, more fun.

I’ll be writing new books and stories, with the focus on providing a good number of those to my mailing list. (Hint, hint.)

I’m looking at giving screenwriting a try. My first successful writing endeavor was a play. So I see screenwriting as something akin to going home.

Audiobooks and perhaps a YouTube channel are also in the works. After all, before I wrote anything I told myself stories. Going audio will be a definite homecoming.

Writing has brought me small triumphs and great joy. What can I say? This is a wonderful life.

Comments are always welcome. And until next time, happy reading!

If you join my VIP Readers list, you’ll get the book Vampire House and other early cases of Justinia Wright, P.I. for free. Click or tap this link to BookFunnel.

If you join my VIP Horror Readers list, you’ll get The Feeder for free, which is a Pierce Mostyn Paranormal Investigation only available to my VIP readers. Click or tap this link to BookFunnel.

Enjoy!

Share This!

Defining Success

In any endeavor, we consciously or unconsciously define what success looks like.

When I was writing poetry, the writing of which is not financially lucrative by any measure, I defined success by such things as name recognition, the ability to get into certain magazines, the ability to write and get published, what was for me, a difficult form to write, and to be considered by my peers as the first amongst equals.

None of those measures of success involved receiving payment for what I’d written. Yet they were all determiners, for me (and most, if not all, of my fellow poets), of being a successful poet.

So how do we define success for ourselves in general and in writing fiction in particular? That question is no different than asking what is the meaning of life?

The answers are personal, and only you can provide the answer for yourself.

Writers, especially fiction writers, seem to think their work only has value if they get paid for it, and such payment that will enable them to quit the day job.

Is money, though, the only measure of fiction writing success? Can we define success some other way?

Of course we can. We can define success anyway we so desire.

Ask yourself this: if I were to never get a dime for any story or novel that I wrote, would I keep on writing? Or ask yourself this: Do I love writing? Or do I love the dream of getting rich from writing?

If most aspiring novelists were honest with themselves, they’d admit that they see writing fiction as being like the gold rush, or the lottery. They just want to get rich in what they think is a very easy way to do so.

What they soon discover is that writing, especially indie writing, is a job — not a get rich quick scheme. Writing is work. Rewarding work, in my opinion. But work, nevertheless. And as with the gold rush and the lottery, the middleman is the one who makes the most coin.

Here’s another question: What do you love to do, even though you get no money for doing it? In fact, you have to pay money to do it. What is that activity? Whatever it is, that’s how you should view writing. You love doing it, even if you have to pay money to get your books into other people’s hands. And in the process, if you’re good enough, or lucky enough, you might make some money at the writing gig.

I’m going to let you in on a secret. Writing fiction — if you want to make serious coin by writing — is a business. And if you aren’t good at business, you won’t be good at making money from your pen.

But if you’re willing to put in the time to educate yourself on the business part of the writing gig, then, like any other self-employed person, you might make a living at writing. Probably won’t get rich, but you might make a decent living. Might. Just keep in mind that most businesses don’t succeed. They fail.

Which brings us back to defining success in writing fiction some other way than monetarily. It might be helpful to see ourselves as entertainers. Entertainers who make people laugh and cry just for the pleasure of giving them a brief respite from their lives.

In the nearly 7 years that I’ve been doing this writing gig, I’ve sold 929 books. It’s not a million, but it is more than none. And to my mind, that is something.

If I add in the 61,291 Kindle Unlimited page reads, and figure them to be equal to at least 300 books, then I’ve had people pay me to read over 1200 copies of my books. Incredible. That is, simply incredible.

I’ve also given away over 3300 books as lead magnets, ARCs, and gifts. Which means even more people have at least one of my books in their hand, and hopefully found the read a pleasurable and entertaining experience.

You see, on July 1st of this year, 2021, I had an epiphany. And it was simply this: focusing on trying to make money was destroying what I love. The pursuit of riches was making me hate writing.

And I truly love writing. I love the very act of holding a pencil or pen in my hand, and putting words on paper. I love the experience of the mystery of the creative process and seeing the results appear on paper. That, in and of itself, defines success for me: getting the story out of my head and onto paper.

Marcus Aurelius, the last of the Five Good Emperors, wrote, Life is opinion; or, Life is what you decide it is. One can define success the same way: success is what you think it is.

If you define success as being the second James Patterson, good luck. You might have a better chance of winning the lottery. Why set yourself up for what is surely to be failure? Then, again, who am I to say you won’t be successful? Because you very well may be.

You see, I’ve never had much interest in being a bestselling author. I simply want to sell books, have people read them, and like them enough to buy more of my books. To me, that is plenty of success. But it might not be for you. On the other hand, I encourage you not to define success in such a way that if you don’t achieve it that lack of achievement destroys your love of writing. Or your love of anything, for that matter.

Nor have I ever had an interest in being an award winning author. That’s just someone’s opinion, and most people’s opinions aren’t worth a tinker’s damn because they are subjective and not based on evidence. Which is certainly true about art, and fiction writing is art. But if awards float your boat, go for them. Just don’t be disappointed if you don’t get one, and quit something you love.

In my own eyes, and I’ve come to realize at the age of 68 years and 9 months that those are the only eyes that matter, I’m a successful writer of fiction.

Have I climbed the highest mountain that’s out there? No, I haven’t. But you don’t have to climb Mount Everest to be a mountain climber.

Comments are always welcome. And until next time, happy reading (and writing)!

Share This!

The Sunday Writer

Or, do writers really have to make money from their writing to enjoy their craft?

Or, do writers really have to make money from their writing to be considered successful?

Sometime back in the 1970s, Lawrence Block asked questions very much like the ones posed above.

I don’t know what issue of Writers Digest his column originally appeared in, but you can read his thoughts in Chapter 6 of Telling Lies for Fun & Profit: A Manual for Fiction Writers.

Block notes that writing fiction is the only art that seems to demand payment as an indicator of success.

Certainly writing poetry does not. There is no money in poetry. One writes it because one loves to do so. I wrote poetry for around 20 years and was steadily and frequently published for a dozen, and made around 5 bucks. I had to find some other measure of success than greenbacks.

Block goes on to note that most painters paint simply for the enjoyment of painting and never offer their work for sale. And that probably goes for potters and jewelry makers as well.

Certainly the vast majority of people who play a musical instrument do so for personal enjoyment and not for money. How many actors and actresses perform without the thought of money? Certainly all those in community theater.

I dare say that most creative people are not paid for what they do. They create simply because they love to do so. They derive great personal pleasure from the act of creation. So why shouldn’t fiction writers do the same?

For some reason, though, they can’t. Every writer of fiction seems to think he or she must reach a point where they can quit their day job or they are a failure.

In reality, however, only a tiny percentage of writers ever make enough money to earn a living from their writing, and not necessarily a good living at that. Philip K Dick made money — just enough to not starve to death.

My writer friends hear this: Damn few of us will ever make enough money to quit the day job.

And I say, So what? If we love writing, can’t we just write for the sake of the enjoyment? Of course we can.

Especially in this day and age when the gatekeepers are gone. We can publish with abandon our masterpieces, as well as our drivel.

We fiction writers are free to publish our stories and let the public decide if they’re good, bad, ugly, mediocre, or okay.

There are countless outlets for publishing our work, and countless ways to tell folks where to find it.

This is truly a wonderful age in which we live.

So why do we think we have to earn a living from our pens, pencils, and keyboards? I really don’t know where this idea came from, especially when reality tells us differently.

How many painters earn a living from their brush? Exceedingly few. Most of the “successful” painters don’t earn their money from selling paintings, they earn their daily bread from teaching others how to paint.

How many potters sell enough pots to quit the day job? How many pianists, or guitar players make enough money to kiss goodbye the 9 to 5? My guess is next to none.

I’ve been thinking about this notion of the Sunday Writer, that is, the person who just writes because he or she loves to write, for some time. The Sunday Writer writes, not because he thinks he’s the next Patterson, or she thinks she’s the next Rowling, but simply because he or she has to. The Sunday Writer writes for the love of it. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Today, one can write and post his or her work on a blog, or read it on YouTube, or publish it on Amazon, Apple, Kobo, and Barnes & Noble.

Print On Demand paperbacks allow you to cheaply produce a print book, and you can stand on a street corner or at an intersection and sell your book to people. Or just give it away, if you prefer.

Heck, you can even DIY your own audiobooks with minimal investment, and sell or giveaway the MP3 of your fabulous fiction.

You can get your work into as many people’s hands as you want to put in the time and effort to reach. And if you never get paid a dime, is that any different from the poet who sees hundreds of his poems in print and never gets paid a cent for them?

Is it any different than the writer, looking to make the big bucks, who gives away 5000 copies of his first in series novel, hoping at least 10% go on to buy and read Book 2? No, not really.

My first published novels appeared on Amazon November 2014. To date, I’ve earned a little over $1800. Am I a failure? I don’t think so. People are buying my books. Some like them. Some don’t. But that’s how it is with any work of art. People have loved and hated every artist that’s come along. Why should I be any different?

Sunday Writers. I think it’s okay to be a Sunday Writer. I think it’s okay to write because you love writing and to share what you’ve written with anyone who wants to read it — whether you make any money from it or not.

I’m lucky. I’ve made over $1800. There are people out there who wish they made that much money from their writing.

I’ve taken many classes and workshops — and spent a lot of money doing so — to learn how to sell my books, how to make money at this writing gig.

I’m declaring here and now to hell with all that.

I am going to write and publish my work because I love writing. In the process, I hope to find those for whom my stories bring a bit of pleasure to their lives. In the end, we are entertainers and isn’t that the end goal of every entertainer? To bring pleasure to people’s lives?

If I make money entertaining people with my writing, great. I’m not going to turn it down, or throw it away. But if I don’t make money, I’m not going to view myself as a failure. Why? Because I’m a Sunday Writer. Greenbacks don’t determine if I’m a success or not. I and my readers do that.

Comments are always welcome. And until next time, happy reading! And I’d love it, if you were reading one of my books. 🙂

Share This!

It’s All About Work

Last month I wrote about The Business Of Being Indie. And it’s important to emphasize that word business, because we indie authors are in fact publishers — and publishers are in the business of selling books.

For most of us, the significant roadblock to success as an indie author is our ignorance of business. Specifically, our ignorance of how mail-order businesses work.

Because, whether we realize it or not, whether we like it or not, we indie authors are, at the heart of it all, mail-order businesses.

How do your readers get your books? By snail mail or email. Very few of us indies are in bookstores. So if your readers and mine get our books by mail, we are mail-order businesspersons.

To succeed, we need to get rid of our business ignorance and learn the ins and outs of mail-order business.

Belief in the Magic Wand.

Most of us think that our business model goes something like this:

Write book + Wave Magic Wand = Thousands of Sales

However, we soon find out there is no magic wand. We write our books, publish them, and ask ourselves why isn’t anyone buying and reading my Great American Novel?

Generally speaking, people don’t read our books because they don’t know they exist.

With millions of books in Amazon’s database, and thousands of books being added every day, how are readers going to find your book and mine? It’s a near impossibility.

Because Amazon is a business too. They are going to drive traffic to the books that sell and make them money. The infamous Amazon algorithms see to that. Our job is to sell enough books to get Amazon’s attention so they will work for us.

There is no Magic Wand. We have to go to work and drive traffic to where our books are. Which means we have to find the traffic, our potential readers, and get our book in front of their eyes. This takes work. There are no Magic Wands. There is just work or excuses for not working.

Not realizing how much work it actually takes to become a successful independent author-publisher, most indie authors are unprepared for what to do next after their book appears on Amazon, or any other vendor.

Writing for a living has always been difficult, with few being successful at it. And nothing changed with the advent of ebooks.

In fact, one could say things have gotten more difficult. Because instead of just trying to convince one editor to buy your story, you now have to convince hundreds and thousands of readers to buy your story.

The Mailing List

I started looking into self-publishing in 2014. One thing that I’ve noticed over the past six years is that, generally speaking, there is only one path to success as an indie author — assuming of course that the wannabe author actually knows how to write. That path is the creation of a mailing list that contains your readers and fans.

Yes, there are outliers. Those individuals who break the rules and become successful and wealthy while doing so. But the vast majority of successful indie authors have become successful because they’ve captured their readers and fans on a mailing list and use that mailing list to catapult themselves into the top selling ranks on Amazon.

So my advice, after six years of observation and study, is this: spend time, and maybe money, learning mail-order business practices.

Australian fantasy and science fiction author Patty Jansen has an excellent book series on how to build a mailing list. Her books are an excellent place for you to start your business education.

The link to Amazon for Patty Jansen’s The Three-Year, No-Bestseller Plan For Making a Sustainable Living From Your Fiction.

There are also expensive courses, costing hundreds of dollars, that you can take. But I’m not convinced that the money spent will give you anything more than what Jansen will give you for a fraction of the cost.

In our books there may be magic unicorns and magic wands, or a genie who will grant the hero three wishes. But in the real world, we have to work for a living.

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy working!

Share This!

The Business of Being Indie — Part 2

Last week we took a look at the business side of being an indie authorpreneur. We saw that there are writers who are making piles of money, and those who are strong mid-listers. The mid-listers aren’t on the bestseller lists — but they earn enough to make a decent living. Then there are the rest of us.

We also learned there are no magic wands. There is only work.

TANSTAAFL

Robert Heinlein, in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, popularize the term TANSTAAFL — There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.

TANSTAAFL is at the core of economics — and business is economics.

Everything has its cost. Nothing is free. Somebody somewhere always foots the bill. It may be free to me, but somebody is paying for it to be free to me.

So why is it many writers don’t see selling books as a business? I can’t tell you. However, all one has to do is take a look at Penguin Random House to know that publishing is a business. There is a bottom line. The company, or sole proprietor, either makes money or goes out of business.

There is a third path that indie authors can take: they can write and publish books as a hobby. And some indies do take that road.

Most, however, have dreams of quitting the day job and telling stories for a living. It is possible. But it takes work. As I quickly found out after just a few months.

The Business Model

Barring the one in a million chance I am going to write a runaway bestseller like Gone With The Wind or To Kill A Mockingbird at my first go, I am going to have to work to sell my books. So how do I do that?

We said last week that McDonald’s success lies not in its burgers and fries, but in the location of its restaurants.

A good location provides traffic. The traffic will see those Golden Arches and say, “Hey, I’m hungry. I’ll grab a burger. I don’t have to go out of my way to get lunch.” And McDonald’s makes money.

What we have is:

Traffic —->Desire to Buy = Money

If we want to make a lot of money, there’s a third step:

Traffic —->Desire to Buy —->Scale up = Lots of Money

That is the business model in a nutshell. All successful businesses follow that model.

We indie authors must generate traffic to our books. We must make those books so attractive that lookers become buyers. And if we want to make a lot of money, then we have to scale up the business.

Some Ways to Get Traffic

The first step is to get eyes on your book. How do you do that?

Word of mouth. People like your book and tell others about it. The best advertising.

Social media. Works something like word of mouth. Is perhaps most effective if people read your book, like it, and then go on and tell their followers about it.

Promotions. Tactics such as loss leaders, raffles/sweepstakes, and giveaways can get eyes on your book and gain you buying readers down the road.

Advertising. Paying for ads to get your book before potential readers is an expensive, yet frequently used tool. You will need deep pockets at the beginning until you learn how to make advertising effective so that it will sustain itself through sales.

The Mailing List

After nearly 6 years in the independent author/publisher business, I am convinced of one thing: indie authors are mail order businesses.

Think about how people get your books. They get them by mail: email or snail mail.

We indie authors are mail order businesses.

Which means we need to create and build a mailing list.

There are lots of tools available with which to build your list.

- - You can ask people.
  - Social media is also a way you can attract people to your list. Although, I don’t get many sign-ups from social media.
  - Giveaways. Give away a reader magnet using ProlificWorks or BookFunnel. This works best if you join a multi-author promotion, because you will get more traffic. Be aware that you will get a lot of freebie grabbers. But you will also get some gold.
  - Raffles. I never used a raffle. But from what others say, they can be successful. They can also be a miserable failure. In the end, they are just another form of the giveaway. You will get a lot of chaff and a small amount of wheat.

Initially, I asked people I knew if they would like to be on my list. I didn’t ask everyone, just those who I thought might be interested

Once I got a small list established, I used ProlificWorks to build my list. I offered my first in series free, and joined several promotions. I got a lot of subscribers. And a lot of unsubscribers. And the latter are fine, because you don’t want them on your list if they have no interest in you. Mailing lists cost money.

To make your mailing list effective and cost efficient, you will need to periodically winnow the list.

Perhaps once a year send an email to those subscribers who don’t open any of your emails or who don’t buy anything and ask if they are still interested in being on your list. To show that they are interested, you can have them click on a link to your Amazon book page.

Those that don’t click or tap the link remove from your list. Because those folks aren’t interested in you or your books.

Some people advocate having a lot of subscribers on your mailing list. Because according to statistics, they say, a large list equals a lot of sales. And perhaps that is true. But a mailing list costs money. It is not free. To make it an efficient and effective list you will need to get rid of those people who show no interest in you. That is just good business.

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading — and writing!

Share This!

To Write Is The Thing

This past weekend, I got a big shock, a sad shock: one of my favorite indie writers, Ben Willoughby, is hanging up his pen. He’s taking down his Twitter profile and pulling his books off of Amazon. I encourage you to get his books while you can — you won’t be sorry. He’s a doggone good writer.

Buy Ben’s Books!

For nearly 5 years, I’ve been an independent author/publisher. And I’ve had a blast. I’ve loved every day of the adventure.

However, along the way, I’ve seen writers drop out for sometimes unknown reasons. None of those writers were bestsellers, and perhaps the lack of financial reward convinced them that they had better things to do with their time. And that is a decision only they can make.

In the end, the writer himself or herself has to decide if telling stories is worth the effort or not.

In the case of Mr Willoughby, I’m very sad that there will be no more new books from him. But I have to respect his decision that his time can be spent better in other pursuits. After all it is his time and not mine.

But it is just a tad frustrating for me as a reader, when a good writer, such as Mr Willoughby, quits writing, leaving the field to writers who are much inferior. Writers who are often on the bestseller list. Which completely baffles me, by the way. How does a mediocre at best writer get people to buy his or her books by the truckload? In a world full of unfair things, that is perhaps one of the most unfair. Mr Willoughby should be on the bestseller list, and it is very sad that he is not.

For me, though, writing is the thing. I cannot imagine any other life. And at my age I have lived a life or two. I hope to heaven, I die with a pencil in my hand putting words on paper. And that after I crossover, I pick up that pencil and continue writing.

As I’ve noted before, I don’t make much money at this. Last month was the best month I’ve had in a year. I made 30 bucks and change. And there are better writers than I, who don’t even make that much. Which is a very sad commentary on those of us who are readers.

In some ways, I see myself like the old prospector in the movies panning for gold and hoping to strike it rich. If I don’t keep at it, I definitely won’t get rich.

On the other hand, is such a pittance worth all the effort? I can only answer for myself, and that answer is yes.

From 2001 to about 2013, I actively published my poetry. And I did it the traditional way, submitting to print and online magazines. I was fortunate enough to achieve a bit of renown, and to pick up an award or two, and even pick up a couple bucks.

The truth is there is no money in writing poetry. Yes, there is the exceedingly rare individual who for a short period of time is popular enough to make some money. But that popularity doesn’t last and the person fades away.

Writing poetry is truly a labor of love. You have to find satisfaction in something other than money. And for over 10 years I did. But then I felt I needed a bigger canvas on which to work, and as I was nearing retirement I wanted to live my dream of writing fiction full-time. And I am living my dream. I write full-time. I just don’t make a full-time income.

Once I realized that in order to make money at this writing gig I needed to have money, money for websites, money for bookcovers, money for various services, money for advertising, I realized that unless somebody took me under his or her wing and promoted the heck out of my work I was not ever going to get on the bestseller list. Because I just don’t have money to risk on the business end of self-publishing. I’m retired and on a fixed income.

Reality sucks, but realizing what reality is has helped me to adjust my attitude from fantasy to something more realistic.

And I am content, at least for now, at where I am at. I don’t have money to pour into advertising, I don’t have the money to get fancy-schmansy bookcovers like the bestselling guys have, I don’t have money to pay other people to do all the stuff that I don’t want to do just so I can spend all of my time writing. I am a one man band and I have to live with that reality.

And I am okay with it.

But if other writers do not want to put up with the crap and decide that they have other things they would rather do then spend hours producing work that virtually no one buys — I cannot blame them for leaving writing behind. After all who wants to do a thankless job forever, especially if you have other things on your bucket list that you want to do?

I am just sorry to see the good ones go, because that leaves me just a little bit poorer.

I wish Mr Willoughby well. I am thankful that I got to know him, that I have his books on my Kindle app, and that I can reread them at my leisure.

Now you can do him a favor by buying his books and giving him a nice goodbye present. You won’t be sorry. He’ll be gone and you will still have his wonderful books.

Buy Ben’s Books!

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!

Share This!

Making Life Pleasant

“I wish… to thank you for your share in making life pleasant for me.” —from a letter, by a reader, to William Wallace Cook

In this little world, so crowded with sorrow and tragedy, what is it worth to have had a share in making life pleasant for a stranger?

—William Wallace Cook, in The Fiction Factory

William Wallace Cook, due to his prolificity, was called “The Man Who Deforested Canada”. Unfortunately for us, and I suppose him, his popularity with the reading public seemingly died when he did in 1933.

A search of the internet yielded no complete bibliography, nor even much of a biography. It seems none of his books are in print. And virtually none have been digitized. I suppose the lack of bibliography is due in part to the many pen names he used, and to a very large portion of his work being published under house names, and a considerable portion of his writing for the 5¢ and10¢ libraries of the day not being credited at all!

Would his present anonymity have bothered Cook? I’m sure I can’t answer that question. However, in his autobiographical The Fiction Factory (published under a pen name!), Cook does not seem to have had an eye to the future. He knew very well he was writing “disposable” fiction. He was not writing the great American novel — he was writing fiction to make a buck to pay the rent and put food on the table. He was an entertainer, much like TV scriptwriters today, and he seemed fine with that.

Then there are the quotes above.

While it’s clear Cook wrote hundreds of novels and stories for money, he was not averse to the writer’s higher calling: making life pleasant for the reader.

If he could, by his typewriter, help to alleviate someone’s sorrow, that was worth more to him then the check he got from the publisher.

I was a prolific poet: writing something over 2000 poems in the space of about 10 years, and seeing several hundred of them in physical and virtual print.

As I’ve said before, there’s no money in poetry. One must seek satisfaction in something other than the almighty dollar. For me, it was hearing from a reader how much one of my poems touched him or her.

Quite honestly, 99% of us will be forgotten by the time our peers and our children are dead. And some of us a lot sooner than that!

What matters most in life is how we touch others. We can be a vehicle of positive energy or one of negative energy.

As a writer, I can crank out books to make a buck — or I can seek to step a bit higher and hopefully make life pleasant for someone. The choice is mine.

I like money. I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t writing in the hopes of making money. However, at the end of the day, I’d rather touch someone, inspire someone, or make life pleasant for someone than bring home shopping carts full of money.

There’s nothing wrong with money. After all we do need it to live. If suddenly my sales took off, I’d be jumping for joy. And I wouldn’t give the money back. But if no one ever told me one of my books made life pleasant for him or her, I would be very sad. Very sad indeed. For though rich, truly I’d be poor.

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!

Share This!

The Indie Writer’s Key to Success

Every day I’m in contact with indie authors (independent author-publishers) who are looking to make it big and are languishing in obscurity.

Back in 2014, when I started publishing, the indie world was changing. The old days were for all intents and purposes gone. The days of simply writing and putting your books up on Amazon, making the first book in your series free or 99¢, and collecting the money. Those days ended in 2014.

Unfortunately, all of the successful writers from whom I was getting my advice, didn’t see the newer, more difficult world coming.

Hindsight is always 20/20.

However, 5 years later, as I continue to look for monetary success, there remain three keys that all successful indie writers follow. These worked in the past and they work now. And while I do follow these three keys, I haven’t struck gold — yet. But that doesn’t mean others haven’t done so by following these keys — for they have.

So, my writer friends, and interested reader friends, lets take a look at these keys. But first,

The Base

Success always builds on a strong base. For writers that base is:

1. 1. Good writing. You have to know how to tell a story. The story your target audience wants to hear in the way they want to hear it. If you can’t tell a good story, you need to learn how before you do anything else.
  2. A good looking package. Your book needs to look appealing. That means appropriate cover art for the genre. Cover art that looks professional.
  3. A pleasant reading experience. The text needs to be well formatted and free of typos and textual issues as much as possible.

Now on to the keys!

Publish Often

Every successful indie author publishes often. “Often”, of course, is subject to debate. How often is often?

There is a well-known phenomenon on Amazon: the 30 day cliff. Publish a book and after 30 days, it drops off the charts. I’ve seen this with my own books. I’d get a few sales in the first 30 days, and after that nothing.

The best way to beat the 30 day cliff is by publishing often.

January through March of 2018 I published the first three Pierce Mostyn books. One each month. Sales didn’t start falling off until July. I published Van Dyne’s Vampires in October, but it was too late to revive dropping sales. The advantage I’d gained from the rapid release was gone.

The lesson I learned was — I can’t wait 7 months to release my next book.

At a minimum, I think indie authors need to publish a book every 3 months. Quarterly is the minimum publishing schedule to maintain some kind of momentum.

However, every other month would be even better.

And monthly is ideal.

Why?

It has has to do with the nature of the indie audience. The readers of indie authored books tend to be voracious readers. Reading several books a week. Or more.

I’m a rather slow reader. Yet I manage to read at least 2 books a month and usually more.

Indie writers need to publish often to feed the indie reader.

If you don’t publish often — you will be forgotten.

Remember, thousands of books are added to Amazon’s catalog every day.

Write Fast

The corollary to Publish Often is to write fast.

In the pulp era, fast writing meant food on the table and a roof over the writer’s head.

Hugh B Cave averaged 5 to 6 stories every week. That’s easily equivalent to 2 novels a month.

Erle Stanley Gardner, while working full time as a partner in his law firm, wrote 100,000 words a month. And in the beginning of his writing career he was experiencing a 90% rejection rate.

My hero, Anthony Trollope, while working full time at the post office, wrote 2,500 words per day.

If you want to make money, if you want readers, writing must be viewed as a job. A business. Set goals and keep them.

Trollope wrote what I think is a doable daily quota. He used writing sprints (he apparently invented them) to achieve his daily goal. He timed himself and aimed for 250 words every 15 minutes.

Using a 15 minute sprint, I’ve easily surpassed 250 words in that 15 minutes. So Trollope’s word count is achievable. And the nice thing about writing sprints is that you can scatter them throughout the day if you have to in order to achieve your word count.

A goal of 2,000 words/day, if met, will produce 730,000 words in a year. That’s a dozen 60,000 word novels. Does any writer actually need more than that?

Write in Series

The final key is that indie authors must write in series. Why? Because indie readers want to read series of books rather than standalone novels.

The readers of traditionally published books tend to read fewer books and are okay with the standalone novel. Not so, indie readers.

Indie readers also prefer novels to short stories. And novels to even novellas. Something to keep in mind.

Summary

Write fast, in series, and publish often. That is the baseline. If you aren’t doing those things, you are setting yourself a nearly impossible task if you want to gain readers and make money from your writing.

Advertising won’t do it. A mailing list won’t do it. A website or a closed Facebook group won’t do it. There are no substitutes.

Michael Anderle fast published his way to a half million a year income from writing. Advertising helped — but only after the series was selling. He knew he could pour money into advertising because the series was already selling on its own.

For me, I know publishing a book a month isn’t realistic. I don’t write fast enough. But I do think once a quarter is doable.

So there it is. Go forth my friends and write and publish and then write some more!

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy writing (and reading)!

Share This!

Success

Today I thought I’d share a bit of encouragement with my fellow writers. I don’t normally give writing advice. Primarily because I’m not pulling in 5 figures a month, or have a mailing list of 60,000, or receive critical accolades from dozens of book critics, or been approached by a major publishing house offering me a 7 figure advance for my next book.

Whatever I might have to say on the business side of writing, or on the mechanics of writing, has been said by many others more qualified than I. And I can’t see the advantage in serving up twice fried hash.

However, what I can offer is encouragement. Because I do know what a little bit of encouragement can do to help keep the hands on the plow so the field can be planted.

My writing mentor is Anthony Trollope. He offers sage, timeless, and practical advice, along with inspiration for all author wannabes.

Are you struggling with whether or not you should even be a writer? Rainer Maria Rilke has the answer in his first letter to the young poet. The advice is profound.

Today, I want to talk about success. Particularly, what it means to be a successful writer.

At various times I’ve asked myself, Am I a successful writer? I mean, I’ve written 30 books and am lucky to make $300 in a year. Nobody who’s anybody has discovered me and promoted me and let me ride his or her coattails to fame and glory. And I thought getting recognition in the poetry world was tough!

So am I successful? A successful fiction author? After much thought, my answer is YES!

Of course that “yes” is according to my definition of success. And everyone’s definition is different. I’ll tell you a story to illustrate what I mean by success.

In 1989, when I was 36, I decided to write a novel. I’d never tried a novel and wasn’t sure I could write one. So I thought I’d give it a try and see if I had the makings of a novelist in me.

For over half a dozen years I’d been sitting on my sister and brother PI duo, Tina and Harry Wright, and decided they deserved to be in a novel.

Over the course of a year, I wrote my novel. When completed, I garnered a couple rejections. Then I took a long, hard look at what I’d written. Well, I had written a novel. So now I knew I could do it. I could write novels. I also realized my first attempt wasn’t overly good.

I took stock of my life at that point in time. I was working in an emotionally draining job. I had a family. And I realized I didn’t have the emotional energy to rework the novel, or to spend another year writing a new one.

With a sad heart, I put the typescript away.

But I had to write!

In those days, there was no indie author movement. Traditional publishing was king. An iron-fisted despot. Self-publishing was for losers and the vain. Fiction markets were few and far between, those that paid money that is. There were plenty of small zines that would take your stories. Zines with a circ of 50 or 100 readers at best. Payment was usually 2 contributor copies.

I knew writers who submitted to such zines in the hope of earning publishing credits and a chance at the big time. None of them made it.

After some soul searching, I decided to switch from fiction to poetry. The most important thing in making this change was giving up my dream of making a living from writing.

Because there is no money in poetry.

No money. Period. Nada. Zip. Even those who are lucky enough to have a publisher publish a book of their poetry don’t make money on it. Poets themselves have told me this.

In the world of poetry, there is no money and no hope of money. The last poet who supported himself with his poetry, near as I can tell, was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. So if there is no money to measure success, success has to be measured by some other marker than cash.

In fiction, the marker is obviously money. Quitting the day job. Living from one’s pen. Poets, however, must come up with some other currency to measure success.

Poets, pure and simple, write for the love of writing. Secondarily they seek prestige and name recognition. Prestige from other poets and the few readers of poetry that are out there. And the thought that when their name is mentioned someone will recognize it. That’s it.

Poets never get rid of the day job, until they retire.

And I am proud to say that I made something of a splash in the micro-poetry world that I chose to write in. I won a few contests, got accepted in some “name” zines, and garnered a bit of name recognition. I was a “success” in the poetry world.

The other day, on Twitter, B. Bernard Ferguson tweeted the quote below. There was no attribution, so I don’t know if the quote is original with him, or copied from another source. Whatever its origin — it’s a beauty.

To all who ever doubted they would become a successful writer…the moment your written words resonate with anyone, including yourself, YOU became a “successful” writer.

I learned the message of that quote writing poetry. Touching another person’s heart and soul — even if only your own — was payment enough.

One man I know, older than I, read one of my poems and told me it helped him understand and come to terms with the dysfunctional relationship he’d had with his father. And I’ve been fortunate to have others express similar comments. That, my friends, is payment enough.

Now I write fiction which has always been my dream, my first love. I don’t make much money. If folks read those free books I gave away, I might have a thousand people who have read my books. But what counts is that I’m having a blast. I’m doing what a mere 25 years ago was impossible — because the technology didn’t exist. I’m writing and publishing books. A dream come true.

And today the self-published stigma, while still present in some circles, is fast disappearing. There are truly excellent self-published books out there. Eat your heart out Big 5!

And along the way of my fiction journey, I’ve touched people. Not a lot, but more than I could have 25 years ago. These folk love Justinia Wright, or Pierce Mostyn, or Bill Arthur. I’ve given them enjoyment and at times something to think about. I’ve helped them enter a different world than the one they live in day to day. I’ve helped them escape boredom, the pressure of their jobs, and even pain. That’s something to think about.

If I never make 4 or 5 figures a month, I will at least leave this life knowing that what I wrote touched other human beings.

I’ve been successful. And that is payment enough.

Share This!