making money writing

Looking Back: Ten Years Ago

Ten years ago I was 61. My wife had given me the okay to retire at 62 if I wished. And boy was I ever looking to retire and get out of the toxic county work environment that I’d endured for 30 years.

What I Wrote

In February 2014, I completed my massively sprawling post-apocalyptic epic The Rocheport Saga. A novel over 2200 handwritten pages long. The published seven volumes comprise about a third of the original manuscript. So there is lots more to add, if I decide to continue the saga.

In the spring and early summer of that year, I wrote Trio in Death-Sharp Minor and Festival of Death. The first two books in the Justinia Wright Private Investigator Mystery series.

During the summer, I wrote the first Lady Dru Drummond decopunk action-adventure novel: The Moscow Affair. And I edited Do One Thing For Me (a horror novelette) for publication.

Then I published the entire shooting match in November and December.

Dreamin’ of Riches

And like most writers, I immediately started dreaming about what I’d do with all the royalty money I’d be getting.

However, reality is a harsh mistress. And the money… Well, I quickly discovered that I was in the same league as the vast majority of fiction writers: we make very little to no money from our books. A sad tale, but true.

Although, I can say I am better off than many of my peers. Because, without any significant advertising, I have made at least $200 every year I’ve been at this indie writing/publishing gig. The operative phrase being without any significant advertising.

And last year, again without any significant advertising, I had my best year ever: pulling in around $630. Not a king’s ransom by any means. But I spent less than $30 in advertising and expended very little time hawking my books. The major “cost” was in writing, editing, and formatting — all which I did myself.

My hope is that one of these years before I die I’ll break that $1000 mark in income from my books. So stay tuned.

How to Make a Buck

One key to making a buck writing fiction these days is to orchestrate a massive advertising campaign, often to the tune of thousands of dollars. And hoping you sell enough books to break even. Few do. Even so, this is what almost all the gurus advise. Advertise, advertise, advertise.

Another tried-and-true method is direct sales. Man a booth at a fair, book festival, or convention.

I know authors who have actually sold many thousands of copies of their books doing so. The downside is that your weekends are tied up and you have to lug around curtains of your books. But you can make a living by selling direct. Just too busy and too much traveling for my liking.

Social Media

Generally speaking, social media is a bust. I haven’t gotten any book sale traction via social media for a few years now. In fact, I’ve pulled back severely on my social media involvement. The results aren’t worth the time investment.

Social media’s value, IMO, is in meeting other authors.

Kickstarter?

A venue not often mentioned by the gurus is Kickstarter. However, the platform is drawing name authors who are trying to generate sales and getting followers.

The success of Brandon Sanderson on the platform has kickstarted quite a few writers to give it a try. And when even unknown or little known writers pull in tens of thousands of dollars on their campaigns, it gives one something to think about.

Of course, there is work to organizing and conducting a Kickstarter campaign, but then there is work with everything. Except if you choose to do nothing. No work involved in that.

And this year…

So what’s on my docket for this year? Writing, of course. I’m also planning on giving Kickstarter a try. I’ll use the platform for the launch of my ninth Pierce Mostyn book. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

But you won’t find me going to book fairs, conventions, and what not. I’m retired. I don’t need to make a buck at this venture. As one writer friend says, “I’m just writing for the larks.”

If you join my mailing list

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you’ll find out the latest and greatest, maybe get some free stuff, and get curated content.

That’s all for now folks!

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

CW Hawes is a playwright; award-winning poet; and a fictioneer, with a bestselling novel. He’s also an armchair philosopher, political theorist, social commentator, and traveler. He loves a good cup of tea and agrees that everything’s better with pizza.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider buying me a cup of tea. Thanks! PayPal.me/CWHawes

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How Much Money?

How much money would you need to earn in royalties in order for you to quit your day job? That would be your salary plus benefits. How much?

Back in the 90s, when Clinton was president and the Democrats controlled Congress, there was talk of redefining income as your salary plus benefits — for tax purposes. In other words, you’d be taxed on your income + benefits.

My employer gave us a printout of what our salary plus benefits would be for tax purposes. Mine would’ve double. About $100,000 back then.

As a self-employed writer, to quit the day job, you need to replicate your salary and your benefits package. So how much would that be? We’re talking your wages, vacation and sick leave pay, health insurance, and retirement. In addition, self-employment tax is roughly double social security and Medicare withholdings. You may also have to add in your employer’s portion of health insurance and retirement.

I bet we’re talking a lot of money for some of you.

If I was still working, the amount would be roughly $150,000.

If you are selling your ebooks for $3.99, and you get a 70% royalty, the amount you earn per book is about $2.70. Which means, in my case, I’d have to sell 55,556 ebooks each year in order for me to quit my day job — and make roughly the same salary plus benefits.

That is one heck of a lot of ebooks.

Now that number can be reduced to some degree with paperback sales, audiobook sales, and KU page reads. But I’d have to have a lot of paperback and audiobook sales and page reads to significantly alter that number of ebook sales. And that isn’t going to happen without a deep back list of titles.

So to quit your day job, depending on how much your salary plus benefits equal, it is conceivable that you’ll have to sell about 152 ebooks every day. Give or take.

However, we haven’t figured in the cost of production to produce those ebooks, paperbacks, and audiobooks. Which means that you will probably have to sell more than 152 ebooks every day.

Is it any wonder most writers don’t earn a living from selling books? They end up doing other things; such as, offering courses, or becoming ghost writers, or becoming editors. Writing their own books becomes a side thing they do so that they can still call themselves writers.

If we define writing success as making money, it seems to me we’re setting ourselves up for failure. Not that it can’t be done, because it is possible. And so is winning the lottery.

I’ve run across a number of good writers who were daunted by the magnitude of these numbers. They realized that they were not going to make money anytime soon. They realized that earning money from writing is a long game proposition. And when they made that discovery, they became discouraged and quit. Which is sad, because they were good writers and now we don’t get to read their books.

I’m lucky. I’m retired. I have an income and don’t have to work 8 to 5 to get it. For me, I’d simply like to cover the expenses that this writing gig incurs. Because otherwise, it is a doggone expensive hobby.

But if you have the dream of paying for your bread-and-butter peddling stories, go ahead and give it a try. But please do understand that you’re playing the long game. And plan accordingly.

How much money do you need to replace your day job? It’s more than just your paycheck.

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

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Who Am I To Talk?

Every now and again I write about writing. Specifically, writing fiction. And some may ask what are my credentials? What gives me the right to give you advice on fiction writing?

Those are good questions. In my years of writing for publication, I have not been on a bestseller list. I’ve garnered some awards for poetry, but not for fiction. And I’ve yet to earn a hundred dollars a month writing fiction.

So what gives me the right to talk to you about fiction writing? What do I know that you don’t?

Derek Doepker talks and writes about Content Curation. You see, we live in an age of information overload. There’s just too much of it out there. How do we know what’s good, bad, and just plain ugly?

Well, that’s where I come in. I curate the content for you. I do so based on my years, many years, of reading and observing other writers, many of them successful, as well as steering you away from the mistakes I’ve made. I sift out the chaff, and present you with the wheat. And I do it for free. I don’t charge you anything for what I share. It is all free to you.

I hadn’t thought of myself as a content curator until Derek Doepker mentioned that being a content curator is one way I can be of service to those folks who subscribe to my mailing list. And if I can do that for my mailing list, I can also do it for readers of my blog.

So who am I to talk? I am a nearly 69-year-old guy who’s been reading about fiction writing for the past 57 or so years. More years than some of you have been breathing. I’ve taken creative writing classes and writing courses. I’ve talked with successful writers and I’ve observed what the moneymaking writers do and don’t do.

In addition, I have plenty of life experience that helps me to smell out the scam artists. Those folks who are in it just for the money and not to help you. The PT Barnums of the world who believe there is a sucker born every minute, and that sucker may just be you.

I cut out the bull crap for you, because I wish there had been more people to cut out the crap for me.

Remember, my friends, writing is analogous to the gold rush. Just as the ones who made money in the gold rush were not the prospectors, but the ones who sold the shovels, the wagons, and the blue jeans to the prospectors — so to, most of the people who make money in the writing business, are the ones selling advice and software to wannabe authors.

It’s easy in this writing gig to get-poor-quick. In fact, that’s usually what happens. Especially with fiction writing. My goal is to help you not fall into that trap. I don’t want you to be the proof that PT Barnum was right.

One more thing. If you seriously want to make money writing fiction, write non-fiction instead.

Not only is there a much, much better chance of making money writing non-fiction, but if you get sufficiently well-known — people will buy anything you write. That’s what happened to a late friend of mine.

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

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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. 🙂

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Writing’s Purpose

Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it’s about enriching the lives of those who read your work, and enriching your own life as well. It’s about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Getting happy.

(Stephen King, in On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft)

One of my favorite inspirational books is Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke.

However, as with anything written by the human hand, it is not perfect. Because people aren’t perfect.

In the first letter, Rilke tells the young poet

Perhaps you…are called to be an artist. Then take that destiny upon yourself, and bear it, its burden and its greatness, without ever asking yourself what reward might come from outside.

Rilke is saying essentially the same thing as King in the quote with which I began this post.

In a discussion I had with the late Jane Reichhold (who was a premier American writer and translator of haiku), I mentioned that it seemed to me the flaw in Rilke’s advice to the young poet was that Rilke himself was published and famous — and that he was telling the young unpublished poet to not worry about getting published or famous.

Jane’s answer was simply, “And there you have it.”

In other words, it’s easy for the famous and those who are wealthy to tell the rest of us — Don’t worry or concern yourself about fame or wealth.

To my mind, that touches a bit on hypocrisy.

For the record, Jane Reichhold encouraged me to pursue publishing and fame, if I could get it. And there you have it.

Mind you, I don’t disagree with Rilke or King. But I don’t wholly agree with them either. After all, Rilke is one of the most famous Twentieth century poets and King is a multi-millionaire (and he made all his money writing).

Writing is very much about enriching the lives of others. Writing is very much about getting happy. It is also a calling, and if we’re called to it I believe we must follow that calling and not look back.

But for Mr King to write, “Writing isn’t about making money” — when, I repeat, he’s a multi-millionaire — is just a wee bit hypocritical. Keep in mind, he didn’t self-publish his books and give them away. He got a contract with a publisher and made a lot of money.

Nor do I think King is in the majority among those who currently practice, or have in the past practiced, the craft of writing fiction.

I doubt Shakespeare would have agreed with him. Bill wrote for money. I don’t think Nathaniel Hawthorne, or Louisa May Alcott would agree. They wrote for money, especially Alcott — and she made no apologies for doing so.

Anthony Trollope boldly declared his whole purpose in writing was to make money.

Edgar Wallace (he created King Kong) was in the same camp. So was Rex Stout, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Murray Leinster, Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, and my late friend Jack Koblas.

Robert E Howard wanted to be a writer, he told HP Lovecraft, because it gave him freedom. What he didn’t tell Lovecraft was that a large part of that freedom was not having to work 9 to 5 to make money. Because Howard very clearly wrote for a paycheck.

Salinger didn’t like the publicity success brought, but he didn’t turn down the money. He ultimately became a recluse. Writing didn’t make him happy, apparently.

I think King is on the money about enriching lives. The books and stories I remember most are those that in some manner enriched me, usually by bringing me joy. As a reader, I want my books to bring me some manner of joy and happiness. To enrich my life.

As a writer, I want to enrich the lives of others, as well as my own. Very much so.

But I also want money, and I wouldn’t mind a little bit of fame to go along with that money. I want people to read my books and I want them to smile when they see or hear my name. Like I’m an old friend who always brings them a gift.

And I don’t think there’s anything wrong in wanting that either.

Would Shakespeare have written all those plays and enriched generations — if he hadn’t made money? We’ll never know. But he did make money and he kept on writing. That we do know.

Louisa May Alcott’s father, Bronson Alcott, was a thinker and totally inept at providing for his family. Louisa wrote because the family needed to eat and pay the rent. But millions have been enriched by Little Women.

I could go on naming author after author who has enriched our lives. And virtually all of them wrote for money. And I’m glad they did.

In the end, writing is about enriching lives. I’ve enriched a few lives with my poetry. It’s a good feeling. There’s no money in poetry. But there is fame. The poets who are the most successful enrichers, the ones who have the largest readership — are also the ones who are famous to one degree or another. If you can’t be rich, you can at least be famous.

Mr King’s statement is very noble sounding. But it’s as much a fiction as are his books.

As a reader, I want writers to make money. Making money means people are buying their books. Which most likely means they will keep on writing.

Ask yourself, you readers, how many books do you read by writers who don’t sell anything?

I asked myself that question. It started me on a crusade to champion the underdog. Those writers who aren’t getting the readers they deserve.

Today I pretty much eschew bestsellers. Those authors don’t need me. Or you, for that matter. But many excellent writers, whose books aren’t selling, do need you. They need your and my support so they will keep writing and can enrich many, many lives.

Every Monday on Facebook I post the Book of the Week. Singing the praise of an undiscovered gem. Take a look at my Facebook page and discover some very good and even excellent books and authors. Let’s help some writers make money.

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

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