Anyone here a published writer of novels?

[Sempiternity]

I have a few questions on the field of writing books and getting published.

[flume]

I know @JosephKnecht did and @Nahm is in the process of writing one

[JosephKnecht]

I am Self-published.  

Feel free to ask your questions. I will try to answer based on my knowledge. 

[Yarco]

I've self-published several non-fiction on Amazon/Kindle. Haven't got around to writing my novel yet.

My general advice would be:

- Don't look for publishers or agents and beg someone to take your book. The market is so over-saturated that even JK Rowling got rejected 12 times before someone would finally publish Harry Potter. You can self-publish and make six-figures a year.

- Don't listen to typical "artsy" writers for advice. 80% of these people have been working on their novel for years but have never published something, or they're working on some passion project that will never sell copies when they do finally publish.

- Emulate people like Chris Fox. Go watch all his Youtube videos and maybe spend a couple dollars to buy the e-book versions of his writing business related books. He will give you a good idea of what is possible as a fiction writer and something to strive for. Ie. writing 5,000 words per hour, and finishing a book in one or two months if you're working on it full-time. Plus writing to market and/or knowing how to market your book once you launch it.

[Danioover9000]

@Sempiternity

22 minutes ago, Yarco said:

I've self-published several non-fiction on Amazon/Kindle. Haven't got around to writing my novel yet.

My general advice would be:

- Don't look for publishers or agents and beg someone to take your book. The market is so over-saturated that even JK Rowling got rejected 12 times before someone would finally publish Harry Potter. You can self-publish and make six-figures a year.

- Don't listen to typical "artsy" writers for advice. 80% of these people have been working on their novel for years but have never published something, or they're working on some passion project that will never sell copies when they do finally publish.

- Emulate people like Chris Fox. Go watch all his Youtube videos and maybe spend a couple dollars to buy the e-book versions of his writing business related books. He will give you a good idea of what is possible as a fiction writer and something to strive for. Ie. writing 5,000 words per hour, and finishing a book in one or two months if you're working on it full-time. Plus writing to market and/or knowing how to market your book once you launch it.

   I've also experienced this area, and if you're new to this, start with writing short stories first, because those tangible results will be much easier to plan, organize and execute. Don't overshoot if you're not too comfortable writing, and remember, far more important is your psychology towards writing. I think Leo has a past video on overcoming creative blocks, so good video to brush up on.

[Sempiternity]

Sorry, got sidetracked.

Great advice so far, guys!

Here's my questions:

I understand and agree that Self Publishing is the way to go. If you alone are responsible for your own publishing, marketing, advertising, etc., how do you reach enough people to get decent book sales?

Do book sales increase over time, as more people discover your book, or do sales start strong as it's the new book on the block, and sales decrease from there? 

What kind of money can be made from a book? I know this is relative, and many factors play into this. But, lets say it's a really good book that gets some good reviews and a little attention. What kind of range could I be looking at? What could the yearly residuals look like? What factors, beyond popularity, can increase sales? Trying to determine how much being a novelist can create a comfortable living income. 


 

[Yarco]

2 hours ago, Sempiternity said:

Sorry, got sidetracked.

Bad sign

2 hours ago, Sempiternity said:

If you alone are responsible for your own publishing, marketing, advertising, etc., how do you reach enough people to get decent book sales?

Like I said in my last post, all the information is already out there, you just have to follow step-by-step information and do it. Chris Fox has books like "Write to market: Deliver a book that sells", "Ads for authors who hate math", "Six figure author: Using data to sell books", "Launch to market, easy marketing for authors" and more for $4 each. This is someone who made over $200k from his novels last year that is just giving the formula away. Or spend the time to go research this stuff all on your own if you're too cheap to invest $20

2 hours ago, Sempiternity said:

Do book sales increase over time, as more people discover your book, or do sales start strong as it's the new book on the block, and sales decrease from there? 

Starts strong and dies off over time if you don't do anything

2 hours ago, Sempiternity said:

What kind of money can be made from a book? I know this is relative, and many factors play into this. But, lets say it's a really good book that gets some good reviews and a little attention. What kind of range could I be looking at? What could the yearly residuals look like? What factors, beyond popularity, can increase sales? Trying to determine how much being a novelist can create a comfortable living income. 

You're right, it's too relative to give an answer for. But like I said, there are dozens of case studies of novelists out there making six-figures a year from self publishing, year after year, if you are willing to just do what they do. Just go find out who they are and what they do, and do the same. Most authors don't follow the right steps and make next-to-nothing as a result, so I can't give you any kind of average. It's a field with huge disparity. From millionaire rockstars to poets who live on unemployment for their entire life.

Personal anecdote: I made a little over $400 in totally passive income in 2020 from 4 e-books I wrote in 2015 - 2017. I did many things wrong when I wrote them and set everything up. They're of low-quality with self-made covers and none of them are more than 20,000 words long. I've done 0 marketing for them. I don't look at them, I don't touch them, and they keep bringing in a few hundred bucks per year.

For a 70,000-word novel an intermediate-level writer should be able to plan and plot out a book in about 20 hours, write it in 200, and maybe another 50 editing it. Let's round up to 300 hours per book, or about 2 months working nearly full-time. If you value your time at $50/hr (that's $100k/yr at 40 hours a week) then you should be happy if your book makes $15k in the first year, and anything after that is a bonus. With some good marketing, a $15k launch doesn't seem like that ambitious of a goal.

If you really want to make a comfortable living as a novelist, you should really be pumping out at least 3 or 4 books per year. So work your butt off for 2 months at a time, then take a 1 month break in between to avoid burnout and work 1-2 hours per day on marketing and doing your book launch during those "off months."

Don't plan to live on residuals. Don't look at writing a novel as a get-rich-quick scheme where you hope to hit the jackpot on one book and never have to work again. That might happen for 1% of books and a lot of it is luck. There's almost no other career that someone would approach with that mindset.

Expect that you're going to have to keep writing multiple books a year to make a living. Plan on 80% of your income coming from books you write that year, 20% from residual sales. If you can't see yourself writing at least 2,000 words per day on average, every weekday, for the next 30 years of your life... then being a writer probably isn't your life purpose. If you're going to be an author, then be a PROLIFIC one like Stephen King or Isaac Asimov and plan to write at least 100 books in your lifetime.

Edited March 17, 2021 by Yarco

[Sempiternity]

@Yarco  Thank you so much for all the invaluable info!

I'm not necessarily looking to be that prolific. To me it's more of my art / creative outlet. If it made enough of an income to live comfortably, that'd be great, if not I'm cool with that too, as I've got another source of income. I want creativity and connecting to an audience to be my driving passion, not making as much money as I can off it. 15K a year would be well worth it to me. Anything more, would be an appreciated bonus. 

I'll most definitely check out the Chris Fox books you suggested.