I have had a fistful of letters to the editor published, but the only money I've made so far from a letter is one I edited for another scribe. How could I make money from a letter of my own like you did, Jan?

For music lovers, an excellent story about string quartets, the joy of play and improvisation: https://vijayabodach.blogspot.com/2025/03/pick-up-notes-by-jane-lebak.html

In the old days, making trailers yourself could be fun if you knew what you were doing. I remember enjoying it. But I have no evidence that it helped sales.

Back then, YouTube used to have an ad option where you could specify who to advertise to by zip code. I tried advertising in the zip code where the book was set. Lots of views, no sales as far as I could tell.

As far as screenplays are concerned, yeah, there are companies that will get a screenplay written for you. What they don't tell you is that selling an unagented screenplay is pretty much impossible. The big studios and even most indies pursue projects they want to pursue, for the most part. Producing a movie version of a self published novel is not normally among them.

Amazon Studios used to have a crowd sourced way to get a screenplay produced. Some movies and TV series were actually produced this way. For instance, I remember the middle grades show, Gortimer Gibbon: Life on Normal Street, which had high views and won awards. But Amazon closed that option down at about the same time it closed down Kindle Scout (crowdsourced access to an Amazon imprint). It's too bad, because both had a kind of Cinderella potential, where theoretically anyone could make it through. (A relatively new author ended up with a series of high-selling books this way. They were still doing well the last time I checked--years after their first publication.)

Yes, I miss the old days. 

Thanks for the input 

Yeah, the only time I ever got much out of Smashwords was when I made books free for a promotion. Sigh!

Tiffmeister, if you like publishing in serial format, I'd suggest taking a look at Substack.

I think part of what killed Vella was that readers began to realize they ended up paying a lot more to read the equivalent of a novel than they would if they'd just bought the novel. Substack operates on a much more flexible model that makes it easier to make it seem like good value-for-dollar to prospective readers. It's a tiered system--people can subscribe for free, subscribe at a specific rate per month or per year, or become "founding members" or something similar--pick the term that works.

As a writer, you describe how much you want to let each tier to have access to. Some people paywall everything but the first few episodes of a serial. Some people leave all current episodes free but paywall the archive (and decide when older posts get archived). Some people leave everything free and let people pay to subscribe out of the goodness of their hearts (which does happen occasionally).

You decide how much you post. Consistency is important, but readers typically don't expect (and might not even want) a constant bombardment. One of two episodes a week is enough. You can post exclusively one serial or have two or more going at the same time. Posts are delivered to subscribers in the form of an email newsletter. They are also readable online, as Substack creates what amounts to an individual website for each participating author. (It's a little like having an author blog, except that it's bundled with thousands of other author blogs, all in one place. There is obviously competition for attention, but it's also possible that someone drawn to Substack by someone else will find you. I get many times the number of views on my substack than I get on my original blog.

As you can imagine, the flexibility leaves open a lot of possibilities. You can be a hobbyist and publish just to have an audience. You can make some serious money, too, though that's easier with nonfiction than with fiction. If you like, you can write just the books that you were going to write anyway, publishing a chapter at a time to Substack. (If you write faster, you can schedule for publication later--I'm currently scheduled two months out.) Some Substackers explicitly label their posts as a pre-publication copy. Later, you can do a final edit, publish as an ebook, and offer subscribers free copies (or not, as you prefer).

If you want more info or have questions, here's the thread for that: https://writersanctum.com/index.php?board=69.0