Writer Sanctum
Writer's Haven => Publisher's Office [Public] => Topic started by: quinning on October 01, 2019, 08:50:12 AM
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When I first started hanging around writerly types, this was the big discussion that almost always led to a near fistfight. Do you or don’t you have to put out a book a month to be successful?
I was just thinking about it recently, and I realized that I hadn’t seen this touted so much anymore. Maybe it’s the crowd I run with or something, but when discussions of making money in self-pubbing come up, this is almost NEVER the advice I see given anymore.
Has it really died out or is it just that I am not in the right place to see it?
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I think it's still pretty common advice in the romance genre, but there have also been a lot of people who burned themselves out trying to do it. Only a very small number of authors are "built" to do that year in and year out.
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Most people writing a book a month are probably too busy writing fiction to participate in online discussions. (I managed 10 last year, and I can tell you everything else was pretty much ignored.)
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The rest of the people "writing" a "book" a month are using ghostwriters and/or writing novellas. Except for a handful of outliers, trying to write a book a month all by oneself is a recipe for writer burnout. Even if you could do it one year, could you do it the next year? Would your wife and children and dog and parakeet leave you? I think so.
What I see currently recommended is four books a year. That's civilized. There's time to come up with a great story and polish it and possibly have a life, too, although you'd have to be efficient with your time.
It may be too much for some writers. One or two books a year might be plenty for them.
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Length is an important consideration here. As LilyBLily mentioned, they could be writing novellas.
If, for example, an average novel is 90k words and you write four per year, that's the equivalent of writing twelve 30k word novellas per year.
Another possible factor is whether an author outlines or not. Of course, some authors can write faster one way over the other. For myself, I find when I have an outline, I can write faster because I know where things are going. That doesn't mean there aren't stops and sputters along the way because you might encounter problems you need to work out. Trying to work out a problem can cause delays. It could take days, weeks or even months to resolve properly. Sometimes an outline can avoid that; other times, perhaps not.
Anyway, if outlines work for you, and you could outline twelve stories and know where each is going and have a twelve-story arc or something, then it's just a matter of getting the words down and fleshing out the story.
But, as others have mentioned, you always need to watch out for burnout. I know some people are all like, "sit down and write!" but writing is more mentally taxing than, say, collating papers together. (I know firsthand.) I know I sometimes write about "pounding out words" but it's more complex than that. Plus, you know, using commas correctly. Or trying to. Ugh. Commas.
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Averaging 1000 words a day, which even I can frequently manage and I am a pretty notoriously slow writer, allows publication of four books a year. That is not burnout level for most of us I think and is enough to keep a fan base. I know a few historical fiction authors (that's not true. I only know one who can do that) who do one a month. I can't and won't even try.
ETA: Yesterday I spent an hour researching if the scene I wrote that was in a skiff was even possible, having never even been in a skiff, and if the word 'skiff' was an anachronism. Gah! 🤦
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I totally want to write a book a month. Or two. I am notoriously slow, though, so my all time daily average is 562 words a day. However, I know I could write a book a month, maybe two (approx. 55,000 word books), easily, if I could sit down and write for about 4–5 hours a day. Productive writing, not research, etc. 5 hours is all it would take.
I can't. I have no idea why. I have the time.
Maybe it's the reading. I do read a lot. :D
I'm trying to beat that limit. I want to beat it. I have too many stories to tell and I want them done yesterday to make room for even more stories.
I don't really care if other people think it's a silly goal. That's what I want to do. I'd rather spend 5 hours a day writing than waste it on everything that seems to take up my time these days. I just wish I could get myself to concentrate for that long at a time.
5 x 7 = 35 hours. Knock that down to 4 and it's even less. 4 x 7 = 28.
That isn't even full time job hours here in my part of the world. :D It should totally be possible (for me). I keep trying. Who knows? Maybe I'll make it there someday.
(Also, if my books didn't keep going long. Last one ended up over 115,000 words. It was supposed to be 50,000. :D)
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I totally want to write a book a month. Or two. I am notoriously slow, though, so my all time daily average is 562 words a day. However, I know I could write a book a month, maybe two (approx. 55,000 word books), easily, if I could sit down and write for about 4–5 hours a day. Productive writing, not research, etc. 5 hours is all it would take.
If I could maintain an average of 1,000 words per day, I could finish all of my current WIPs in fourteen years (maybe a little longer since I added a WIP since I last did that calculation). I've done that a few months this year, but last month I only managed an average of around 331 words per day.
(Also, if my books didn't keep going long. Last one ended up over 115,000 words. It was supposed to be 50,000. :D)
My last book had an initial target of about 80-90k. It ended up at 250k+.
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If I could maintain an average of 1,000 words per day, I could finish all of my current WIPs in fourteen years (maybe a little longer since I added a WIP since I last did that calculation). I've done that a few months this year, but last month I only managed an average of around 331 words per day.
My last book had an initial target of about 80-90k. It ended up at 250k+.
I have the same problem. I have months where things go really well and I average, say 1,500 a day (May), then months were I'm lucky to average 31 a day (July) and the reason for the difference isn't obvious to me.
I've started letting myself work on whichever of my WIPs I want each time I sit down to write and my numbers are getting better. I think I fight too hard to work on the "right" project and that steals a lot of my intrinsic motivation to write. When I work on what I want to work on, I get more written each day, sometimes by a significant degree. :)
So, I've decided I'm going to keep that up. Eventually everything will get finished anyway. I trust myself with that. I've written plenty of books and I know I'll get them done.
I can't count on a book to stay within the word count parameters I set. But if I write enough every day, it doesn't really matter how long the books go. :D
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I have months where things go really well and I average, say 1,500 a day (May), then months were I'm lucky to average 31 a day (July) and the reason for the difference isn't obvious to me.
The books I've published so far have been (or were intended to be) humorous. And for a while now, I just don't feel I'm hitting the mark. Maybe it's just me. My beta reader thinks my latest is funny, so I don't know. If I can go weird or funny or funny weird, I can write more whereas with the space opera I'm working on, I'm trying to be more serious with occasional humor and that's going a lot slower than the last book. In a way, I feel hamstrung when I reach something that's too serious (i.e., boring) or where I need to move the story forward in a sensible way and, thus, cannot throw in a talking fish. Yet, when I switch over to writing my lame space opera (which is intended to be humorous), I'm just not feeling it.
Used to be that I could free up my mind a bit with silly posts on forums but I don't seem to be hitting the mark there either.
:shrug
I can't count on a book to stay within the word count parameters I set. But if I write enough every day, it doesn't really matter how long the books go. :D
I set targets, but I don't necessarily like them. A story should be as long as it needs to be, whether that's 10k or 100k words.
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The books I've published so far have been (or were intended to be) humorous. And for a while now, I just don't feel I'm hitting the mark. Maybe it's just me. My beta reader thinks my latest is funny, so I don't know. If I can go weird or funny or funny weird, I can write more whereas with the space opera I'm working on, I'm trying to be more serious with occasional humor and that's going a lot slower than the last book. In a way, I feel hamstrung when I reach something that's too serious (i.e., boring) or where I need to move the story forward in a sensible way and, thus, cannot throw in a talking fish. Yet, when I switch over to writing my lame space opera (which is intended to be humorous), I'm just not feeling it.
Used to be that I could free up my mind a bit with silly posts on forums but I don't seem to be hitting the mark there either.
:shrug
I set targets, but I don't necessarily like them. A story should be as long as it needs to be, whether that's 10k or 100k words.
That's similar to a problem I'm dealing with. I stalled out on one of my novels at 19,000 words because it's in one of my humorous series and I just can't seem to get in the right frame of mind. Nothing is funny! So I moved on to one of my more melodramatic stories and things are going a lot better. But the usual edge of humor I manage for those is also missing. I haven't found many good opportunities to add humor either.
It's annoying because I usually use the humorous books to give me a break from the dramatic and it didn't work this time. :HB
If you figure out how to fix it, let me know! :D
I have targets just so I can kind of pretend I know when I'm going to finish a book, but I never do and it never works out. I had to set a hard rule for myself to never, ever again mention possible publish dates because I can't meet a book deadline to save my life. :D
Like that stalled book I mentioned earlier. I thought I'd have it done in June. I've written on everything else in the world but that book since mid-June. I even wrote and published a novella! :D
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Do you or don’t you have to put out a book a month to be successful?
You most definitely don't have to. I've seen plenty of success stories where people do four or fewer books a year.
That said, if you've found success and you have the time and ability to write more, many choose to. Writers (mostly) enjoy writing, and if your books sell, money can be a powerful incentive to do more.
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Averaging 1000 words a day, which even I can frequently manage and I am a pretty notoriously slow writer, allows publication of four books a year. That is not burnout level for most of us I think and is enough to keep a fan base.
Then there's George RR Martin, who writes 0 books for many years and maintains a fan base.
As for me, I'm falling short of 4 this year but c'est la vie. The year isn't over yet, and I could pull a rabbit and hit 4 novels/year for two years running, but if I don't, I figure I've got a head start into next year with my WIP in the pipeline.
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Not to be too morbid, but there are authors that are dead and, thus, not releasing twelve or even one new book a year, and they still have fan bases.
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I wrote and edited for 14 hours yesterday, finished up with 7100 words on a new novel. That's a bit extreme, but if the words are flowing I just keep going.
Usually I start later in the day and end up with 3k or so.
This is my 27th novel, and my 14th in the last 18 months. Not burning out yet!
They're all roughly 70-75k words too. The last one was 85k.
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I do get burned out when I crank too hard for too long. That said, I let it flow when it flows and I don't fret when it doesn't. Sometimes, I write 12K in a day. Sometimes, I write 0k in 12 days! LOL
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People who can maintain the pace usually have a treadmill desk, and/or they dictate chapters while hiking, and they take breaks and go swimming or do some other quite physical exercise such as pushing a lawnmower. Exercise helps the brain focus, and it takes away any antsy feelings while sitting. It also allows ideas to flow.
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I took today off, mostly, then rewrote the final chapter of my latest.
I'm renovating a house, including landscaping the garden, so there's plenty to do when I'm not in the mood for writing.
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AG Riddle has written, what, six books in as many years? I noticed a few months ago that he was earning at about a $8 million per year rate.
It's useless giving advice that not everyone can follow, but I will anyway. If you can write a short book per month in a hot/hungry/book-a-day- buying genre, do it for as long as you can, but only while you are earning hot and heavy already. Odds are, you'll burn out on that pace, but I say to strike while the iron is hot and save the money for when your income falls off. But if you aren't yet earning at an impressive rate, there's no reason to burn yourself out before that happens. Write at your own sustainable pace and save up your sprint energy for when it will maximize your income. As others have said, unless you're a very rare individual, you won't be able to keep up a quadruple pace for long.
I think all adults who've been doing this for a while know the difference between "This is more work than is comfortable and I can't keep this up forever" and "I'm just being lazy." I suspect this is true of everything we do, including jogging or baking pies or whatever. I can tell what the ideal sustainable point is for me, but I can't tell you what it is for you, nor can Joe Schmo cranking out 20 erotic novellas per year over there correctly assess what my max is in my genre. (And as to baking pies, I'm glad the winter holidays only come once per year.)
If it is helpful to have 30 books for sale, three per year over ten years still gets you the 30 books. If you'd enjoy that journey more than 30 in 24 months, be the tortoise and not the hare.
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I can manage a short story per month but a novel just takes too long because I'm still learning how to craft one. I have to revise a lot to get closer to the story that plays in my head. Each iteration makes it better. At this point, I'd be happy to have one a year. I really admire you all who are writing fast and good. You've internalized the rules of good fiction. I'll get there...:snail
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You guys have achieved two things in this thread:
1. Made me feel better about my pace. I can easily hit 1000 words a day and usually go over, but editing/revising takes me longer and as much as I try I can’t manage two projects at one time.
And
2. Made me feel better about my earning potential. I can probably mange 3-4 books a year once I get the process nailed down.
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The churn strategy doesn't work as well anymore. It's crowded territory and readers are looking for quality, well packaged content.
More people are focusing long term, on building a brand and writing series.
Some people still publish quite often, but they don't put out stuff that looks cheap.
Churn and burn just doesn't work as well as it used to. Good for me, as I'm not a churn person. I write about five books a year and do very well. IMO, you need to write at least three books a year for the best chance at success. Any fewer and you're going too long between releases and building your backlist too slowly.
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Don't know how this will work out but my plan is to write around 8 to 12 books before I start publishing them so I can release them rapidly for a year while writing books 9+/ 13+. After the year I plan to release 3 to 4 books a year. (I hope that after a year I would have made name in my genre, even it's a small one.) :icon_think:
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On a really good day, I can manage 3,000 words, but that does not happen that often. Then there are days like today when I have a scratch in my right eye (don't ask) and I managed to crank out 750 words going "ow! ow! ow!" the whole time.
I try to never miss a day writing at least a few hundred words.
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Don't know how this will work out but my plan is to write around 8 to 12 books before I start publishing them so I can release them rapidly for a year while writing books 9+/ 13+. After the year I plan to release 3 to 4 books a year. (I hope that after a year I would have made name in my genre, even it's a small one.) :icon_think:
This is my plan as well. Though I am going to try to keep the book a month rate up for 2 years then slow down to 4-6 books a year.
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This is such a varied point, and not everyone is built the same. It's relatively easy for me to write 6,000 words in a day if I have an outline. 3,000 is little more than a couple of hours work in the morning. Yet three thousand words a day is a 60,000 word novel in a month.
But I do this full-time.
Which gives me the flexibility if I need to to crank out ten thousand words in a day, if I need to meet a deadline. My publishing goal for all of next year is to do just 4,000 words each and every working day, and taking about six weeks of complete rest. That still allows me to produce 920,000 words, which will be split between two pen names.
People who can maintain the pace usually have a treadmill desk, and/or they dictate chapters while hiking, and they take breaks and go swimming or do some other quite physical exercise such as pushing a lawnmower. Exercise helps the brain focus, and it takes away any antsy feelings while sitting. It also allows ideas to flow.
This is quite an assertion. If you think about it, really, if people are using ghostwriters to maintain high rates of production, as you said earlier in the thread, then presumably those ghostwriters have to write pretty damn fast. I know that an average rate of pay is around three cents/word, so only around $2000 for a full-length novel. Ideally you want someone in a country where English is the first language (especially because ghostwriters in non-English speaking countries command a much lower rate, and on suitable for publishing into the top one hundred).
I have co-authored with a guy who writes 25,000 words a week, every week. I personally probably do around 20,000 a week.
I don't really think that the word "outlier" has much merit if there are so many examples of people who are capable of putting out content fast.
I do agree with Crystal though that the churn and burn method doesn't cut it anymore. If you can't put out well-packaged, high quality material, you will struggle these days more than ever before. It's about brand building, and if you continually disappoint your readers with sub-standard content, then it's impossible to build long-term readers. In the old days there was less competition, and advertising clicks were so much cheaper and higher-converting that it honestly didn't matter if the books were terrible, they would still get bought and they would still get read. Not so much these days.
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If I wrote shorter books I'd be able to release 9-12 times per year. :hehe I've released four books so far this year and am hoping to publish another by Christmas (3 main, 2 pen-name). Books for my pen-name run around 60K a piece while the average word count for books on my main name is 155K.
I strive to have a new release every 90 days to take advantage of that 90-day cycle. That's the point I usually see some drop-off, so I look to avoid that. This means publishing four books per year. The problem I've run across is that I can release this many books per year, but not all on my main name (which frustratingly makes the 90-day cycle point moot). That's 620K words of intense world-building that requires heavy research and prep. I have surpassed this before (published three books for a total of 650K words last year), but that came naturally given my excitement to finish the series and I won't force myself to recreate it. Burnout is a real threat that I refuse to risk.
It's possible to be successful as an indie with only a few releases a year. I'm not rich, but I'm successful enough to be able to do this full-time. I only saw success once I used AMS ads combined with an unintentional rapid release of the first three books of my most-successful series. It helps that I release more quickly in my genre (epic fantasy) than most, and I have a track record of finishing everything I start. Genre is definitely a major consideration.
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One well known author writes a consistent 9000 words a day and is not at all burnt out. She also earns in the region of six figures per month. To say that all or even most writers producing a book a month are burnt out is ridiculous. I usually do 2000 words a day before I fall asleep, but that's more to do with age than anything else.
My own question is: what is the point of making all that money if you don't have time to spend it?
I shall stick to my 2000 a day, which gives me 60,000 words a month, which is usually a novel. You don't have to kill yourself to produce a book a month.
But I could not bear it if my dog left me :dog1:
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I'm starting a new series, and my plan is to finish the first and then put it up for preorder for 2 weeks. (This will give my beta readers time to finish it and get back to me. The novel will be finished and ready, though, and I'll probably have the paperback up 7 days before release day.)
During those 2 weeks I'll be writing book two, and even if that one takes 6 weeks it should still be released about 30 days after the first. Then book three will be ready when it's ready - probably 5-6 weeks.
Not quite one per month, but the extra two weeks at the start will be a big help.
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As others have pointed out, many successful authors publish far less than that. However, I'm not sure whether the trad pubbed examples are as relevant. The trad pub process typically works against rapid release, for a variety of reasons. Readers who mostly purchase trad pubbed books have been trained to accept a much slower flow.
That said, everyone doesn't work the same way. People write at different rates, and while some changes in process might tweak that flow, I suspect that at least some of the factors are not easily manipulated. As Crystal and others have mentioned, readers do expect a certain quality level. Some people have the natural writing speed and the self-discipline to create a good novel a month or even more. If someone can do that, that's great. I strongly suspect that most people can't. There is anecdotal evidence that some people have even burned themselves out trying. I've even seen evidence of burnout among some trad pubbed authors, who are presumably writing at a much slower pace. I won't mention names, but I've run across a couple authors whose series ending books are widely criticized. It appeared to some reviewers that the authors had lost interest and were just churning out a book because a contract required it. For whatever reason, the quality had declined.
For a while, I was feeling down because I couldn't compete with people writing a book a month. I'm just not that fast, and I'm old enough that I can't readily use really long work days to compensate for the speed. I feel much better now because I've stopped trying to compete with them. (I'm not trying to make a living at writing--I know someone whose livelihood depends on writing couldn't necessarily make the same choice.) I realized that I got into writing in the first place because I had stories I wanted to share. Sure, I've had the #1 bestseller, movie deal kind of fantasies and still do. But now I try to look at things through a different lens. Each sale or borrow is one more person I've been able to share with. They don't all love my books, but there are enough that do to keep me going if I think in terms of sharing rather than bottom line. That doesn't mean I've stopped producing professional products. It simply means I write at my own pace and take joy in each sale, even if there aren't many during a given time period.
Interestingly, once I allow myself to relax, my production rate actually went up. It's amazing what reducing the stress can do.
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Not quite one per month, but the extra two weeks at the start will be a big help.
I would be happy with six a year. I know at the rate I write I could knock out a first draft in two weeks, but I sometimes finding myself being ... how should I say it ... LAZY! There, I said it. I'm shooting for 90,000 words in NaNo this month, but I know that if I hit that, I'll be wiped out for at least a week in December. Oh, the life of a retired guy who is not what we would call a "self-starter." :icon_redface: :nerd:
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I've written a grand total of 110 words today, and it's just gone midnight.
I got 5 hours sleep last night, and had a friend over all day. We did some gardening, cooking, computer gaming & decorating, and after all that I decided not to try and get my 3k words for the day.
Sometimes it's important to take a break. I will try and get a thousand done now though.
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I'd love to write a book a month! I really admire fast writers.
Wonder
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As others have pointed out, many successful authors publish far less than that.
Before I began self publishing, my ambition to write included living the often idolized “writer’s lifestyle.” I imagined writing for three or four hours in the morning, having a leisurely lunch followed by a nap; later, a walk or some form of exercise while my subconscious chewed over the day’s output. In the afternoon, editing or reading until dinner--this is not pace one would associate with running a business or marketing enterprise.
In view of the above, along with the idea of writing a book a month, recent discussions on extreme productivity, rapid release strategies, and writing quality, I’m wondering how many of you are NOT striving to treat your writing as a business nor out to make a killing. Rather, you’re writing your books at a comfortable pace and earning a satisfactory income with a minimum level of marketing (?).
When I first landed on KB, I was surprised at all the marketing talk, the unrelenting advice to treat writing like a business, the 10,000 words-a-day manifestos, the fawning over Chris Fox (I don’t want to write in a genre! I don’t want to write to market!), the idolatry of a few mavens writing stuff I would never, EVER read. Instead of finding a literary, writerly crowd, which I had expected, It felt like I’d stumbled into an Amway cult.
I ignored the advice offered on KB aside from creating a mailing list and running AMS campaigns. After a few misfires, it was enough to get my books read and build an audience.
Two plus years into self publishing, AMS consumes fifteen minutes a day at most, usually in five minute bursts. I send NLs when I release a book. So much for marketing (or the business side) of my writing life. If sales sag, and they frequently do, I raise a few bids on AMS.
Productivity-wise, the “writerly lifestyle” I’ve outlined, which is more or less my lifestyle now, allows me to publish two to four books a year, which seem to produce enough income (currently about the median annual salary in the U.S.). I try to write 1500-2000 words a day (including initial editing).
Though occasionally I have 9,000 word days, if I pursued that pace daily my books would be crap. The writing would be okay, but the novels would lose their complexity, logic, and flow. It’s when I’m not writing (not writing those extra 7500 words) that my books really take shape and form a satisfying whole, thanks to those intrusive flashes of insight that occur while I’m far away from the keyboard, even when I’m asleep (when my mind cuts and pastes or adds twists to the day’s output).
I have no envy of the book-a-month crowd, nor of their books nor of their readership, but I respect their work ethic. Web marketing is a tough business. It’s not a lifestyle I would choose to embrace.
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This is funny because it's true. :goodpost:
It felt like I’d stumbled into an Amway cult.
]
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'Do you or don’t you have to put out a book a month to be successful?' [Sorry, no idea how to quote part of a post]
Short answer = No.
Plenty of long answers above, with no doubt good advice, but I make good money from a book a year.
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The sad fact is is that writing as a business is a lot like construction work. There are good times and bad, and just when you think you're at the top and things are smoothing out, things can take a wild dip. If you're not prepared for these, you're going to be caught by surprise. There's really not a lot of stability in careers in the arts.
Reminds me of that article about the woman who spent as if the money was going to keep coming after she sold some books. If you've ever read any of Lawrence Block's writing books, you'll probably be prepared. He's very open about the ups and downs he went through in his career.
Anyone who can write a book a year and make good money should be proud of that--and a little cautious. It could continue, even get more stable, or it could not. I'd be planning for it to not. :D I'd try to get some books in the bank, so to speak for a dip.
One book a year for most people is really not going to cut it long-term. That's the top 1% of authors or an even smaller slice of the pie of all authors earning a living exclusively through writing. If you aim for that, you're probably going to be disappointed. Maybe not, but... yeah. It's like deciding you're going to make a living on lottery winnings. :D
Four books a years is much more common in the earning a living group, and more than that for a lot of people if you count in pen names and the like. And some of those people are not depending 100% on book sales for money either.
Truly, it's different for everyone. If a few books a year don't work, try more, and if that's not doable, try something else until you find something that does work. And if one a year is all you got in you or all you're willing to do, then try anyway and hope for the best. That 1% is made up of people and you never know. Could be you. Just try not to lose hope if it isn't.
I love writing for a living, and I've had some years at this point where I put out one book and made a good living and some where I've put out four and had to scrape by. It really depends on the book, the series, and the pen name and the amount of money I happen to need to get by. :D
Up or down, I wouldn't want to do anything else. If writing a book a month is what it took, I'd be trying a lot harder to write a book a month. As it is, I'd love to be there anyway, because I'd love to finish everything I've started and write a whole lot more besides, long before I die. :D
Lecture done!
TL;DR I don't pander to non-readers. ;D :hehe
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For me, writing an hour a day, doing 2-3 books a year is pretty easy. I can usually spit out a thousand words, sometimes two thousand, sometimes five hundred, in a sitting.
Scaling up, I can go for an hour or two, then my brain begins flagging. My process works precisely because I'm mostly not writing.
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For me, writing an hour a day, doing 2-3 books a year is pretty easy. I can usually spit out a thousand words, sometimes two thousand, sometimes five hundred, in a sitting.
Scaling up, I can go for an hour or two, then my brain begins flagging. My process works precisely because I'm mostly not writing.
Everyone is different, but I find my own process is similar. I may write more than a thousand a day, but the biggest bursts of sustained writing are usually because the ideas have stirred around and coalesced in my head first. Trying to force them out faster doesn't seem to work for me.
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I may write more than a thousand a day, but the biggest bursts of sustained writing are usually because the ideas have stirred around and coalesced in my head first.
If you Google "famous authors daily habits" or "daily word counts famous authors" or similar, you'll find 800 - 1800 WPD and three hours writing time are fairly common (among the traditionally published), meaning three to six months to finish an initial 100k draft. (The authors on those lists cover the full spectrum from genre to literary.)
An outlier like Michael Crichton says he can hit the 10k a day mark, but only in spurts, and it could take months to turn those 10k days into final drafts. Jurassic Park took him eight years from conception to publication.
Reading those "famous author" writing-life summaries reveal many other similarities, the most common being they purposely program "down-time" to give their novels room to breathe.
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I was grateful to find kboards, where people were talking about how to sell books. I didn't need a forum on writing, I needed one on publishing. And one that wasn't focused on the scammy side of things. Some people took the "business" thing too far, in my opinion, which lead to book a month mania. The turn from hoping and trying to sell for more than .99 to "let's sell everything, novels and collections, at .99!" was another self-inflicted wound.
Then there's the "write to market"* ballyhoo, which means write whatever sells at the moment, as fast as you can, no matter how people try to say otherwise. The market this is trying to hit are the readers who use books like some use potato chips, or cocaine. Ebook, take me away!
Now, there's nothing wrong with reading a lot, or liking certain kinds of books, or simple books, or whatever. I've been a huge reader all my life, and for most of it, reading was what saved my sanity. But what most people advocate at "the" market is only a small part of the book-buying public. There are readers out there who don't need endless series, filled with whatever so the books can be drawn out to some ridiculous number, who don't mind if it takes longer than three weeks to get the next installment. The trick is finding them, which has always been the issue with selling books anyway.
I could technically write a book a month. If I sat down and wrote a couple thousand words a day, every day, it's possible. But I don't want to. I don't want to write only what's selling at whatever moment I'm checking the charts (especially since a lot of that is crap, if you keep up with the current scam/SEO nonsense). I don't want to spend thousands of dollars a month to make a small profit, because the said scam/SEO wonks are running ad prices up, because they can and it's "good business".
*And let's not start in with what write to market "really" is, because I'm not buying it. Yes, you need to know genre, what it contains, how to write it. But every single bit of advice I see about WtM is to check the bestseller lists and write books like that. That, in my opinion, is writing trends. There's nothing wrong with that, if that's what you want to do. But don't put lipstick on a pig and tell me it's your Aunt Sally. Because it ain't.
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I've spent 20-25 years writing novels in niche genres, and I earn a living from my work. But just once it would be nice to write a novel where the pool of readers is so much bigger.
For example, when I advertise my scifi comedy series I only have a handful of authors available as targets, most (sometimes all) of whom sell fewer ebooks than I do.
To advertise my humorous fantasy, I target ... another handful of authors. And I have a similar problem.
(The really big names like Pratchett and Adams sell mostly in print editions, not ebooks.)
My WIP is set in 1870s London, and technically write to market, but I grew up reading Jules Verne and HG Wells and the like, and I'm absolutely loving the chance to write something in a very different setting. I'm passionate about researching the era, getting details right, avoiding anachronisms and so on.
But at its heart, this novel is a similar sort of adventure to all my other books, with somewhat quirky characters and plot twists and cliffhangers at the end of most chapters.
Anyway, it's an experiment, but I'm planning on writing another two of these no matter how the first does.
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Then there's the "write to market"* ballyhoo, which means write whatever sells at the moment, as fast as you can, no matter how people try to say otherwise. The market this is trying to hit are the readers who use books like some use potato chips, or cocaine. Ebook, take me away!
You say that like it's a bad thing. Not everyone is looking to do a university-level deep dive into a book. Sometimes, we just want a book that's an easy read, doesn't ask us to think too much and can be read in three or four sittings. Kind of like 99% of the cozy mysteries out there.
I'm like that most of the time because most of my reading time is when I'm lying in bed, winding down from the day. I hardly ever read during the day, spending most of my daytime hours writing or painting.
Sometimes I get a little antsy when I get into a book and realize I'm not going to finish it in less than a week. Such as, right now I'm reading Doctor Sleep. 540+ pages of small print and it's going to take me the better part of two weeks to finish. When I get finished, I'll need to relax with something light and easy to read, like a Hal Spacejock sort of novel. Quick, funny and easy to read. Grin
There are all kinds of readers out there and I'm just looking to capture the imaginations of a handful of them. But, at the same time, I have to watch out! I was talking to one of my elderly aunts last night on the phone and she said she had just finished book two of the Chronicles of Wyndweir. She wanted to know where the hell book three is. I had to own up and admit that I was still writing it. I guess I better get off my lazy ass and get it finished before she decides to drive to Vegas and stand over my shoulder, watching me do my "homework." Yes, she was a teacher for many decades in the Bakersfield, CA. I'd probably end up with a ruler upside my head a couple of times if I wasn't careful. She'd make The Penguin look like Mother Theresa. :icon_eek:
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Then there's the "write to market"* ballyhoo, which means write whatever sells at the moment, as fast as you can, no matter how people try to say otherwise. The market this is trying to hit are the readers who use books like some use potato chips, or cocaine. Ebook, take me away!
You say that like it's a bad thing. Not everyone is looking to do a university-level deep dive into a book. Sometimes, we just want a book that's an easy read, doesn't ask us to think too much and can be read in three or four sittings. Kind of like 99% of the cozy mysteries out there.
I think the ballyhoo reference relates to many KB member's smug insistence that writing-to-market and rapid-release are both a must and represent the only path to success for an indie.
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Then there's the "write to market"* ballyhoo, which means write whatever sells at the moment, as fast as you can, no matter how people try to say otherwise. The market this is trying to hit are the readers who use books like some use potato chips, or cocaine. Ebook, take me away!
You say that like it's a bad thing. Not everyone is looking to do a university-level deep dive into a book. Sometimes, we just want a book that's an easy read, doesn't ask us to think too much and can be read in three or four sittings. Kind of like 99% of the cozy mysteries out there.
I think the ballyhoo reference relates to many KB member's smug insistence that writing-to-market and rapid-release are both a must and represent the only path to success for an indie.
They work for some indies. There are a lot of overgeneralizations that creep into these discussions (and yes, some of them are delivered smugly). I think it's more useful for writers to absorb as much data from successful authors as they can and see how much might be applicable to them.
I could study a successful author and try to imitate every single single work routine and technique that person uses, but that doesn't mean I would automatically become as successful as that person. Perhaps I'm not as talented, but for sure my brain doesn't work in the same way, because none of us are identical. I've seen examples of different people working in the same field who try to use the same techniques. What works well for one may not work for another. That's just the way it is.
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I think it's more useful for writers to absorb as much data from successful authors as they can and see how much might apply to them.
I could study a successful author and try to imitate every single work routine and technique that a person uses, but that doesn't mean I would automatically become as successful as that person. Perhaps I'm not as talented, but for sure my brain doesn't work in the same way, because none of us are identical. I've seen examples of different people working in the same field who try to use the same techniques. What works well for one may not work for another. That's just the way it is.
You cover a lot of bases there. We can mimic a successful writer's marketing strategies (including covers and all that), but we might never achieve the same innate comprehension of their target market, nor have the talent to serve it adequately, if the market is not a reflection of our own tastes (this is my beef with "write-to-market"). Writing 10,000 words a day won't make a difference if you lack that talent.
I do look at successful authors I admire, but not for their monetary success or rankings. I look at their sentences, their word choices, their lyricism, and if that sounds too fruity, let's say the meaning they pack into their paragraphs beyond the strictly narrative. What I'm saying is I try to mimic the writer's talent, but what's in their bank account is of no interest to me.
That's starving artist's talk unless you realize there is a decent living to be found in the mid-rankings, say 30k-300k -- that is if you're serious about your writing and sensible about what topics interest a broad audience and disciplined enough to sit down and write your books.
The truth is, I always rank better than the writers I admire (all traditionally published) thanks to the tricks I've learned in indie publishing.
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That's starving artist's talk unless you realize there is a decent living to be found in the mid-rankings, say 30k-300k -- that is if you're serious about your writing and sensible about what topics interest a broad audience and disciplined enough to sit down and write your books.
Do you have a big catalogue? 30k-300K -->decent living I'm assuming that's a lot of books bouncing around in that range. Just curious.
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The question wasn't directed at me, but I have 22 novels above 300k (above meaning between #1 and #300k, not outside that range), and I make a full time living off my writing. Right now many of them are between #100k and #300k, but I'm having my regular 15th of the month 'half the usual number of sales' day on KDP. (Regular as clockwork)
I'm not aiming to be a great writer, nor the fastest writer, and fame doesn't even come into it. I'm perfectly happy with 'slightly above average and I don't need a day job'.
On the other hand I live in Australia, so no health insurance required. I always mention that because I know it's a factor.
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That's starving artist's talk unless you realize there is a decent living to be found in the mid-rankings, say 30k-300k -- that is if you're serious about your writing and sensible about what topics interest a broad audience and disciplined enough to sit down and write your books.
Do you have a big catalogue? 30k-300K -->decent living I'm assuming that's a lot of books bouncing around in that range. Just curious.
Additionally, it's important to define what "decent living" means.
A retired individual living in Harlingen, TX will define it differently than a 45-year-old individual living in Manhattan, NY. The former might define "decent living" as netting $20,000 a year. The latter might define it as netting $200,000 a year.
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Do you have a big catalogue? 30k-300K -->decent living I'm assuming that's a lot of books bouncing around in that range. Just curious.
I've published nine novels and three novellas. A decent living for me is $50k.
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Do you have a big catalogue? 30k-300K -->decent living I'm assuming that's a lot of books bouncing around in that range. Just curious.
I've published nine novels and three novellas. A decent living for me is $50k.
Congratulations! Many of the people whom I know make a living have larger catalogs than that. You must really have found methods that work well for you to be making a living at this point in your career.
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Thanks for sharing the info.
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A retired individual living in Harlingen, TX will define it differently than a 45-year-old individual living in Manhattan, NY. The former might define "decent living" as netting $20,000 a year. The latter might define it as netting $200,000 a year.
This is the first time I've ever heard of Harlingen, Texas. I googled it. It's apparently a suburb of Brownsville.
I've never been to Texas. I really need to remedy that some day. The farthest west I've ever been is Baton Rouge. I've been to Africa, but I haven't seen the American West. :confused:
On the other hand I live in Australia, so no health insurance required.
It's not required for me, either. ;)
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The sad fact is is that writing as a business is a lot like construction work. There are good times and bad, and just when you think you're at the top and things are smoothing out, things can take a wild dip. If you're not prepared for these, you're going to be caught by surprise. There's really not a lot of stability in careers in the arts.
Reminds me of that article about the woman who spent as if the money was going to keep coming after she sold some books. If you've ever read any of Lawrence Block's writing books, you'll probably be prepared. He's very open about the ups and downs he went through in his career.
Anyone who can write a book a year and make good money should be proud of that--and a little cautious. It could continue, even get more stable, or it could not. I'd be planning for it to not. :D I'd try to get some books in the bank, so to speak for a dip.
One book a year for most people is really not going to cut it long-term. That's the top 1% of authors or an even smaller slice of the pie of all authors earning a living exclusively through writing. If you aim for that, you're probably going to be disappointed. Maybe not, but... yeah. It's like deciding you're going to make a living on lottery winnings. :D
Four books a years is much more common in the earning a living group, and more than that for a lot of people if you count in pen names and the like. And some of those people are not depending 100% on book sales for money either.
Truly, it's different for everyone. If a few books a year don't work, try more, and if that's not doable, try something else until you find something that does work. And if one a year is all you got in you or all you're willing to do, then try anyway and hope for the best. That 1% is made up of people and you never know. Could be you. Just try not to lose hope if it isn't.
I love writing for a living, and I've had some years at this point where I put out one book and made a good living and some where I've put out four and had to scrape by. It really depends on the book, the series, and the pen name and the amount of money I happen to need to get by. :D
Up or down, I wouldn't want to do anything else. If writing a book a month is what it took, I'd be trying a lot harder to write a book a month. As it is, I'd love to be there anyway, because I'd love to finish everything I've started and write a whole lot more besides, long before I die. :D
Lecture done!
TL;DR I don't pander to non-readers. ;D :hehe
This is why I think financial independence discussions should be a vital and ongoing conversation amongst writers actually making a living at this.
The flood of gold needs to be preserved, thrown into index funds with an aim of having enough to live off if Amazon boots you.
I'm acutely aware I'm entirely reliant on Amazon. I've made money wide but the other stores are a joke compared to Amazon. Even diversification to audiobooks is still just Amazon and the recent ACX ban just shows how quick it can be taken away.
Years ago I had novels that reliably would make $50K in a reasonable time. Then in came KU and now the same novel makes around $20-35K. I can sit and work out the pages read and convert them to sales and my novels now still are on level with the pre-KU ones. The only difference now is that instead of making 70% of $4.99 per sale, I'm getting $0.0045 per page and the rest of that money stays in Amazon's pocket.
I'm pretty cynical about the next five to ten years. I don't think Amazon will ever stop reducing royalties. They started with 35% and only went to 70% because Apple entered the game.
But they can read the landscape. They cut audible from 70% to 40% and there's not much anyone can do. They are the biggest game in town and other places have even worse terms for weaker distribution and sales.
I'm coming out of a period of disrupted writing due to having two children and now I'm starting to pedal like a motherf*cker again. Plans of stock up on manuscripts, release one a month have been replaced with get them out as fast as possible, take the royalties and keep them in the bank.
I really don't trust Amazon at all. If they could Spotify us with royalties they would and may still. It'll just be some new per page calculation model that will come out and suddenly that $0.0045 per page will be a fever dream as payouts will be 1/3 or even less than that.
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This is why I think financial independence discussions should be a vital and ongoing conversation amongst writers actually making a living at this.
You might enjoy reading this revealing article on author income from The Authors Guild (both traditionally and self-published):
https://www.authorsguild.org/industry-advocacy/six-takeaways-from-the-authors-guild-2018-authors-income-survey/
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The only difference now is that instead of making 70% of $4.99 per sale, I'm getting $0.0045 per page and the rest of that money stays in Amazon's pocket.
While I will agree with the sentiment that we would make more from an actual sale, Amazon really isn't getting to keep any money from their KU side of the business. They sell a membership for ten dollars a month and those readers can read one book a month or a hundred books a month. Amazon, themselves, would have to see that they could make more from the sale of a book than from page reads. I wouldn't mind seeing KU go tits-up, but then again, we do make some money from it. Might as well enjoy it while it lasts.
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Over the past 30 days my income has been split 50/50 between KU and royalties. (I'm all-in now with Amazon)
But the page reads haven't cannibalised my sales, because without them it was a pretty normal month. The only difference is that I've been advertising heavily (for me) on AMS to get page reads.
In other words, 2 steps forward and one step back.
I'm still tweaking ads daily, trying to hit the sweet spot between getting reads and having a runaway spend on one ad because I'm outbidding. At first I know I was paying too much but did so anyway, because it was bringing my rankings up.
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The only difference now is that instead of making 70% of $4.99 per sale, I'm getting $0.0045 per page and the rest of that money stays in Amazon's pocket.
While I will agree with the sentiment that we would make more from an actual sale, Amazon really isn't getting to keep any money from their KU side of the business. They sell a membership for ten dollars a month and those readers can read one book a month or a hundred books a month. Amazon, themselves, would have to see that they could make more from the sale of a book than from page reads. I wouldn't mind seeing KU go tits-up, but then again, we do make some money from it. Might as well enjoy it while it lasts.
Netflix has 151 million subscribers, taking in roughly $1.5 billion a month.
How many KU subscribers do you think there are?
September was $25.9 million they put into the pot. That's roughly 2.5 million KU subscribers to pay for that.
I think Amazon has far more than 2.5 million KU subscribers. Once the pot money is filled, the rest goes into Amazon's pocket.
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Over the past 30 days my income has been split 50/50 between KU and royalties. (I'm all-in now with Amazon)
But the page reads haven't cannibalised my sales, because without them it was a pretty normal month. The only difference is that I've been advertising heavily (for me) on AMS to get page reads.
In other words, 2 steps forward and one step back.
I'm still tweaking ads daily, trying to hit the sweet spot between getting reads and having a runaway spend on one ad because I'm outbidding. At first I know I was paying too much but did so anyway, because it was bringing my rankings up.
Well, I certainly saw a cut to my sales when I pulled my ebooks from wide and put them all back in KU. Like you, I am experimenting with AMS right now, trying to find "sweet spot" and I can get it going back and forth. I started off my latest set of ads at .30 cents per bids and was getting well over 10K impressions a day. I know a lot of authors get 10K in twenty minutes, but I'm a small fish. Then I dropped my bids to .20 cents across the board and saw the impressions go down by 2/3 and clicks about the same. I went back to .30 a few days ago and saw them rise back to where they were before the cut. On the 21st, I'm going to drop to .25 cents and see how that affects things.
One thing I'm cognizant of is this is the beginning of the holiday season, so my little experiments may mean nothing in the long run. I'm already planning to run the same experiments during the first three months of 2020 and see how that goes. I want to let each price point run for an entire month.
One thing I am beginning to see is that the standard ad is just as effective as the custom ad with the small blurb, making your idea of combining multiple books in one campaign a no-brainer.
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I do get burned out when I crank too hard for too long. That said, I let it flow when it flows and I don't fret when it doesn't. Sometimes, I write 12K in a day. Sometimes, I write 0k in 12 days! LOL
This is me. Sometimes, I meet my daily goal (3000 words) every day in a week. Other weeks, I go for four or five days without writing. Then, I make up for it, but 7,000 words is my absolute limit and that burns me out for a day or so so it averages out to between 2,000 - 3,000 words each writing day. I don't write every day. I write 4 or 5 days a week when I am actively writing a book. Then I have editing and planning weeks between books. I spend 10% of my revenues on advertising, including Facebook ads and promos like Bookbub and Fussy Librarian, Freebooksy.
It's not necessary to write 12 books a year to make a living at this. It all depends on what you write and how big your market is. I will have published 6 novels and 2 three-book collections of those books this year and will make $200K. Maybe if I did publish 12 books, I would make more but not necessarily twice as much money. It depends on how well my books are received, how much advertising I do, etc.
There is no guarantee except that if you don't finish books and publish them, you'll never know.