How To Lose A Third Of A Million Dollars Without Really Trying

[Denise]

But now I don't know why she's whining about 20k advances. Geez, write two books a year and do a couple extras on the side.

The problem is selling two books a year.  Finding a publisher is possible if you can write well in a defined genre, but far from easy. Finding two so you can get books out faster than any one trade publisher wants is lottery odds and can run you into contract issues if you aren't careful in how they're worded.

Very true. I forgot that.

[Lynn]

Let me just say that if I hadn't had a serious dip in productivity in 2017-2018 and was still recovering sales momentum due to two years of one release each, I would have the perfect proof for this math.

I sell my books at 6.99 each, and yeah, his math works out pretty well for my little niche-y books, assuming regular releases.

I'll be honest, I sat down to do the math to prove him wrong because when I read it, the first thing I did was scoff. :D But shows what I know.

ETA: I do a mailing list for new releases only and no other promo at all. I do have a well-maintained website for my pens. :D

[Joe Vasicek]

Dean does the math.

https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/the-math/

And assumes all authors can sell 500 copies per title at $6.99 every year never-ending without any marketing costs.

He addresses this in the comments:

Scott, you take a deep breath, put them out, ignore all the idiots about advertising and who are in a hurry to make a few bucks, and write. Let your books build. They will average over time far above the 42 per month if you do that, just write, get them out, and let it build. Tell your friends, put it on your web site, that sort of thing, but just let it build naturally. It will happen if you keep working on being a better storyteller at the same time.

Yeah… I call bullsh*t.

For the first six years of my indie writing career, I basically did exactly that. Biggest difference was that I didn't charge $6.99 per book, or whatever DWS tells people to charge. I put out book after book, let my catalog "build naturally." And I improved as a storyteller, as evidenced by the fact that my reviews (all of which are organic btw) have been getting better, and my short stories have been selling more frequently and to higher-paying markets.

I do not average 42 sales per book per month.

In fact, for several of those years, my book sales actually trended down. When Kindle Unlimited came out, it was a major disruption to the market, but I kept plugging along with the "build naturally" strategy without reevaluating my business and adapting to the changing circumstances. As a result, my total book royalties fell between 60% and 80% over the course of 2014 to 2016.

Eventually, I figured out that part of running a business is learning how to market your product effectively. For the past 2-3 years, I've put a lot more time and energy into building my author newsletter and figuring out how best to use it. Because of that, I have a decent sized mailing list that can push between 40-80 full-price sales for a new release. Guess how many sales I got for a new release using the "build naturally" strategy? About 10, if I was lucky.

Dean is an old veteran writer with some very strong opinions born from decades of experience. On some subjects, such as how to write a book, his advice is interesting and useful. On others, much less so. The book industry is in such a state of disruption that strong opinions and decades of past experience are more likely to hold you back than to show you the best way forward.

[Rosie Scott]

I wouldn't want the headaches of being a landlord.  Property destruction, tenants who you evict but who refuse to leave, etc.  I don't know how any landlord does it without having a nervous breakdown.  Instead, I'd invest the bulk of that 375k in things that yielded interest and dividends.  You can get a five-figure income from that principal without taking on any significant risk.

As a landlord myself, it's either the best job in the world or the worst job in the world. It depends entirely on the tenant. Back in 2013 I had a family abandon my three-bedroom home. They left $14,000 in damages. Tore holes in the walls just to re-route electric wiring from one of the bedrooms to the backyard so they could hook up a radio and listen to music while burning paint cans and other toxic hazards in a fire pit they dug out of the landscape. There was also so much nicotine coating the walls it looked like sticky copper rain, they cut out and stole the carpet of one bedroom, and drug paraphernalia was found under one bathroom sink. This all happened while I was working full-time outside the home as well, trying to finish my first book series, and was going through tons of testing (and an eventual surgery) to remove a suspicious tumor. It was the second worst time of my life.

I started in this business young, and I put the aforementioned terrible tenants in the property when I was 18. At the time, I didn't run background checks and was relaxed about rules regarding late fees. In order to survive this business you can't be a pushover. I've had much better luck with my last few tenants because I learned the hard way not to give people the benefit of the doubt.

...Or just share a percentage of your rents with a property manager, Joe. That's what I plan on doing eventually when my father's commercial properties are handed down to me. Let someone else tear their hair out while you focus on writing books. 

Interesting article, by the way. I have nothing to add that hasn't already been said except for I'm so grateful to be an indie writer.

[Kristen.s.walker]

I've also been listening to this advice for a long time: "Build your catalog, don't put money into advertising, and watch your sales grow organically!" And yeah, my books are not building naturally to bigger amounts of money. If I put out a new book, sometimes people buy it, but more often than not my books get ignored. There's too much competition and once a new release sinks in the ranks it's virtually invisible to readers.

So now I'm trying to learn advertising. Even just experimenting with a few months, I'm already getting better results. Not great, but better than when I did nothing.

But a book advance from writing (and money in most types of creative work) is not the same as a salary. This writer keeps talking about things like, "Why am I getting pay cut?" You didn't get a pay cut, your third book deal was just less money than the first. It wasn't a guaranteed salary.

If you want a reliable salary, find another job.

I didn't have a mentor to take me under their wing or a fancy MFA program. (Took one creative writing class which had zero business advice.) But I did see someone say online once: no one owes you anything for your book. It's not "If you build it, they will come" and "Everyone deserves to tell their story!" You can put your blood, sweat, and tears into your work, but that's meaningless to the rest of the world. No one has to buy your book, or give it a five-star review, or hand you awards.

Even if you are this week's hot new release and #1 on a bestseller list, that won't last. Book 1 selling well does not mean book 2 will also succeed.

And I'm tired of how many people brag about being (fiction) writers but their real income seems to be from "author mentoring" or "how to succeed in Amazon ads online course" or some other service. This writer clearly falls into that category. The "woe is me" article is an ad for you to pay to learn from her mistakes.

[Jeff Tanyard]

As a landlord myself, it's either the best job in the world or the worst job in the world. It depends entirely on the tenant. Back in 2013 I had a family abandon my three-bedroom home. They left $14,000 in damages. Tore holes in the walls just to re-route electric wiring from one of the bedrooms to the backyard so they could hook up a radio and listen to music while burning paint cans and other toxic hazards in a fire pit they dug out of the landscape. There was also so much nicotine coating the walls it looked like sticky copper rain, they cut out and stole the carpet of one bedroom, and drug paraphernalia was found under one bathroom sink. This all happened while I was working full-time outside the home as well, trying to finish my first book series, and was going through tons of testing (and an eventual surgery) to remove a suspicious tumor. It was the second worst time of my life.

There's no way I could go through all that.  Not without resorting to something that would land me in jail.  You've got my respect and admiration.

I'll stick to REITs.  ;)

[Joe Vasicek]

...Or just share a percentage of your rents with a property manager, Joe. That's what I plan on doing eventually when my father's commercial properties are handed down to me. Let someone else tear their hair out while you focus on writing books. 

All of the property managers around here are ridiculously corrupt. The worst is in Provo, where the local city government is probably corrupt as well. Road construction projects lasting multiple years, and most of the apartments are 3 bed, 1-2 bath units on the verge of being condemned, which they routinely cram six students into. The houses are worse. A couple of years ago, I looked into renting a room in a house where the attic had been turned into a separate unit, with a carpeted bathroom that had no ventilation other than a closet door that opened into the attic storage. Black mold, mmm.

[dgcasey]

But the constant NO ONE MENTORED ME whining was like a drill in my ear. And she gripes about how her publisher never printed bookmarks for her after she got huge advances and a book tour! Cry me a river. And I'm

That caught my eye, too. I used to have my Realtor business cards printed by a company I found on Ebay that would do front and back, full color, 1000 cards for less than $25 and that included the shipping. Bookmarks would cost about $40 for that many. For her to sit there and whine about how the publisher wouldn't GIVE her some bookmarks was a major eye-roll for me.   

[LeRaith]

She didn't lose 300K, she spent it.  She'll be teaching creative writing at a good university whether she publishes again or not.  Her story isn't sad at all.  She's just a whiner.

[dgcasey]

She didn't lose 300K, she spent it.  She'll be teaching creative writing at a good university whether she publishes again or not.  Her story isn't sad at all.  She's just a whiner.

Well, that's like saying the guy that wins $100 million in the lottery and declares bankruptcy five years later didn't lose it. He just spent it all. Spent or lost, it shows a complete lack of understanding in how to make money work for you. Most people, well over 99%, only know how to work for money.

[LeRaith]

She didn't lose 300K, she spent it.  She'll be teaching creative writing at a good university whether she publishes again or not.  Her story isn't sad at all.  She's just a whiner.

Well, that's like saying the guy that wins $100 million in the lottery and declares bankruptcy five years later didn't lose it. He just spent it all. Spent or lost, it shows a complete lack of understanding in how to make money work for you. Most people, well over 99%, only know how to work for money.

She'll never be poor.  She'll never have to take a real job.  But that won't stop her belly-aching.

[LilyBLily]

She didn't lose 300K, she spent it.  She'll be teaching creative writing at a good university whether she publishes again or not.  Her story isn't sad at all.  She's just a whiner.

Well, that's like saying the guy that wins $100 million in the lottery and declares bankruptcy five years later didn't lose it. He just spent it all. Spent or lost, it shows a complete lack of understanding in how to make money work for you. Most people, well over 99%, only know how to work for money.

That's true, but people used to save. They don't anymore. Only the economic terror of 2009 increased the U.S. savings rate, and it has gone down since then. Meanwhile, personal indebtedness has increased yet again, credit card debt leading the pack. Most calculations don't count mortgage debt; I don't know if they count student loan debt, which is crippling young people--and which the whining author we're talking about also was willing to let ride instead of pay off. Feh.


 

[TimothyEllis]

I don't know if they count student loan debt, which is crippling young people--and which the whining author we're talking about also was willing to let ride instead of pay off.

I seriously don't get that.

The one year I made a significant income before I started writing, I paid off all my debts first.

Last year, with 3 books in the top 225, I paid off the mortgage I took out in writing year 2. First.

I simply don't understand how anyone with student debt could not pay it off totally as soon as they got money.

[123mlh]

I don't know if they count student loan debt, which is crippling young people--and which the whining author we're talking about also was willing to let ride instead of pay off.

I seriously don't get that.

The one year I made a significant income before I started writing, I paid off all my debts first.

Last year, with 3 books in the top 225, I paid off the mortgage I took out in writing year 2. First.

I simply don't understand how anyone with student debt could not pay it off totally as soon as they got money.

Sometimes the other uses for that money are better choices. If you don't have three months of expenses in the bank it's better to get that in place before paying down a debt like student loan debt which has options like forebearance or deferments if things go south and is generally at a low interest rate as well. In certain markets it may make more sense to invest that money to get the 10% return than pay off the loan that's costing you 3% in interest and comes with a tax deduction depending on income. My step sister immediately paid off her grad school loan the year after she graduated which sounded like a great idea but that left her without the downpayment money to buy a house. She had to keep renting for another two years and lost out on those two years of property appreciation as a result.

Not saying that most people make that kind of reasoned decision, but there are valid arguments for carrying certain types of debt even if you don't have to.

[j tanner]

I simply don't understand how anyone with student debt could not pay it off totally as soon as they got money.

Her naiveté around finances is all over her article. Combined with her lack of personal accountability for her business/life choices it all sort of seems inevitable.

There are lots of people like this. She's far from unique. Every financial downturn exposes tons of similar stories. The hedge fund manager to pizza delivery guy kind. And on a smaller scale the pro athlete or celebrity riches-to-rags story. They're almost cliché these days and they're usually rooted in this (unfortunately) common mindset. I know plenty of people who live this way, heck, I'm related to a few, and they're not otherwise stupid. The just have different financial risk tolerance (or more frequently, no consideration for what they're financially risking.)

[guest78]

Dean does the math.

https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/the-math/

And assumes all authors can sell 500 copies per title at $6.99 every year never-ending without any marketing costs.

He addresses this in the comments:

Scott, you take a deep breath, put them out, ignore all the idiots about advertising and who are in a hurry to make a few bucks, and write. Let your books build. They will average over time far above the 42 per month if you do that, just write, get them out, and let it build. Tell your friends, put it on your web site, that sort of thing, but just let it build naturally. It will happen if you keep working on being a better storyteller at the same time.

I listened to this advice at the beginning of my self-pub career. My advice, and I don't often give it, is don't do this.

[Tonyonline]

Trad pub is truly brutal.

And yet Quora is full of people all wanting to know how to be trad published.

I remember reading this, Stay Away From Traditional Book Publishing. That was enough to put me off even thinking about any offer that may come my way. Although, if this hobby turns out to be anything more than that, I'd enjoy the challenge of making it as an indie.

[David VanDyke]

Pooh-pooh

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pooh-pooh

[Denise]

Pooh-pooh

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pooh-pooh

Living and learning.

[Jessica]

I didn't have a mentor to take me under their wing or a fancy MFA program. (Took one creative writing class which had zero business advice.) But I did see someone say online once: no one owes you anything for your book. It's not "If you build it, they will come" and "Everyone deserves to tell their story!" You can put your blood, sweat, and tears into your work, but that's meaningless to the rest of the world. No one has to buy your book, or give it a five-star review, or hand you awards.

In essence, that's true for every business company. No person in this world has to buy your products, nobody owes you anything in business.

[PermaStudent]

The older I get, the more thankful I am that my parents taught me how to manage money, and for whatever reason, those lessons stuck. (They didn't stick as well with my siblings.)

Financial education is sorely lacking in the US, both culturally and as part of formal schooling.

[elleoco]

Well, I'm one of those who paid off all debt with my first writing income, and I sometimes sit and wonder what I'd do with the money if I ever won the lottery (which won't happen since I don't buy tickets). I actually can't think of much.

I'm not sure it has as much to do with financial education as basic personality. Those of us who consider a couple pairs of jeans, a couple t-shirts for summer and sweatshirts for winter a sufficient wardrobe, an older car fine so long as it's reliable, and once a month often enough to eat out just look at the world differently than those on the other side of the spectrum.

[dgcasey]

Financial education is sorely lacking in the US, both culturally and as part of formal schooling.

I agree and have always thought that financial education should be a required course in high school. However, given the fact that most people, including teachers, haven't got a clue as to handle their money it would be a case of the blind leading the blind.   

[notthatamanda]

The older I get, the more thankful I am that my parents taught me how to manage money, and for whatever reason, those lessons stuck. (They didn't stick as well with my siblings.)

Financial education is sorely lacking in the US, both culturally and as part of formal schooling.

Are you me?  Or do we have the same siblings?

Back to school night tonight.  They've added financial education to the health curriculum in our district.  They get a salary and a mortgage and they also have to pick a health insurance company.  Then they get 3 symptoms and have to diagnosis themselves on WebMD and see what the inexpensive insurance is going to end up costing them (we're in the US).

[Bill Hiatt]

From what my parents have told me, it was more common in earlier eras (they want to HS during the Great Depression) for schools to offer courses in practical subjects like personal financial planning. One of the problems in more recent times has been where to squeeze it in. When my parents went to school, the average person didn't go beyond high school. There were plenty of decent-paying jobs that didn't require college. In a lot of high schools today, virtually everyone is planning on going to college, and colleges have a lot more requirements about what they want to see on the high school transcript. Highly selective colleges also pretty much demand considerable extracurricular commitments. More recently, many of them also started pushing community service. I've known some students who graduated from high school with incredibly impressive resumes but a big gap in the practical knowledge department.

(That's not universally true, however. For instance, I knew a student who started a online resale business with his brother and grossed about $30,000 a year. They were the only two employees and handled all the necessary paperwork, shipping, etc. That's not bad for two high school kids. I also knew one who ran a web design business and had several corporate clients.)

[notthatamanda]

Yes it definitely is hard for the schools to squeeze everything in.  I was thinking about it last night, the health teacher said she would teach them how to write a check.  I was writing checks by the time I was eight, probably.  We had to pay for the Archie comics ourselves, so I would take my money out of my piggie bank, leave the cash on my dad's desk, write a check, fill out the order form and mail it.  My fourteen year old has never written a check, and I don't even know if she can address an envelope.  I really do try to teach my kids to do stuff themselves, working on cooking all the time, but some things just never come up anymore.  They do handwrite thank you cards so I need to stop being lazy about that.

[LilyBLily]

There's also the issue of children being willing to learn any of this stuff, what we try to teach them at home or what schools attempt to teach them. When children arrogantly insist that email is dead and "dead tree" information is useless, it's hard to get heard about what steps they can or should take to conduct the business of being an adult. Many people only wake up and listen once they get into hot water of some kind.

[Dormouse]

Some people are born spenders; some people are born not-spenders. Most in the middle; everyone influenced by experience. Not sure how far formal education can get you unless it is a precise fit for your experience; and maybe personality.

She was young and inexperienced, tried to be sensible but was overwhelmed by apparently easy success. Not a common problem for writers, but a very common problem in music. Many later lament their naivety, but, at the time, they were surrounded by experienced professionals looking out for their own % and not the artist's, and told they are earning 100k a gig and no-one mentions all the costs and deductions from that figure. They believe they are earning a lot when they're not. And then, a couple of years later, they are hit by the tax. When they have no money left. And that’s the end of any assets they bought to be sensible.

Even at the time, that was one hell of an advance for a new author. Must have been strongly sold by her agent and right in the height of fashion, and fashions change. But she won't have realised that. She'd've thought they wanted her because she was really good. And the next advance would have confirmed that view. And really good = earnings forever. No-one would have explained that an advance is not the same as earnings and that predicting future earnings meant looking at current earnings not advances.

And, somehow, it seems she got these contracts before she had written the books. Naturally she accepted the money, but that left her with a pile of work that she had already been paid for - and presumably deadlines with it. That's fine if your productivity is high and you're keeping up with the timetable, but one little thing goes wrong and pressures become intense. With no possibility of money coming in until she completes the work.

I always find it very sad when so many writers believe they can only achieve an adequate income by selling to wannabe writers rather than readers.

[Simon Haynes]

I'm a very careful spender, but when I have a good month (say, post-bookbub) I notice I'll get that little extra bit of shopping, or buy a *cough* $400 video card for gaming. (Hey, I got 20% off.)

It's these rewards that make the long hours of hard work worth it.

[cecilia_writer]

In my experience people who have experienced a serious lack of money at some point can sometimes go a bit over the top with spending if they suddenly have a bit more than enough. So I can sympathise, up to a point.
(By the way, I don't think I've written a check/cheque for several years. Even when paying a tradesman for fitting new kitchen flooring, I added him as a payee in my bank account and transferred the money across to him immediately. We also use contactless quite a lot)

[LilyBLily]

A period of severe financial distress can shape one ever afterward. I know someone who lived in poverty during graduate school and decades later as a full professor still cannot easily bring herself to spend money.

Our economy is based on consumerism and no one should feel particularly guilty about occasionally yielding to the impulse to spend unnecessarily. This woman thought she'd made it big and would continue to do so, a mistake born of hope but also a surprisingly deep core of ignorance about the publishing business.   

[LilyBLily]

Ya gotta luv the way people knock DWS for doing things HIS way and writing about it. If it weren't for him, many writers would still be waiting by the mailbox for a SASE return and the cobwebs to disappear in the morning dew.

I think (I could be wrong, of course, just as many of you are convinced DWS knows nothing) what DWS had in mind with his post was a comparison of the two publishing methods, not a rule to live by. Many things are easier to see when one does a comparison of methods. You know, compare and contrast?

Anyway, whatevs. Good luck with selling your writing.

Dean is not the only person who says the old method of becoming a published author is not the best method today, but some people do not want to hear it.

However, his specific advice about what to publish and how much to publish and how quickly to publish should be viewed with the lens of YMMV. What he says for sure will happen simply does not happen for all writers or for all books. I have some books that do not sell, and so do many authors. We're not getting those lovely extra dollars per book in sales each month that add up to a living. These aren't "bad" books, mind you, but for various reasons, the public does not embrace them. Therefore, I'm not willing to take his philosophy as gospel. It helps some people and doesn't help others.