If you’re a writer, even if you’re focusing on blogging right now, you probably have the dream of writing a book. Or maybe you’ve already written one, but it hasn’t exactly been a cash cow for you.
And who would expect a book to rake in big dollars?
We’re often told that writing is something you do for the love of it, and that it’s very hard to make a living as a writer, much less earn a substantial income. Oh, yeah, and “don’t quit your day job.” Sure, big names who land their books on the bestseller lists again and again are making a good living, but not the little guys who are relatively unknown outside of their niches, right?
Er, wrong.
A few years back, Peter Bowerman wrote The Well-Fed Writer
I’m currently reading the book that explains how he did it: The Well-Fed Self-Publisher
While I’m not finished (I’m working my way through the Horatio Hornblower series at the same time… only so many reading hours in the day, you know!), I’ve already got quite a few notes. If you’ve read some of my other posts, you know I’m currently working part time and making a nice living from blogging, but I’m always excited to explore other ways to build assets with words. And writing books definitely appeals to me.
While it’s a lot of work to initially write a book and get the marketing ball rolling, in the end, you have created a product you can sell over and over for years to come.
I’ll do a thorough review of the Well-Fed Self-Publisher later, but here are some points you’ll want to consider if you’re thinking of writing a book and turning it into a real money maker (some come directly from the book and some are based on what I’ve learned about internet marketing over the years):
Self-publishing = plenty of profits for your self
I remember when I was in an online writing workshop, there was a lot of sneering at the idea of vanity presses and self-publishing, as if the only good books came from the New York publishing houses. And, I’ll be the first to admit, I too shared these prejudices. I assumed the ultimate goal was to get picked up by a big publisher, and even a couple weeks ago, I would have catapulted myself over a volcano of molten lava for the chance of a book deal.
But Mr. Bowerman’s book opened my eyes to something near and dear to my heart: financial statistics.
Someone who publishes a trade paperback through a traditional publishing house gets royalty rates of around 6% per sale, which translates to maybe a dollar a book. Gee.
On the other hand, with self-publishing, you pay an upfront amount to print a certain number of copies, and it can end up costing less than $2 per book, leaving you a much larger profit margin (especially if you’re selling the books primarily through your website). Spend $2 to print the book and sell it for $20… sounds good to me!
Note, self-publishing is not interchangeable with POD or print-on-demand publishing, which Mr. Bowerman doesn’t recommend for authors serious about making money (the reasons take up a whole chapter in his book!)
It’s worth paying more to produce a professional product
Remember how we discussed investing money in a domain name and web hosting to make your blog appear more professional? Well, be prepared to plunk down some money when publishing a book too.
One of the reasons self-published books get a bad rap is because most of them are poorly edited and feature covers that look like they were crafted by a third grader.
If you want to get your book picked up by influential reviewers (not to mention buyers), invest the money in creating an outstanding product, one that wouldn’t look at all out of place on a bookstore self.
Gather the audience before you sell, or even write, the book
I don’t think Mr. Bowerman directly says this in the book, but I’ve seen the power of a blog for building an audience, and I personally don’t think I’d attempt to write a for-profit book without already having a mailing list full of potential book buyers who like my writing style and dig what I have to say.
Mr. Bowerman did say that thanks to his marketing efforts–something he’s been building up since his first book–he racked up $2,000 in sales the day his second book came out (The Well-Fed Writer: Back for Seconds), and that was before it was even available at the bookstores. The first month, all sales went through his website.
Even if you can’t resist starting that book now, why not begin building up your blog at the same time? It may just become your primary promotion tool one day.
Creating demand is an uphill battle–filling demand is a downhill glide
Another reason to build up an audience before you finish the book is so you can ask them what they want to see in it.
It seems obvious, but I think most people sit down and right the book they want to write or the book they think people will like. But if your goal is to make money, you need to give folks what they really want.
And the best way to do that? Ask them!
You can create surveys for your mailing list or blog readers, ask for comments in response to blog posts, or just toss a poll up on your site. You’re still writing your book, one that fulfills you and gives you a chance to teach, but you’re also writing the book people really want.
If you give people what they want (rather than what you think they want), they will line up to buy your book (and if, between those covers, you fulfill their expectations, you’ll have made a devoted fan).
11 responses so far ↓
1 Michele // Aug 9, 2008 at 4:42 pm
Loved reading this post! I have already started asking some questions about a book I’m planning. At the moment, I’m only planning it as an ebook but I’m hoping later I’ll be able to offer a nice print version as well. I’m getting good feedback with interesting requests so perhaps I’m on my way!
*smiles*
Michele
2 Rebecca Laffar-Smith // Aug 9, 2008 at 7:24 pm
Fantastic Post! Sounds like another book that needs to be on my shelf.
I wonder if these ideas work for fiction. They definitely make sense for non-fiction books but I often feel fiction is harder to get noticed. It’s so much easier to be lost amongst the other good fiction books on shelves. A non-fiction book is one of few covering that topic while a fiction book has to appeal in the right way to gain an audience.
Of course, it’s a spend money to make money means. You need to have the cash upfront to be able to make the great quality books that will earn the best return.
Does he mention ideas for where to get those funds to get started???
3 Jeff // Aug 9, 2008 at 8:07 pm
Absolutely correct! By building your niche market platform BEFORE writing you can discover the topics that produce really big desire in your audience, know the questions they have, even understand what other products they have purchased and how much they have paid (hint ** there are many markets and topics where buyers are not only paying $27 for a book or ebook, but are paying hundreds or thousands of dollars for home study courses, training programs, manuals, videos, membership sites, workshops and coaching programs which can turn your book business into a full-blown information marketing business with much more potential than a book writing business alone.
Great article…
Jeff
4 Lindsay // Aug 11, 2008 at 12:29 am
Michele, thanks for stopping by again, and I’m glad you found the post helpful.
The ebook is definitely the less expensive route and can make sense as a way to start out. Also, you get to keep 100% of the earnings with a digital product, which isn’t bad!
Rebecca, if I ever get around to publishing my as-yet-unfinished novels, I’d use the same tactics–I’d write some short stories for a website and work on getting readers to come by and become fans of those before the book came out. It’s probably easiest to do something like that if you have characters you want to serialize. I don’t know about you, but if you make me like your characters, I’ll buy *anything* where they appear!
As for making the money for the initial costs, the author’s first book was about how to earn a great income from freelance writing, so my guess is he’d recommend making the seed money that way.
Jeff, you’re definitely right that the information product industry can be lucrative. As they say, you can make $200,000 in real estate and then make $2,000,000 teaching people about it!
5 Gary Eby // Aug 12, 2008 at 8:11 am
This is wonderful information. Please consider posting some of it on my book marketing lens. Sincerely: Gary Eby, author and therapist
6 Frank C // Aug 16, 2008 at 6:10 am
Interesting thoughts on this aspect of publishing.
I got very disillusioned with writing books, technology books in particular, about 15 years ago when I was approached by a publisher to write parts of a book about a new Windows software development tool. I quickly figured out the amount offered would amount to about 1/8th of what I earned doing freelance programming and technical documentation. No thanks. Self publishing like you mentioned seems to be a better alternative.
7 MoneyEnergy // Aug 16, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Sounds good, I’d like to know your thoughts on “book shepherding” and how that’s different from “vanity publishing.” I’ve been trying to get a thesis I wrote ready for book publication, and came across a great publisher but others considered it a “vanity press” and really there was no other difference except that it had that stigmatic label attached to it.
8 Curt // Aug 16, 2008 at 3:50 pm
Great ideas. I think a blog is perhaps one of the best ways to gather an audience before publishing a book.
9 Miss Melinda // Sep 4, 2008 at 2:05 am
Another awesome post! I just picked up a Writer’s Market guide, which I LOVE and have finally figured out what I would like to write a book about. I didn’t even think of starting a blog about it beforehand to share the information with readers to see if it interests them and get ideas from them. Time to start my 5th blog!
10 RhondaL // Jan 9, 2009 at 6:53 am
So true, two of the keys to presenting a professional-looking product are an attractive cover and professional editing.
But there’s still a lot of prejudice out there among the traditionally published against the SPed. They only time respect is paid is when an SPed book is picked up by traditional publishing (and paid a big advance.)
Networking among writers is still a key to promoting a book.
Still, I’m intrigued by the possibilities.
11 Do You Dave Ramsey? // Mar 21, 2009 at 9:23 am
Good post Lindsay… very motivating. I’d love to have an ebook product and may begin scrathing out an outline before too long.
I’d imagine that by the time I have a finished product I’ll have a bigger (and built in) audience on my blog site.
Thanks!
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