07 Old Keys Open Old Locks
We are all on our own author's journey. And our mentors still exist as they did for those who have gone before us. The trick is to find them and learn. Then build a cashflow system for ourselves...
It's the classics which contain the answers to modern conundrums.
Always.
Because of that old phrase – the one that says people who refuse to study their own history are condemned to repeat their mistakes.
Anyone who thinks our forebears haven't already run into the problems we face today is whistling past the graveyard.
My job has been to avoid the missteps others have made by studying a problem backwards – into where it's already happened before.
That make research more interesting – and humbling. Because if we already had these ready solutions, how come no one knows about them today? That's the follow-up question.
Yes, we've never had the Internet before. But we've been publishing books and magazines since Gutenberg invented the printing press. And we've been doing sales, advertising, and marketing since before the days Marco Polo and his uncles traveled on the Silk Road in caravans. We've been telling stories and illustrating them since our forebears lived in caves.
What's Old is New in Book Marketing
Through all this work in compiling, editing, and revamping these evergreen “best practices”, a very different approach has evolved.
We no longer have to pay attention to Big Tech, Amazon, or social media to get our clues. Because we know they are clueless. These only exist to fatten their own payouts. They make it harder than ever for writers to connect with their fans.
The burning question of how to make a viable living from writing has gone beyond the simple basics of how to write, publish, and advertise the highest quality books.
It's time for the truly free market to return.
We know that by publishing and marketing in all versions, and using aggregators to push these out on your behalf is a workable system. You can just focus on writing and direct marketing to your fans, then leave distribution and fulfillment to them. That works. Even without running ads. Your sales depend on your connection to your email list and the quality of each book itself.
Here are the core elements to a true writerpreneur success story:
THE UNDERESTIMATED RELEASE VENUE
Since it's creation in 2009, Kickstarter has matured, and taken over the lead in how to release a book. Because this involves encouraging your fan base into following your writing and becoming a superfan, moving them into becoming part of a real community. Now that “late backers” have been enabled, you can continue to get buying sponsors even from completed campaigns.
As part of these crowdfunding campaigns, books are published short run as deluxe and exclusive hardbacks – leading your readers over into collecting printed works of your books – so they can entertain, educate, and even inspire themselves over and over.
HELPING YOUR BOOKS NEVER GO OUT OF PRINT
With the consistent demand for print versions, Print on Demand (POD) has enabled us to into writing books long enough to make into a respectably-sized paperback (about 200 pages) and to write non-fiction as well as fiction to even out your sales. POD also integrates into our direct sales and Kickstarter fulfillment.
Ebooks then more appropriately become loss leaders (and Self Liquidating Offers after a fashion). They are quick ways to test any genre.
HAVING AND MAINTAINING A REGULAR PODCAST AND NEWSLETTER
This has become a way to involve your readers and reach them personally. Again, moving them from fans to superfans. And where you promote your evergreen kickstarters where listening readers can join your community and make it into a movement. Recorded podcast as video enables authors to then diversify over onto YouTube and other video channels.
Substack is readily proving the model that paid newsletters are viable for writers. Like Kickstarter and Patreon, they only get paid according to your success. They simply take a low percentage of your total, but support with services meanwhile. Until, or when, or if your writing starts becoming profitable.
The reality that's emerging is all of these different publishing and marketing elements can set you up with a life-long and sustainable business that serves your fan base, your community, your lifestyle.
Anyone can attract all the True Fans they need. And this will determine their income – how well they engage and listen to those fans and superfans, and how well they produce what those fans want.
The Author Is In The Marketing Business
The point is your business – is not as it seems.
The author has the actions of writing and publishing, but the end result – income – is gotten through marketing. You, as a writer, are in the marketing business.
Writing and publishing are just the meat of the sandwich. What you hold in your hands are between thick slices of marketing – and both marinaded and slathered with marketing sauce.
One of the first decisions about any and every story the writer brings to life is – what is the effect I want to make on the reader? From that decision – what the reader most wants to experience in their life – is how the writer crafts his work. The writer is writing for that one reader. This is marketing from the beginning.
The writer next tells his existing fans about the upcoming book, sharing tidbits or choice interactions, to whet their appetite for the story that he is writing specifically for them. And the writer goes over cover choices, taking surveys, involving the reader at every step. He's marketing before he starts, while he writes, when the book goes onto preorder, and then through the launch and post-launch promotion.
This is then the missing datum. Authors write (and market) specifically for a type of customer who likes their unique vision and style.
Publishing is then just a footnote – the actual production of the work. Its a thin sliver of converting digital text files to several versions of books, and courses. And yet, when the now-author gets a proof copy into his hands, there's a picture taken – and shared with his newsletter readers.
Marketing runs through the entire process – even while that upcoming book is just a gleam in the writer's eyes.
Using Personal Touch and Attention
This is where the commodity-driven, shareholder-dividend-driven business fails. Writer's aren't put on this planet's surface to only “make money” by churning out books as fast as we can. We aren't here to enable huge monopolistic corporations to squeeze every possible buck out of the process, only to pay off their shareholders and top executive.
The writer deserves to have a sufficient income to enjoy their life as it unfolds. That is a necessity, yes. But the writer encourages the reader to join with others and form communities around their books.
The writer is there to help humanity stay human.
The rest is just mechanics – but the purpose is to help their readers to experience that writer's chosen effect, to enjoy their own humanity.
The writer and reader should vote with their wallet – and leave the monopolistic corporations to their ultimate implosion. Life is too important to waste a second on anything that distracts you from enjoying it fully and completely.
Coming Next: 08 - Stratagems for Writerpreneur Success