08 Stratagems For Writerpreneur Success
Now we have the problematic situation that creates low-income pay for authors. And we know the who and how that's creating that situation. Now we start seeing how and what solutions exist...
Now we are ready to move forward. There are some time-proved approaches in your writerpreneur business that we've incidentally touched on earlier. Let's examine these more closely now.
First Strategy: Build In Series
Fiction writers have found their success by routinely releasing longer works in series, discounting the first book so their readers can find their backlist.
Non-fiction writers will often build their whole business around one or a handful of related books in a very tight niche. They gain additional income from from courses, speaking, and consulting.
Both non-fiction and fiction writers have the same point: in order to make your income (your living) from writing, you have to write with the end in view – meaning, how this book is going to be marketed and sold. In that, they have to write to create an effect on the reader that will result in their buying more books (or services) by that author.
You are your own best marketer. So figure that your business revolves around this. In fiction, you have to churn out popular stories which are consumed, but later readers will want to find your earlier works – and so the front and back of your book links to your website, where they can do just that.
Which means you have to have your own website for direct sales. You may or may not have links to all the online booksellers, but should have ways available where readers can buy special packages of your earlier books, in any format they want. The more service you provide, the more sales you can get. The more your readers can buy direct from you, your profits increase.
Your audience comes first and everything you do is designed to service them directly.
Second Strategy: The Book as an Idea Container
Write once, publish many ways.
How many different ways can you publish the same content?
Dozens, probably.
The secret to efficient publishing is to diversify your output.
No one distributor has all the buying public. No single customer wants the same version as all the other customers.
Simply by repurposing your content into the most popular versions, you'll pick up sales and income you earlier left on the table. This is a strategy that makes real viable income from your writing – by providing your audience with the book they want in the version they desire most.
Here's a partial list of containers you can fill with your content:
...ebook, audiobook, paperback, casewrap hardback, deluxe dust-jacketed hardback, large print paper and hardback editions, digital courses, video courses, webinar series...
The underlying reason for all these is that readers and listeners like their books in different formats. And often will buy them in multiple formats to experience them fully. Ebook fits on your smartphone for ready reference. Audiobook is good for road trips and exercise. Paper editions are good for curling up on a couch, bookmarking, highlighting, dog-earing. Deluxe hardbacks are good for – impressing guests, I guess. And collectibles are their own thing.
The author is there to enable the reader to best receive the greatest effect from his writing. And so, you produce it in multiple formats and ease the friction of enjoyment.
The smart writerpreneur doesn't buy the simplistic advice to quit when they have their ebook out there. And then wonder why they don't make much money from the average sale of 250 copies of $2.99 ebooks. When the paperback and hardback sell for more copies and also have 3-5 times the royalty. When they can get paid $20-$40 per book on Kickstarter.
Meanwhile, the course based on a non-fiction book can command 100 times the cost of an ebook in return income to that author. Sure, each of these additional versions requires more work. And that effort isn't all that glamorous. But that smart writerpreneur is crying all the way to the bank – alligator tears. Because they are producing different output of the same content and getting additional sales of each.
The overall process of books as idea containers starts with a well-written book. While you could expand short videos into hefty paperbacks and hardbacks, It's simpler to start with a body of work that can be excerpted.
How do you pay producing all these versions? That's where your Kickstarter release campaign comes in.
The point here is that you aren't limited in your publishing. The more versions you create from the same text, the greater amount of sales from the same initial work.
A story is a book is an idea container.
Each idea container version has its own buying public.
The more containers you can build out of your original text, the higher your income.
Write once, publish (and profit) many ways.
The Key Author Wealth Secret from Rich Dad, Poor Dad
Assets earn income: acquire more assets, earn more income
Robert Kiyosaki's self-published modern classic should be studied by all authors. Because he champions what we create – passive income from assets.
What's the top key asset any writerpreneur has? Their Content.
Their next-level key asset? Their subscriber list.
There was a world-famous – and perhaps the most highly-paid artist of the early 1900's – called Maxfield Parrish. He sold every painting as an asset three times:
First sale was usually as a magazine and/or calendar cover.
Second was as collectible limited-edition prints.
Finally, he'd sell the original as a collectible – where it would be on display in a fine home or museum, promoting his work.
In our day, with Print on Demand publishing, and ebooks, we can do this better. Our content can be sold many more times than that, and never go out of print. And we can sell special editions on Kickstarter to our heart's content.
We also have all sorts of idea containers we can flood our content into. Like ebooks, audiobooks, paperbacks, case-wrapped hardbacks, dust-jacketed hardbacks, large format in both paper- and hard-backs. Then there are paid webinars. There are video courses. There are both self-paced and cohort courses, coaching, and consulting.
When a writer assembles and tweaks their word-output into some salable idea container, they can exchange their readers' money for their content. Readers are technically buying the container, not the content.
They are renting your content for a one-time payment.
In short, you increase the ability of your content assets to produce income. You write/edit/proof to an acceptable-quality core package. Then you publish it as many ways as you can. All with as little active work on your part as possible. True passive income.
Then, living below your means, you then reinvest that extra income into other assets that earn you even more income. Meanwhile, you are coming up with more ideas, more content to share.
Now you don't put your valuable final content out on social media, except as a way to test the waters in short-form doses. Then when you get ready to write it into long-form content, you can make further tests on sites like Substack as paid newsletters. Once you know what resonates well with your readers, then you can narrow your focus to what works and then republish these pieces into books and other idea containers to leverage those assets into even more income streams.
Malcolm Gladwell used such a process to repurpose his magazine articles into published books that stayed on the NYT bestseller list for years. All while he continued writing more articles and turning them into books. His “Tipping Point” manuscript earned him a million-dollar advance. And stayed on the NYT Bestsellers list for 428 weeks (nearly 10 years).
That's the simplicity of earning income as a writer – constantly adding more assets and passive income sources.
Then there is the discussion of things like building audience. And this is pretty much just finding people you can engage with, then posting very engaging content. They subscribe to your content. Encourage them to share your work with their friends – and become affiliates for your idea containers. They are then your ambassadors – and the income flywheel continues to spin.
Again, use your extra income from book/course/webinar sales to invest in writing-craft books. So your content output becomes even more valuable. That income-rich flywheel then spins faster.
Now you know.
Follow Rich Dad, not Poor Dad.
Three Pillars Of An Online Digital-Product Business
Consider these three vital pillars for any writerpreneur business start-up:
1. Recurring purchases – People buy offers in that niche regularly.
2. Scalable – There's enormous potential to expand any info-product line.
3. Diversified revenue streams – You can offer many versions to many audiences.
Your business model is grown from your niche. Writing is the core of any online digital-product business. In short – the writerpreneur economy.
Yet, a writer can only effectively write to what they are interested in. Because they need to enthuse their reader and transport them from the title itself, right through every following sentence.
To this, the writer is their niche, their core interest area. They have a theme of interests which coincide and intersect within and beyond that niche.
Forming an online digital-product business is working out what they can give to others that enable receipt of that commodity called money. So they can pay their own bills of running that online business.
Your niche-product is then: whatever interests you enough to write about. Your interest, your theme, is the niche.
You'll want something that gives you repeating sales. Sure, you can do paid subscriptions. Which means regular content, and being prolific. Prolific means forming the habit of regular, quality output.
You'll want to take on the whole area of your niche, everything that goes into producing that product, the whole ecosystem your content resides in.
Find something fascinating about that area and really research it. And more than just how-to's – this is where mini-courses come in. Not just one or two courses – but a continuing flood, which are probably based on your earlier better-performing posts.
You can get a depth of content to pull from. Prolific content. Re-purposed. Reps.
Again, all this goes back into knowing your "river of interest" – your theme – and regularly producing valuable content tailored to your followers and engagers.
For fiction writers, this is also creating non-fiction works about how to write in those genres, in those styles. It means creating versions for younger readers out of those plots, and also publishing in large-print paper- and hardbacks. Courses, of course. Diversification.
Check it again:
1. Recurring purchases – Can people buy it regularly, subscribe?
2. Scalable – Is there's enormous content potential to expand your product line(s)?
3. Diversified revenue streams – Can you create many offers in many versions to many audiences, all from your core interests-niche?
This is how to build a successful writerpreneur operation.
A short-handed marketing-business model.