“Let’s say you spend a year of your evenings and weekends on writing a book. That time is spent once, but that book can sell one copy, or it can sell 100 copies or 1000 copies, even a million copies… with scalable income, you create once and you sell over and over again.” Joanna Penn ~ in her new book How to Make a Living with Your Writing: Books, Blogging and More
As writers, it’s easy to think of ourselves as just writers. That we only string words together… implying that it isn’t much but it’s what we do. Sometimes as I’ve talked with other writers, the words they use to describe themselves, comes across like they believe they are somehow less than anyone else.
You and I both know that isn’t true. Writers are amazing. They’re creative, imaginative, tenacious, strong and most of all brave for continuing to write and put their ideas into the world.
If you’ve thought of yourself as somehow not good enough, I want to encourage you to begin to think of yourself and what you offer the world in a much more positive light.
I believe we need to reframe our identity. Yes we are writers, but we’re so much more than that. We’re storytellers. We’re wordsmiths. We’re artists.
“Writers are entrepreneurs that create value from ideas.” Joanna Penn [Tweet this]
I struggled to see myself as a creative person for a long time before I could actually say these words out loud: I am an author entrepreneur.
Once I was able to rethink and own my identity, it became much easier to get my head around the fact that I am creating value from my words.
For writers, this is aha moment is a game changer in how we see ourselves, which in turn reflects on the work we share with the world.
This mindset shift makes it easier to think of writing your books, blogs or products as scalable assets.
This is what Joann Penn talks about in her book, How to Make a Living with Your Writing: Books, Blogging and More
Overview of How to Make A Living with Your Writing
Joanna says since her business now earns six figures a year, she wanted to write this book to show other authors how they can make a living from their writing too. She breaks down what’s included in this book, in this blogpost.
I love how this book is written so that the process of how to make money from your books, is broken down into simple steps.
I was inspired as I read about how to turn one book into an ebook, print book, an audio book and then if you want, you can translate your book into other languages. Then when you multiply those editions by the number of country markets or territories you can publish in, it only gets better.
One manuscript can turn into multiple streams of scalable income. Which of course is exponential income as you write more books. The penny dropped for me on this one and has inspired me with my own writing goals.
Joanna, also goes into great detail on publishing options: traditional or self-publishing. She explains the pros and cons of each and gives links to articles to help understand each publishing type.
For example in traditional publishing some pros are: a professional team of editors, designers and formatters to work with and no upfront financial costs. Some cons in traditional publishing: loss of creative control(many authors get titles and covers they’re not happy with); Low royalty rates(between 7% – 25%). Pros of being an indie author: total creative control over content and design; Higher royalties(books priced between $2.99 – $9.99 on Amazon get 70% royalty rates). Some cons of being an Indie Author: You do it all yourself or find professionals to help; It’s difficult to get print distribution in bookstores.
Joanna explains how to make money with books that people want to buy.
If you want to make money with your fiction books, you need to write in a genre or category that sells. Of course you should write what you love to write, but you also need to consider that if your end goal is to make a living with books you write, it’s helpful to look at the top-selling books on Amazon. Check the data on AuthorEarnings.com to help you understand this better.
If you write non-fiction, you could repackage the material into multimedia courses that people would be happy to pay for. There’s a lot of value in video and audio.
In the last half of this book, the focus is on how to make money online in other ways.
Besides writing books, you can sell products, like online classes. You can sell services like consulting, coaching or professional speaking. Also if you can take advantage of affiliate income from places like youtube or your blog.
Joanna also gives examples and strategies on how to develop your content marketing if you choose to build your writing business this way. Content marketing is creating quality content that is inspirational, entertaining or educational in order to attract a specific target market. This is done through written articles/blogging, podcasts/audio and video or images – all of these use your writing skills.
Joanna mentions in this section, that too many writers just throw things up on the internet without having a clear plan for what should happen next. If your goal is to write for a living, you need a plan.
If you choose to develop your own content marketing – blogging, videos, podcasts, writing books and more – the end goal is that people will be attracted to your content and want to join your email list, and want to buy your books, products or services. She mentions her own website, thecreativepenn.com as a place where she has provided value to authors and writers, and that her site has been the engine that has driven her business and allowed her to quit her job to write full-time.
There’s many more helpful sections in this book, but those are some of the ideas and tips that I found really helpful and I hope they help you in some way too. Pick up your own copy of How to Make a Living with Your Writing: Books, Blogging and More.
Is your end goal to earn a living from your writing? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
