Count me in in this success group. In 2011 or so, with massive credit card debt and only a part time job, I was inspired to pick this up by some threads on Reddit and SomethingAwful. I gave it my...
Count me in in this success group. In 2011 or so, with massive credit card debt and only a part time job, I was inspired to pick this up by some threads on Reddit and SomethingAwful. I gave it my all—probably about 40 hours a week for a few months in addition to my part time job—and was able to pay off my debt. The interesting thing that I found was that 50% of my effort was writing, and 50% of my effort was marketing and research. I almost think that marketing quality matters more than the writing quality.
The revenue was never in a place where I could quit my job without way more time investment, but interestingly I’m still getting royalties from sales years on. Way less now than I did before, because I haven’t put any effort in for years, but still enough to have a very fancy dinner every month on royalty money alone.
Oh, that's interesting. If you don't mind saying, what sort of writing were you doing? Be as vague as you're comfortable with (and feel free to not answer if you'd prefer not to say).
Oh, that's interesting. If you don't mind saying, what sort of writing were you doing? Be as vague as you're comfortable with (and feel free to not answer if you'd prefer not to say).
I wrote romance under a pen name. It was a write what you know situation—at the time (rather embarrassingly) I read a lot of fan fiction, but I had never previously read romance in book form...
I wrote romance under a pen name. It was a write what you know situation—at the time (rather embarrassingly) I read a lot of fan fiction, but I had never previously read romance in book form before writing it. I also tried some tech advice writing in ebooks, but those never took off in a way that I was pleased with. I blame myself for not doing the research to understand the market—I moreso just trailblazed my own path and rightfully earned my failure there.
I’ve been itching to spend a few months plotting out and writing some sort of mystery or spy sort of thing. I’ve got a solid idea for a story that’s in bullet point form in my notes, but it’s a matter of research, planning, and putting pen to paper. I’m so out of the game though that it’s just hard to mentally get started.
As an Unlimited subscriber, I have to say the quality is uneven at best - I'm mainly in for the "remaindered" history, biography, popular science and literature at this point. Otherwise, a habit...
As an Unlimited subscriber, I have to say the quality is uneven at best - I'm mainly in for the "remaindered" history, biography, popular science and literature at this point. Otherwise, a habit of a few books a week would be unsustainable on the basis of cost.
It's become very difficult to find what I'm seeking amidst thousands of low-quality genre fiction titles. The idea that extensive self-marketing work is required to get noticed in this morass, above and beyond writing effort, has to be painful for the authors.
The relentless churn of product which desperately needs professional editing and unrecycled plots is pretty demoralizing. I'm delighted that some authors are making a living, but it's beginning to seem like a classic example of cheap bad material driving out good.
Count me in in this success group. In 2011 or so, with massive credit card debt and only a part time job, I was inspired to pick this up by some threads on Reddit and SomethingAwful. I gave it my all—probably about 40 hours a week for a few months in addition to my part time job—and was able to pay off my debt. The interesting thing that I found was that 50% of my effort was writing, and 50% of my effort was marketing and research. I almost think that marketing quality matters more than the writing quality.
The revenue was never in a place where I could quit my job without way more time investment, but interestingly I’m still getting royalties from sales years on. Way less now than I did before, because I haven’t put any effort in for years, but still enough to have a very fancy dinner every month on royalty money alone.
Oh, that's interesting. If you don't mind saying, what sort of writing were you doing? Be as vague as you're comfortable with (and feel free to not answer if you'd prefer not to say).
I wrote romance under a pen name. It was a write what you know situation—at the time (rather embarrassingly) I read a lot of fan fiction, but I had never previously read romance in book form before writing it. I also tried some tech advice writing in ebooks, but those never took off in a way that I was pleased with. I blame myself for not doing the research to understand the market—I moreso just trailblazed my own path and rightfully earned my failure there.
I’ve been itching to spend a few months plotting out and writing some sort of mystery or spy sort of thing. I’ve got a solid idea for a story that’s in bullet point form in my notes, but it’s a matter of research, planning, and putting pen to paper. I’m so out of the game though that it’s just hard to mentally get started.
As an Unlimited subscriber, I have to say the quality is uneven at best - I'm mainly in for the "remaindered" history, biography, popular science and literature at this point. Otherwise, a habit of a few books a week would be unsustainable on the basis of cost.
It's become very difficult to find what I'm seeking amidst thousands of low-quality genre fiction titles. The idea that extensive self-marketing work is required to get noticed in this morass, above and beyond writing effort, has to be painful for the authors.
The relentless churn of product which desperately needs professional editing and unrecycled plots is pretty demoralizing. I'm delighted that some authors are making a living, but it's beginning to seem like a classic example of cheap bad material driving out good.