Rethinking an Author’s Career Path

Almost un-noticed in the ‘gold rush’ of self-publishing and the obstinacy of traditional publishing to cling on to the old ways has been the fact that writers really need to re-evaluate what it means to have a career as an author.

The traditional route was:

Write a book.  Get an agent.  Agent sells to editor.  Editor promotes in-house.  Sales reps place books in stores.  Stores sell books to readers.  Hope for an explosion out of the gate with hitting a bestseller list (only possible, though, if enough books have been placed, which rarely happens for new authors).  Wait six months on numbers.  Up or out.  90% out.

In essence, you had to go to bat and hit a home run.  There was also a place for the midlist author to swing away hitting singles and doubles for years before finally getting that opportunity to hit that home run.

That’s all changing.  First, the midlist is becoming extinct as retail outlets disappear.  Second, the bestseller lists are crowded with the usual names as publisher focus on known, brand name authors, who make 90% of their money.

So now we have a rush, a gold rush as the Washington Post called it, or simply a pile of gold known as backlist, according to Forbes where I was quoted.  While the latter has some validity, the former is very misleading if you want a career as an author, which I define as making a living off of your writing.

The Amanda Hockings model is, in essence, much like the JK Rowling model.  An aberration that you shouldn’t waste your time studying, other than for the smart lessons she’s passed on about things she did to help sell books.

What I’m seeing is that 95% of those indie publishing want instant validation and gratification.  That’s no different than the percentages when print on demand first became available.  In 2006 there were 1.2 million titles available.  And 950,000 of those titles sold less than 99 copies.  The percentages are little different now with eBooks.

Almost all the talk in indie publishing is about promotion and sales, when it really should be more about craft and writing.  Becoming a better writer is the #1 way to improve sales.

Instead of a gold rush, consider it a marathon.  Instead of rushing books out and checking your Kindle sales every day, hoping to see money pouring in, focus on the writing.  The ‘long tail’ is the key to success as an indie author and that is why there is gold in backlist.  Right now, my Atlantis series is our bread and butter, while my newly uploaded Area 51 series is surging upward as more titles become available.

I’ve reached and passed the point where I can be self-sustaining financially, simply based on my backlist.  Thus, writing forward, projecting out successful series, is icing on the cake.  My first original book straight to eBook, Chasing The Ghost, has been sitting in the top 10 Men’s Adventure now for two months.  For a new writer, with no backlist, you have to think in terms of many books, not just one or two.  Don’t worry about sales now.  Worry about writing better books.  Building your readership, slowly but surely.  Establishing a line of books that will have your readers anticipating the next one coming out.  Perhaps even write shorter books, 50-60 thousand words, rather than the usual 80-100 thousand.  Keep building community via social media.

Those who are who are in this for the long haul, who are willing to learn in order to become better writers, who have the focus on their strategic goal as I teach in Warrior Writer, will be the ones who will succeed.

As part of rethinking things, next month we’ll be teaching Marketing and the Writer on-line at Write It Forward.