BALANCING THE BOOKS - A Financial Plan For The Indie Author (Part 2 of 2)

The English writer, Brian Aldiss was quoted as saying, “A writer should say to himself, not, How can I get more money?, but How can I reach more readers (without lowering standards)?” It’s important not to let financial concerns slow the progress or stall the enthusiasm of your writing career. As you polish your craft and begin to make better business decisions your income typically will increase organically.

Even before you’re able to make the full transition into your dream of writing full time it’s good practice to view your part time writing gig like the business that it is. Before your writing can pay all of your living expenses the first step should be to make your craft self sustaining. By self sustaining I mean, try to support all the expenses associated with your writing with proceeds from your writing. When you try this you will realize that supporting writing expenses from only your writing proceeds sounds much easier than it is. The motivation for me was always great, when I was feeling tired or disappointed I always told myself,

“If you don’t think outside of the box you may find yourself stuck in a cubicle.”

I’ve found that launching a writing career takes a fair amount of three things - time, energy, and money. To make your work known to the world you must pay for things like marketing, professional editing, and travel to and from appearances just to name a few. If you can get to the point in your career where your writing is paying for itself you will be that much closer to achieving the dream of making a living with your words.

Since income as a writer can be so sporadic it’s important focus on diversifying your revenue streams as much as you can to make the most from your writing. Begin to think of different and creative ways your can market the same work. For example, I publish collections of my poetry in book form but I also sell the poems individually, matted on parchment paper. In doing this, I produce two different products and can profit twice from the same poems. Additionally, I offer a service where I will collaborate with clients to create a completely original poem for a gift or special occasion and by doing so can use my talent as a poet for a third potential income opportunity and the best part is I love doing all of them. Another option for poets is to buy a vintage typewriter and offer the service of creating poems on the spot for wedding receptions, bridal showers, and parties. I’ve heard of poets making several hundreds of dollars per hour doing this, consider it getting paid to practice.

As an indie author, you’re busy writing so it’s easy to overlook all the ways to profit from your work, and many writers often do. The first, and most effective, thing to focus on is making it as easy as possible for readers to find you and buy your work. It’s important to have a page on your website or blog that list live links to where readers can purchase each of your published books. Regularly post a link to this page, with an attention grabbing introduction on your social media sites. It’s also imperative to choose the correct keywords on your pages so they show up in internet search results.

Whenever you have the opportunity to do personal appearances like book club meetings, readings or any event where you have the chance to make a face to face sale it’s important to have extra books on hand and provide your readers the option of purchasing these books easily with a credit card. Companies like PayPal and Square offer reliable, easy to use, and compact credit card readers that plug right into your smartphone. Buy one of these credit card readers and learn how to operate it. Never be hesitant to wisely invest in yourself and in your career. According to a recent survey of BankRate.com, fifty percent of Americans admit they carry less than twenty dollars in cash, and nine percent say they don't carry cash at all. Giving your audience the ability to easily pay with a credit card is a simple way to improve your sales potential.

Another way to add an additional source of revenue is to monetize your blog through pay per click ad programs such as Google’s Adsense. This service will embed ads in your blog that usually correlate, at least remotely, to products or services you’re writing about in your blog post. Once you sign up for these programs you will get paid each time a reader clicks on an ad. You can even download the free Adsense app to your mobile phone to manage your account on the go. You won’t generate much revenue at first, but it will grow as more readers begin visiting your blog. Although it’s not typical, Google reports that some users are making tens of thousands of dollars per month off this program. Whatever you make, every little bit helps.

I can’t stress this enough, just because you choose to pursue a writing career doesn’t mean you have to be a starving artist, it only requires you to think differently and have the discipline to stick to a budget. Use your gift of creativity to discover new and different ways to get people to pay you for your work and be mindful of the money that you’re spending. If you accomplish this balance you will be well positioned to successfully support yourself with your words. More than ever before writers really do have control of their destinies. Utilize all of the tools at your disposal and you will soon see that reaching the goal of becoming a full time writer will feel every bit as amazing as you imagined it would be.

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