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| Can You Make Money from Books? I have a few ideas ... |
One of the great American dreams is to become a best-selling novelist and make millions of dollars. What really happens for most published authors is that they barely eek out a living from their books, and most of them are just part-time writers who have to live off savings or write at night while they work their day jobs. But there is some satisfaction to be gained from writing words that other people want to read.
I was browsing the Middle-earth blog yesterday and I noticed that the author was selling a book he published through Amazon Kindle. I don't know how well the guy is doing but he seems to have a lot of fans. Maybe he sells a lot of books.
Can you make much money from a $3 Kindle book? I guess every sale is a profit.
Last year an author who has published books through the Kindle program shared her insights. The article reads like a cold shower on the dreams of wannabe millionaires. But it's not completely hopeless. You just have to know what to expect and work around those expectations.
It might be better to work through Amazon's Create Space program, which offers more options than the Kindle program. But I think the secret to success is not in writing that one killer book. It is in writing a lot of good books. You build your audience and then you gradually see improvements in your sales.
But the secret also seems to be that you have to build your audience outside of the book stores. I guess that means writing a blog, being active on Twitter and other social media services, and making yourself known to the public. The more you write the more people who learn about you.
If you love to write that should make perfect sense. But even then you probably won't make enough money. It would also take a good publicity campaign. Maybe you can hire a publicist or do your own publicity.
So imagine being a guest on podcasts and radio shows, maybe local television. You can get these media spots if you write a book that is relevant to current events. Otherwise, if you are just writing fiction, you may have to try to get in to conventions.
For me it keeps coming back to making yourself known to as many people as possible. If you can build up a good readership you should be able to sell books for a long time. And the more books you write the better your writing should become.
And here is another interesting article with a take on the subject.
