Authors are often the subject of a lot of mythmaking, and this can lead to problems when people actually try their hand at the profession because they're trying to live up to a standard that was never real in the first place. For example, most books are not, in fact, the sole genius of a single creator who acted in absolute isolation until they gave birth to this beautiful brain baby, giving this textual gift to the world!
No... most of us have help in some way, shape, or form to make our books the best they can be. So stop punishing yourself for not being able to do something alone when this profession has always been dependent on team effort.
Seriously... everybody needs somebody.
Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!
Lastly, don't forget to check out my Vocal archive for additional fiction, articles, explorations of weird history, and more!
Let's Go Back To Walden Pond
One of the most romanticized versions of an author that I've come across is how people thought of Thoreau in regards to Walden Pond. Just a man, alone, out in the wilderness getting in touch with his inner creativity, and working to let it flow. It's held up as this idea of what being a writer should be, and of the sacrifice and isolation that the profession demands of people who create truly great work.
The problem is, like so many myths, it's bullshit.
While Thoreau was sitting out in the shack, which was on a friend's property, his mom was doing his laundry and making his lunches. He wasn't some literary genius who was out in nature, cut off from society while he struggled to realize his artistic vision... he was some guy who had a solid support structure who was given the time and permission to write.
And that's just one example.
Though this may not be the most direct example of what I'm talking about, the truth is that none of us are out here doing things all by our lonesome. Even if we're the ones putting the words on the page, there are usually a lot of other people who help get a book published and out to the masses. Maybe it's your friend that helps you work through plot holes, or your writers' group who gave you encouragement and assistance in cleaning up certain passages. It might be your beta readers who caught your historical inaccuracies, your editor who got rid of all your dangling participals, your cover artist, your layout person, your marketing planner... anyone who helped lend a hand or a shoulder to help you push this book up the hill!
Can you do some of these jobs yourself? Or might there be certain positions you don't need for your book? Sure, everyone's process is unique! However, successful books are rarely the product of a single set of fingerprints, and it's okay to admit that.
You aren't less of a writer because you paid an editor to look over your manuscript. It's normal for writers to commission their covers during self publishing, or to have their publisher create a book cover if they're being traditionally published. Most of us actively work with other people to help figure out some kind of promotion plan for our books, if not outright paying for a book tour to help us get the word out about what we're doing (assuming you don't have a publisher that's taking care of that for you).
No man is an island, and the authors who literally handle every, single aspect of a book by themselves are the exceptions that prove the rule. While there might be one name on the cover, the credits page inside, and the dedication, make it clear that most of us had a lot of help along the way... even if it was just someone doing our laundry and making us chicken sandwiches from time to time.
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There has been a single, constant refrain from most folks who get to see behind the curtain of what it takes me to make a living as an author. Everyone, without fail, tells me that I need to take time for myself. That I can't be working all the time, or I'm going to overheat my engine and explode. At best, I'll get burned out, and at worst I'm going to have a heart attack and wind up in an early grave.
And they're not wrong. The stress of having to constantly be on the grind all the time is bad for your health, both mental and physical. Even if you eat well, exercise regularly, and try to get good sleep, you need time to not be grinding.
The problem is, of course, capitalism doesn't recognize your humanity, or its attendant needs. So unless you're one of a privileged few, you wind up stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Shit is relentless, and you can't stab the sea and stop the tide.
Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!
Lastly, don't forget to check out my Vocal archive for additional fiction, articles, explorations of weird history, and more!
This is a Pay-To-Win Game
I want to make something very clear to folks out there. I don't take on so many projects because I'm filled with a burning desire to do a thousand things at a time, or because I have a Type A personality that simply will not allow me to take my foot off the gas. I do so much stuff because I live in poverty, and not doing these things means it's unlikely that I will have the money to keep paying my bills at the end of the month. If I didn't have to do all these things to keep my head above water, I would do less writing every day, and I would probably shift my focus to projects that I am very passionate about/interested in, but which are not big earners for me as a creator.
I know this because about 10 years ago I was making more than double what I'm making right now. And at that time I would get up, put in the articles I'd agreed to write by mid afternoon, and then I'd do something else. I'd go out to eat with friends. I'd play video games. I'd drive out to a LARP, or I'd roll some dice during a board game night, etc. For a while I even had a weekly sword fighting meetup that I'd go to, and I could spontaneously take trips to go see people just because I missed them. Because money buys you time, and opportunity.
I did not dedicate every minute of every day to working on new projects when I didn't have to. I still wrote short stories, I still planned out novels, and I still made notes on script ideas, but I wasn't hammering on them all day, every day like a madman. More importantly, though, I didn't have anxiety that kept me up into the wee hours of the morning, and which jolted me out of bed because the sun had risen, and it was time to put the pedal back to the metal until my tank was utterly out of gas again.
Let's get this bread...
I say this because I want to frontload an important point, here. The amount of stress that creatives you know are under is, 9 times out of 10, about money. Because if we had money, it would solve a majority of our stresses, and fix so many of our problems. Because the more money you have on-hand (or the more your work regularly earns you), the less you have to worry about it. When something goes wrong with your teeth, you can call the dentist. When something goes wrong with your car, you can take it to the shop. When you're hungry you can ask, "What do I want to eat?" and not "How can I make that pack of Ramen taste different than the last 6 I've eaten this week?"
So if you've wanted to ask how you can help your creative friends feel less burned out, the top answer is going to be, "Give them money and/or support so they don't have to work so damn hard." If you can afford to become a patron on Patreon, or to tip them on Ko-Fi, do that. If you want to get them a gift, or take them out for lunch some time, do that. If you want more people to see their work then leave reviews on their books, share their articles and blogs, on your social media, and use your voice to help them be seen. For those who are interested in numbers, I have a pretty good break down in If 90,000 People Read This Article, I Can Pay My Bills This Month.
Because everything else that comes after our concerns about earnings and money is just, "How to distract yourself from the fact that you don't have enough resources to live your life the way you want to."
And for folks who like my work, and are wondering if I have a collection of links all in one place so you don't have to go search, I do! So consider supporting me at the following:
And if you happen to have some spare dosh lying around, and you want to be sure my supply doesn't run low, consider become a Patreon patron, or leaving a tip by Buying Me a Ko-Fi!
With That Out Of The Way...
With that said, if you can't just write a book that becomes an instant bestseller, or post a video that goes viral and makes you an overnight sensation, there are some things you can do to help stave off that grinder. This isn't a complete list, obviously, but these are the things I do to help me stay as even as I can while dodging the stamping boots of capitalism.
#1: Take Care of Yourself
This is easier said than done, but it goes a long way. First of all, drink water. I know that we all live off of Mountain Dew and coffee in the creative fields, but please, I'm begging you, alternate your drinks so you're properly hydrated. It really does do wonders for you. Beyond drinking enough water, try to get some exercise every day (whatever form works best for you). I'm fortunate enough that my apartment complex has an on-site workout room that I can use whenever I want to, but even just going for a walk, doing a yoga routine, or some body weight lifts can help reduce stress and clear your mind. Sleep as best you can, and don't be afraid to use some tea, warm milk, or a melatonin tablet if you need to.
If you aren't up to a challenge physically, that will make everything ten times harder, and this stuff is hard enough as it is.
#2: Make Opportunities For Your Passions
Again, this feels like something that's a pie-in-the-sky scenario for a lot of us. After long days of working on a dozen projects, where are you supposed to get the time and energy to just do one more thing?
For me, this comes down to finding some way to turn something I want to do into at best a tax-deductible expense, or at best a paying opportunity so that I can justify spending resources and time to make it happen.
As a for-instance, any convention where I volunteer for programming, hand out business cards, etc., becomes a business expense. Mileage, ticket costs, meals, hotel room, etc., are all things I can claim at the end of the year. Not perfect, but it does allow me to attend events I otherwise wouldn't because they're just self-indulgent, or I want to see my friends. Alternatively, I really like making audio dramas. I couldn't justify the half dozen hours even a small snippet took to make, but when I reached out to Azukail Games and they hired me to turn my fiction vignettes into audio dramas for the Azukail Games YouTube channel (which you should check out and subscribe to), suddenly this thing I didn't have time for could be made a priority because it came with a check.
This can be difficult, but it never hurts to use the network and connections you have to try to get more personal enjoyment out of the work you do. And sometimes this can result in you finding a new niche, growing as a creator, and really enjoying your work in a way you weren't before. Even if you can't reduce your workload, finding work you feel motivated to do helps a lot. Variety helps, too, so if you're getting bored doing one thing, try some sideways thinking to see if there's a way you could change things up without damaging your bottom line.
#3: Allow Yourself To Be Entertained
I don't have a single subscription to a single streaming service. I flat-out can't afford them, and I know there's a lot of other creative folks out there who are in the same boat. However, diversion and entertainment are key to not overloading your brain, and you need to make time to just sit back, and enjoy things sometimes.
Fortunately, there are options out there for free stuff all over the place.
First and foremost, check your local library to see what services they offer. A lot of them have apps these days that allow you to check out ebooks and digital audio books right to your devices, which can make everything from riding the bus to going to sleep a lot better. YouTube is also full of great content you can just binge at will, and if you are a fan of independent narration, I'd recommend checking out A Vox in The Void, as well as Warrior Tier for those who really enjoy Warhammer 40K content. If you live in an area where there's local events then you may have free concerts, movie screenings, and a dozen other things going on as well. There's online roleplaying groups, watch parties, and all sorts of other activities you can do, too!
As always, there's the matter of time, convenience, and how much energy you can put in. But sometimes you just need to put in some headphones and listen to a new album, or catch up on some creepy pastas while going on an evening walk, to recharge your batteries just a little.
Wars Aren't Won on a Single Charge
With a dramatic few exceptions, your career isn't going to explode overnight. Most of us won't make something that goes viral, or become massive bestsellers. Changes take time as we build our archives, find our audience, try new things, and so on. While the best way to help the creators you want to see succeed is to give them any and all support you can, it's also important that when you're down in the trench that you do the best you can with what you have. Change your socks so you don't get trench foot. Drink tea or coffee in between shellings. Take a bite of chocolate every now and again.
You have to keep up your strength so that you can keep the pressure on when it matters. Be as kind to yourself as the conditions allow you to be.
If you'd like to see more of my work, take a look at my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife as well as my recent collection The Rejects! You can also check out my Rumble channel The Literary Mercenary for free audio dramas!
Apologies in advance for this week's topic. I usually try to bounce back and forth between Craft and Business, but this is something that's been digging its way under my skin for a while, and I felt a need to just get it out before the frustration builds any higher.
If you are going to be a professional author (or really a creator of any type), you're going to end up doing the majority of your own promotion. You're the one who makes your social media posts, who shares links to your content, who makes videos and blogs talking about your book, who sets up interviews, etc. And because there are so many of us out there all trying to get a little bit of attention, it's understandable that a lot of groups, pages, forums, etc., want to set ground rules for when and how someone promotes their own work.
The problem you'll run into (and that it feels like I get clocked by at least once a week) is that no one out there seems to have an intuitive definition of what, exactly, self-promotion is. Instead they treat it like the infamous definition of pornography... they can't tell you what it is, but they can call it when they see it.
And that doesn't help anyone... but there is more to it than there seems to be on the surface.
Words mean things... but do they matter?
Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!
Why Is This So Damn Difficult?
To begin with, I don't want to get into the particular schedules or requirements different parts of the Internet have regarding how often creators can promote, what kind of promotion they're allowed to do, etc. That is a different topic for a different day, and honestly not one I really want to weigh-in on. If you manage a FB group, a Twitter page, a forum, a Discord, etc., it is entirely up to you how often you allow self-promotion, or even if you allow it at all.
However, before we ever touch on that topic, it's important that we all come to a functional definition of what self-promotion actually is, because it feels like a lot of folks just use it as a catch-all for, "Stuff I don't want to see."
And that isn't a definition that helps anyone.
Since I brought the topic up, I think I have a fairly simple definition of self-promotion that we can all agree on. In short, self-promotion is when someone promotes their own work. It doesn't matter if it's a free-to-read article, a blog entry, a YouTube video, a podcast, or a link to the sales page for your book; if you made it, then it's self-promotion when you talk about it.
I don't think there's a lot of folks out there who would argue with me on this topic, as it seems pretty cut-and-dry. If you're trying to get eyes on your own work, or work that you had a hand in helping create if it was a team effort, that should be considered self-promotion. I would even concede that you could stretch the definition slightly to include affiliate links to other projects, because those are directly meant to help you earn a commission, even if you're boosting the signal for something you didn't work on, which would make it "promotion" without the "self" part.
However, here's a short list of other stuff I've seen struck down as "self-promotion" that doesn't fit that definition:
- Sharing the work of someone you know.
- Sharing too many articles/videos from the same creator in a row even if you don't know them.
- Sharing the work of someone who was published by a company you were also published by in the past.
The list gets more ridiculous after this point, but I think that most of us would agree that sharing content made by your friends is not, by definition, self-promotion. Sharing content made by strangers isn't self-promotion either, especially if you stand nothing to gain from doing it. And if you use the argument that any time you share a publisher with someone then you're essentially promoting yourself by boosting their signal, you may not know just how small and inbred the independent and third-party publishing community actually is. If we followed that logic, none of us would be allowed to talk about anything, because there's probably no more than 3-4 degrees of separation between a lot of us.
At End of The Day, Though, It Doesn't Really Matter
I don't think there is some legion of moderators and page managers out there who are looking over all of the posts creators make with a magnifying glass, trying to find out when we violated the rules just so they have justification to bust us. Nor do I think this is a simple case of people not knowing what basic words mean, or who need to have a nuanced discussion on the challenges and difficulties that come with surviving as a creator. I don't even think the problem is people just interchangeably using "promotion" and "self-promotion" when it comes down to it.
Does all of that happen? Sure. All of these options imply something kind of ridiculous, though; that human beings ever operate on rules when they are given discretion and authority to just do whatever the hell they want with minimal-to-no consequences.
There is no 5D chess... you're just depending on other people's good mood.
Think about that time a cop pulled you over. Maybe you were speeding, but you told a joke that got him to laugh, so he let you go with a warning and told you to have a nice day. Maybe you weren't speeding, but you reminded him of his ex that he was still mad at, so he wrote you a ticket and threatened to do more if you said anything other than, "Yes, sir," or "No, sir," when he asked you a question. Think about that friend of yours who managed the local restaurant who always gave you the "friends and family" discount when you ate there, or the boss at the gas station who said that if he didn't see the food go missing, then he was going to write it down as properly thrown out. Or on the other end of the coin, think about that I.T. guy who decided he didn't like you, and so he always "lost" any reports you made to him, or dropped your calls when he went to "transfer" you to someone else.
The unfortunate truth about self-promotion online, or even just helping signal-boost other creators, is that you are entirely dependent on people, and their whims. No matter what the rules are, people who like you are going to bend or ignore them to help you out, and people who don't like you are going to do the same in the other direction.
I say this because I have been in the game for a while, and this is the reality you're dealing with when it comes to self-promotion in online spaces. Are there going to be some spaces where moderators, page managers, etc., will look at your behavior and make a reasoned choice about whether your posts are allowed by the rules set forth in the group? Sure. I'd even venture to say that roughly half the places you try to promote your work will have that kind of attitude. The other half? Well, best-case scenario is that your work catches the eye of the folks who run the place, and they decide they're going to help you boost your signal. Worst-case scenario, they slam the door in your face and ban you because... well, just because.
Should you follow the rules when it comes to self-promotion? Yes, because much like blatantly violating the speed limit, it's going to draw attention, and get you pulled over for cause. But just as with the highway patrol, keep in mind that following the rules and minding your own business is also no guarantee that you're going to be able to get ahead if someone decides you, "look suspicious," or, "they don't want you doing what you're doing in this neighborhood."
And I say this not to rag on people who manage social media pages, or to try to paint moderators with a broad brush. I say it because as someone who tries to follow the rules as they're laid out, it is much less frustrating when you understand that those rules are a paper shield. You should follow them if you expect to be a good member of an online space... but at the end of the day, those rules don't have any weight to them, and you can't appeal to those rules. All you can do is appeal to people, and hope that you end up making more friends than enemies.
If You'd Like To Help, It Would Be Appreciated
Now, after saying all of that, I think I've made it fairly clear just what a challenge it is to get anywhere as a creator who has to do a majority of their own promotion. That said, if you wanted to help me out, please consider some of the following options:
If you'd like to see more of my work, take a look at my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife as well as my recent collection The Rejects!
If you're a writer, especially one who stops by this blog with any regularity, then you already know how hard it is to make money in this profession. Especially when it feels like people just don't read books, blogs, and articles anymore, making it feel like you're fighting to keep your head above water with the anchor of the algorithm wrapped around your ankles. But what if you could tell stories in a way that your audience didn't have to pay money out-of-pocket for, but you still got paid at the end of the day? That sounds like something of a miracle, right?
Well, if you've been watching the rise of podcast culture, that's what it seems to be... at a glance, anyway.
So I just read the script, and then money in my pocket?
However, I think there are a lot of folks who try to go the audio route with their tales, and they aren't sure what they're in for. So I wanted to take a moment to talk about my experiences, and to pull back the curtain so folks understand what kind of ridiculous numbers you need to hit in order to pay your bills doing this.
Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!
Let's Start With YouTube
The first place a lot of us turn to when we decide to tell stories rather than just writing them is YouTube. And why not? After all, it's the second-most-visited website in the world, and we've all heard stories of creators who made a particular video, or a series, or just got a shout out from someone famous that made them an Internet sensation overnight. We all know it's possible to make a living (and even to make a good living) on YouTube, especially with that many people tooling through the site all day.
Possible isn't the same as probable, though.
First of all, nobody starts out making money on YouTube. Before you see so much as a single cent, you need to meet the site's standards for monetization. That means you need to have 1,000 subscribers, and you need to have 4,000 hours of watched content on your channel before the site reviews you and decides whether or not to share ad revenue with you. That comes out to something like 11.5 hours of content watched every single day for an entire year, just to put that in perspective. You also have to be a viable candidate for the Google AdSense program, and even once you do all that, your videos need to be within YouTube's accepted parameters in order to keep them monetized. And the Google Adsense platform holds your earnings until you hit the $100 mark before paying out, so it could be a while if you have low traffic, or a lot of your videos get demonetized.
That's tough for folks who create content focused on horror, true crime, and anything with adult themes. So even if you manage the extremely difficult task of getting monetized on YouTube, you might end up with videos that can't make you any money no matter how popular they get.
Again, this is doable. But it's a lot more doable if you already have an audience that will find you on YouTube, subscribe to your channel, and help you get over that hurdle. Speaking of which, I create content for the Azukail Games YouTube channel, so if you'd like more audio dramas like the one above, tabletop gaming videos, and related content, come check it out and help us get monetized... we aren't quite halfway there yet, but we're trying to make that a reality in 2023 if we can.
What About Dailymotion?
I have a Dailymotion channel, and if you aren't subscribed to me there you should check me out at The Literary Mercenary. I'm front-loading this so that folks have context for the rest of this section, and what circumstances drove me to this particular site rather than YouTube. Because while I contribute to channels on YouTube, I do that as an employee, or on commission. I don't make content for my own channel there, and I probably never will.
To help The Literary Mercenary keep making content like this, consider leaving a tip, or becoming a patron:
Thanks to Gretchen VanHeeren for providing the voice of the lamia!
Background music from Tabletop Audio:
- The Long Rain - Dark and Stormy - Dark Continent
Additional Background Music
- The Introvert by Michael Kobrin (https://pixabay.com/users/21039285-21039285/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=music&utm_content=10959)
- Cold Mind Enigma by Gioele Fazzeri (https://pixabay.com/users/gioelefazzeri-16466931/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=music&utm_content=13553)
- Chasing a Killer by Gioele Fazzeri" />
Why won't I post content on my own YouTube channel, some of you are no doubt wondering? Is it because the monetization requirements are so ridiculous that it's really hard for any independent creator to meet those standards without an absurd stroke of good luck? Is it because YouTube's content moderation tends to demonetize the sort of videos I'd be likely to make on my channel, and the stories I'd want to tell?
Well yes... but it's also that I literally cannot make money there, because I'm not allowed on the Google AdSense platform. I wish that wasn't the case, as it was what I used to have on my blogs for my ad revenue needs. But about 8 years or so ago I was informed that I was being removed from the program without an actual explanation being given. When I appealed I was simply told that my appeal had been noted, but I was still banned.
So even if I made the most amazing audio drama anyone had heard in years, and it drew a massive audience, getting millions of views, all that would do is put money in YouTube's pockets. I would earn nothing from that. And since the whole point of getting onto a platform, and making content like this is to pay our bills so we can keep writing for a living, that seems like a pretty pointless endeavor to me as a creator.
When I started looking for alternatives, Dailymotion was one of the only ones that seemed functional. It has a much smaller user base, and the site doesn't have as many features as YouTube does, but I can tell you that what it does have is a significantly lower bar for entry. In order to become a Dailymotion partner you need to get 1k hits on your videos. That's it. My first video, the weird Western tale Dead Man's Bluff almost managed that all on its own in the first few weeks it was up. Just to be safe, though, I followed it up with a reading of my popular 50 Two-Sentence Horror Stories, which put me over the finish line.
None of my content has blown up big over on Dailymotion, which is frustrating since it also holds your earnings till you hit $100. If you want to help me keep my numbers up, and brighten my day a bit, check out the above story about an Old Testament angel tracking down a modern-day cult of Moloch, and if you like it subscribe to my channel, and help spread the word!
As a final note, you're not allowed to share your content between YouTube and DM, if you were thinking about trying to double your money. You might get a warning from whichever platform catches you first, but it's likely that if you try to double-host your videos you'll simply end up being able to use neither platform.
But What About Spotify?
I have not tried Spotify myself, though I have been looking into podcast platforms for putting together longer-form audio dramas that can be told in seasons. However, I do have some friends who run the Homebrew Shomebrew podcast, which is all about tabletop gaming, and they were good enough to answer a lot of my questions, and give me some insight into what they've had to deal with.
Also, listen to them if you haven't yet!
What sort of challenges are we looking at?
Now, Spotify is not the only podcast/audio drama platform out there. It is, however, the biggest one overall. But you could use websites like Anchor to help distribute and figure out your show so that it's as easy to find as possible. Of the three platforms mentioned here, Spotify has the lowest barriers to entry, especially for folks who want to make audio dramas instead of videos (though you can also upload videos to many platforms covered by Anchor as a feature, in case you had video content made and wanted to keep that as an option). Best of all, though, Spotify doesn't have the monetization requirement the previous two platforms have. So as soon as your episodes go up, bam, it's counting your views and calculating what you'll be paid.
How much you'll be paid might vary, but you don't need an audience of a specific size, or a certain number of streams, before Spotify starts calculating your earnings.
All Right, So How Much Traffic Does It Take?
And now we get to the depressing part. Because being an artist under late-stage capitalism basically means you need rock star numbers just to make poverty wages. This is true for all three of these platforms.
All right... what numbers do we need to get this injection?
- YouTube pays (roughly) $3-$5 per 1,000 views (when ads get seen, that is)
- Dailymotion varies wildly, my experience is something like .05-.10 per 1k views
- Spotify pays about .04 per 10 streams, or about $1 per 200 streams
Now, of the options presented here, Spotify is definitely coming out the winner in terms of user friendliness, platform size, and actually paying you what you're owed. While the exact rate will fluctuate (this is an average, after all), it's important to take a moment to consider what you're actually making at this rate.
Let's say that you get on Spotify, and you start cranking out material. Maybe you're writing a podcast to tell a longer, inter-connected story, or maybe you're just doing stand-alone audio dramas for people to listen to. Whatever your format of preference is, you're recruiting listeners, trying to get as many folks onboard as you can, and to keep your numbers up. Now we'll take it a step further, and say you have a relatively modest rent. $1,000 a month is not out of the question, especially if you're the breadwinner of your household. How many streams would you need to get just to pay your rent with your art?
250,000. Every month. You would get paid $1,000 for that.
Now, $1,000 a month sounds awesome... but could you pay all your bills for that? Buy food once bills were paid? Could you buy the equipment upgrades you'd need to keep the show going, or pay other voice actors to ensure your content was up-to-snuff going forward? Probably not.
The irony, of course, is that if you draw a quarter-million streams a month, you aren't depending on the payout from your traffic for your bills. If you have that kind of profile, your show will have sponsors. You'll have members of your audience donating to a Patreon, or buying you a Ko-Fi so you can keep the wheels turning. You'll have offers to open a merch store where folks can buy things to ensure your profits stay up, and you can cover your bills, and keep producing the content people like.
That's the Catch-22 of all of this. Because if you're a newer creator, you need that kind of time to build up your catalog, expand your audience, and so on. But you aren't earning any money while you do that. Whereas if you have the kind of traffic that's paying your bills, now you've got people lining up to pour icing on your already iced cake.
So if you have a creator you love, take a moment today to help them out. Trust me, they need all the help they can get.
If You'd Like To Start With Me...
For folks who've stumbled across this post, and would like to help me haul myself up a rung or two, here's a handy list of the places you can go where your efforts would be much appreciated!
If you'd like to see more of my work, take a look at my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife as well as my recent collection The Rejects!
"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result."
- Rita Mae Brown
This quote, often attributed to Albert Einstein, actually came from mystery author Rita Mae Brown according to Quotes Explained. Whoever said it first, though, the idea is pretty sound. After all, if you go through the same motions, and do the exact, same thing you can usually expect to get the same results time and time again, for good or for ill.
Unless we're talking about marketing, of course. Because when it comes to marketing (or just creating content in general), you've gone fully through the Looking Glass into a world where what seems like madness is now the order of the day.
It doesn't make sense... none of it makes any sense...
Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!
How Many Factors Can You Control?
The above sentiment regarding madness makes some assumptions, and they're assumptions that we don't always keep in mind when we start concocting our plans. The biggest is that, "doing the same thing," assumes that all the factors involved are the same every, single time. Because the same action, taken within the same parameters, should yield the same results... but a lot of the time we just feel like we're doing the same thing when, in fact, the only thing that's the same is our input as creators. Other factors (often factors we may not even think about, or which are drastically outside our control) play a part in this.
Just stick with me, I promise I'm going somewhere with this.
Now, when I first wrote this piece it was published on Yahoo! Voices (a site that no longer exists), and it received something to the tune of 30k views the first week or so it was up. That put about $60 in my pocket, which wasn't bad for an article I'd put together in a few hours. However, Yahoo! Voices closed, and the article eventually migrated over to Vocal along with a lot of my other work. And even though the article was updated to reflect changes in the game, it barely received 800 reads, which was worth maybe $2 to me at the time of republishing.
On the surface this seems like the exact same action yielding wildly different results. After all I published the content under the original title and with many of the appropriate SEO tags, I shared it in the same social media groups who had proven receptive to my content, and I did all the same things on my end that I had the first time around. Yet the results were extremely different. Why?
Well, because other factors had changed, which created different results.
Firstly, say what you want about Yahoo! Voices, but it came with a built-in platform that provided high visibility and a lot more traffic than Vocal does. So right off the bat (pun very much intended) there was a huge difference caused just by the platform being used. Another factor was that at the time the original article went up, character conversions in RPGs were just starting as a trend in a lot of places, and as such they were quite popular. By the time this guide was re-posted, conversions had become sort of passe, and there were a lot fewer folks interested in them. It could even be argued that the colossal failure of Batman V. Superman coming out in between the original post and repost had made the public less interested in the character on the whole, and as such Batman himself was no longer a subject of as much interest to readers out there.
This is the sort of thing we often overlook as creators. Everything from which hash tags are currently the best to attach to your posts, to which platforms have the best visibility, to what kinds of content are most popular at a given time, all affect your marketing, your message, and whether your work gets shared by everyone who sees it, or drifts off into the void.
How Many Times Can You Hear The Same Joke?
There's an old story told about a wise man who tells a great joke. Everyone laughs. He tells it again, and some people laugh, but they're mostly confused. He tells it a third time, and nobody laughs. The moral is about how we often take less pleasure in good things, but allow bad things to keep being as powerful as the first time they hit us... but there's a lesson here for marketers, as well.
Just because something hits hard the first time, doesn't mean a follow-up is going to have the same results.
Trust me, I wish that wasn't the case.
I can give you another example for this one. When I wrote 50 Two-Sentence Horror Stories over on Vocal, it shot up to over 5k reads. A pretty solid showing, and far-and-away the best piece of fiction I'd ever put on the site, performance-wise. The format was one of the things that readers said drew them in the hardest, so when I put together a sequel I narrowed the scope slightly and wrote 50 Two-Sentence Horror Stories, Warhammer 40K Edition. While it didn't perform as well, it still netted just under 3k reads which was more than worth the effort to put the piece together. I decided recently to put out a third installment, and to keep the change-up going it was 50 Two-Sentence Horror Stories, SCP Edition. Following the trend I figured it might eke out about 2k reads at best, maybe 1,500.
The actual result? About 53 reads. Heck, the audio drama version got more attention than that (though not much more... but if you like it, consider subscribing to me on Daily Motion!).
Why did this happen? Too many factors to count, ranging from the popularity of the niches I explored, to the timing of the posts, to where I shared them, and what the algorithm supported or blocked. However, one thing that was clear to me was that the initial installment was something of a fluke. It happened to hit at the right time, in the right place, under the right circumstances. And while there was a positive reaction to the second piece, the format itself was not enough to support the series all on its own. The novelty has worn off, and attempts to recapture it by branching out into other arenas had... mixed results.
This can be extremely frustrating when it comes to our work, because (to put it bluntly) the public is fickle, and unpredictable.
As another example, when I first started this arc of my career, steampunk was huge as a genre trend. New Avalon: Love and Loss in The City of Steam took me a year to write, and another several years to finally get published. Steampunk was dead as a trend by then, but it hadn't been dead long enough that people were looking for nostalgia reads in the genre. I've released RPG supplements full of random encounters that folks said they loved and wanted more of, but then when I put out a second installment no one gets a copy because it's just "more of the same." Sometimes I pour time and energy into crafting a tale that I think will strike a chord with the audience, like Beyond The Black: The Emperor's Hand (a tale of the ogryn Gav Smythe as he fights the enemies of the Imperium), and it goes nowhere. Other times I'll just throw together something silly to fill space, like my article Let People Dislike Things, and it explodes for no reason other than it happened to strike a chord at that very moment.
It's Our Audience That Stacks The Deck
I say this time and time again, but at the end of the day it's you, the readers, who are the one factor that we have to count on. Because if there is support from the audience, it can force all the other factors surrounding our work and our careers into the proper, celestial alignment for success.
If you have a following of tens of thousands of fans on any social media platform, things you share are boosted by the algorithm purely because the audience made it known that you are a person of interest. If there's people buying your books in numbers large enough to hit the bestseller list (which really isn't as many sales as you think), that's going to make you newsworthy, and you'll get coverage from various outlets which will boost your sales even further. If you even have a couple dozen people who share your content around in a dedicated way, you'll start to see outsized numbers of new readers come your way because those readers are making a fuss over you. And even if your content is free to consume, if you regularly pull down a few million watches per video, or a million reads on an article, everything else falls into place.
But it takes numbers... and those are numbers we cannot do all that much about on our own. All we can do is produce the best stuff we're capable of, and put it out there. Which is why if you have a creator whose work you enjoy, help them out. Subscribe to their channels, share their posts, consume the free stuff, and buy their books when you can afford to. While it might not feel like you're doing a lot as an individual, remember that a blizzard is made up of a bunch of snowflakes that all fall at once.
If you'd like to see more of my work, take a look at my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife as well as my recent collection The Rejects!
