How Many Books Do You Have To Write Before You Can Survive? (The Answer Might Depress You!)

I have lost count of the number of friends, family, activity partners, and even casual acquaintances who have remarked on exactly how much time I spend working. Whether they're impressed with the grind, or they're frustrated it stops me from making plans, or they express that I should really take more time for myself (trust me, I would love to do that), there's always a throughline in these conversations. Sometimes it's said directly, and sometimes it's implied, but it always boils down to roughly the same sentiment.

"Sooner or later you'll have written so much stuff that you'll be able to take your foot off the gas, and relax a bit."

I laugh, they laugh, and the conversation moves on. However, there is a bitterness to my chuckle, because I know something that they don't. Something I'd like to share with all of you today.

Trust me, it isn't funny.

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! And, of course, check me out on Blue Sky, since that's what we're talking about today!

It Does Not Matter How Much Stuff You Make

All right, let me back up a step.

First things first, yes, the more stuff you create, the better the chance you have of succeeding. It's like rolling a 20-sided die. Yeah, you want that 20 to come up, but if your first roll didn't do it, being able to roll again, and again, does help. And, at least in theory, having an archive of stuff you've written means that anyone who discovers you for one thing at least has the potential to dig into your backlog to check out your other work as well.

Let's talk about that word. Potential. Because that is what a lot of us bank on, but it's also what a lot of average folks out there don't really grasp when it comes to this profession. They might understand it academically, but down in their bones they don't really get it.

Size is no guarantee of success.

I've seen dozens of different takes on this over the years. There used to be programs claiming you needed an archive of at least 400 blog entries/articles to really suck your audience in, get people reading through everything you had, and earning regular revenue from their traffic. There are programs out there right now promising that if you can write 20 novels (not an easy feat in and of itself) that you'll have reached the mystic number where your work becomes self-sustaining, and you can relax a bit.

The problem with all of these so-called solutions and promises is that they're bunk. Complete and absolute fables. And I say that so confidently because they put the emphasis on what you are doing as the author, and promising that if you work a certain amount that it's some kind of guarantee that eventually your career will be successful.

I am here to tell you that, unfortunately, that is not true. And it is not true for the simple reason that all you can do is create the thing, and do your best to promote it. The people who decide whether your work is successful is your audience... or lack thereof, in many cases.

No One Knows What Will Or Won't Succeed

I've mentioned this before, but if you look at every major publisher's book list, they have a handful of really big sellers, a few middle earners, and a lot of books that never really go anywhere. And if you ask an editor why publishers don't just publish the books that are going to be top sellers, the answer is always the same.

"We'd love to, but no one knows which goddamn books they will be!"

This illustrates the central point of this week's post. Because even major publishers with all the resources to promote the books they publish, and all the industry insight of experienced editors, cannot predict with any real accuracy which titles and which authors are going to be financially successful. They, like those of us who write said books, are literally rolling the dice and hoping for the best. Books that have everything going for them that should become beloved bestsellers go mostly unread and forgotten, while books by no-name authors no one has ever heard of become roaring, viral successes.

Why? If I knew the answer to that, I'd be sitting on a throne of royalties instead of writing this blog.

Seriously, writing books is WAY more fun.

So the answer to how many books you have to write, how many articles you have to craft, how many videos you have to make, is... it's a crap shoot.

Let me throw some numbers at you. Because as of right now I have:

- 4 novels

- 2 short story collections

- 326 articles on Vocal

- 150+ videos on YouTube

- 191 tabletop RPG supplement titles

I am not the most proliferate creator (and I left out the 1,500+ blog entries on this blog and my gaming blog Improved Initiative, as they don't pay me anything), but I have a rather sizable amount of stuff out on the market for folks to consume. And if I had a big enough audience, or something I made went viral for some reason, yeah, I could take a day off, kick up my feet, and relax. If for some impossible reason a thing I made drew thousands upon thousands of readers every month (or every year in the case of a book), I could theoretically stop making any new stuff and just coast on that popularity.

I wouldn't, because I like writing, but I could.

Because at the end of the day, it does not matter how much stuff you produce as a writer. It matters how many people consume what you're writing. If you write a single novel, and half a million people a year buy it for the next decade, you don't really need to write another one unless you want to. By the same token, you could write 20, 30, or 40 novels, but if no one buys them, it's the monetary equivalent of never having written anything.

Your Audience Decides Your Success (Not You)

You, as the author, should do everything in your power to create the best quality work you're capable of. You should write a good story, fix all your spelling errors, make sure there's no dangling plot threads, and so on, and so forth. You should do your best to pick enticing cover art, to find folks to review your book, and to promote it as best you can.

None of that is going to earn you a dime unless people buy your book.

It does not matter how much you write. It does not matter the quality of your work. It does not matter if you have a massive social media presence, if you go to conventions, or if you make an entire vlog channel documenting the book's journey. If people do not buy your books, or consume your content (in the case of articles, videos, etc.) then you do not get paid. Period.

For instance, folks who want more of this serious should buy copies!

The point, to hammer it one more time, is that you cannot write yourself to success in the way so many people think. If a creator needs more money, they can't just write more articles, make more videos, or put out another book... it's sales, not word count, that matters.

If you've got a successful series with a lot of readers eager for a new installment, yes, a new book will probably get your audience to pick up copies... buf if you don't have the audience who is supporting you, it doesn't matter how much stuff you make, because no one is buying it. You're the proverbial tree falling in the forest, and no one is around to see you or hear you.

An author's success (and how hard they have to work) is determined by their audience. So if you have an author who you want to pay their bills, and work a reasonable day instead of pulling 12 hour shifts at their desk, do what you can to support them. Buy their books, leave reviews, follow them on social media, boost their signals, leave comments... do what you can to help them build up the audience. Because without an audience, it doesn't matter what we do... all of our earnings comes from you. Full stop.

Support The Literary Mercenary

If you want to see me produce more work, consider some of the following options!

- My Facebook

- My Blue Sky

- My LinkTree

- My Weekly Newsletter

- The Azukail Games YouTube Channel (where I contribute video content)

- My Rumble Channel (longer videos that won't show up on YouTube)

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!

Also, if you're curious about how to write for tabletop RPGs, don't forget to check out my show Tabletop Mercenary, which you can find on both the Azukail Games channel, as well as my Rumble channel listed above!

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, the Hardboiled Cat series about a mystery solving Maine Coon in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list. 

Everything You Don't Like Is Not "A.I."

As folks know, I am not a fan of generative A.I. for a lot of reasons. The way these programs are trained steals the work from authors and artists in order to swipe money from their pockets. The products are, generally speaking, not up to the quality of paying an actual creator to make something. These programs are swallowing a colossal amount of energy, and burning through a massive amount of water as a result of their widespread use.

However, there is another annoying thing about generative A.I. that I hate... it's become the new insult the Internet is throwing around whenever they see something they just don't like.

The image has how many eyes?

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! And, of course, check me out on Blue Sky, since that's what we're talking about today!

It Just Keeps Happening...

There are always going to be people who criticize the things you make. That's part of the job when you're an artist of any stripe. However, the proliferation of A.I. generators has caused several problems that are tough to deal with in the wild, and they don't seem to be going away any time soon. Namely that people will either assume (or just accuse) you of using A.I. when they don't like you, your work, or both.

For instance, in the recent past I've been accused of:

- Using A.I. programs to generate RPG supplemets (even though they were published before the onset of any generative A.I. programs).

- Using an A.I. text-to-speech generator in my video essays like the one below (it's clearly my own voice, and there are dozens of videos of my speaking right into the camera in the same cadence on the same channel).

- Using A.I. to post on social media platforms due to the sheer volume of posts I make (and while I wish I had a program to do this, no, I have to make a majority of my posts manually. People always seem surprised when I respond).

While this is extremely annoying to deal with, however, I wanted to take a moment to remind folks that this isn't just the inability of many people to tell the difference between A.I. and non-A.I. content. There is definitely some of that going on, absolutely, but there's something far older at the root of so many of these comments.

Put simply, it's just haters using the most recent fad to sling mud at creators. Same as they always have.

How can I be sure of that, you ask? How can I come on the Internet and state with conviction that so many of these comments are not coming from a place of genuine concern, or an opposition to the use of A.I. generators which just so happens to catch human creators in the crossfire?

Two reasons. First, it's always an accusation (typically phrased in a demeaning fashion) rather than a question. Secondly, even if you provide evidence that it isn't A.I. (whether you have a time lapse video of you making something, you can provide the sources for all the items in the project, you have time stamps and publication dates, etc.), the goal posts move. The conversation then morphs into, "Well it looks/sounds like something you'd make with A.I.," or, "Well, if someone wanted [content] like that, they'd just use A.I. instead of paying you for it," and so on, and so forth.

And while this is annoying, and frustrating, and damaging to the calm of all the creators out there still making art with sweat, blood, and spite, I want to say something else that might be a little controversial, but which I feel is important.

Screw the haters. You don't need them to succeed.

You Just Lost Yourself A Customer!

We've all been in those stores where there's a Karen pitching a fit because she didn't get her way, and she storms out with something along the lines of, "I've been shopping here for ten years! You just lost yourself a customer!" But then it turns out that she's bought like one item there in that ten year time span, and most of the time she's just a pain to the staff and to other customers.

This is the box most haters fall into, and it's why you should just ignore them a majority of the time.

So it's agreed. We move on with the day, yes?

It's perfectly legitimate to check your sources to be sure you support creators who match up with your values. And if you don't want to support someone who uses A.I., then you're well within your rights to not do that as a consumer. However, if someone comes out of the gate swinging before they bother to check that what they're seeing is or isn't A.I. (something which can usually be established by a quick check of a sales page, or just asking the creator in question in the comments section), they're probably more interested in the fight than they are in actually finding out whether your project was made using A.I. And if you make it clear you didn't use A.I., but they're still interested in hollering? Yeah... they were never going to support you in the first place. Cut it off now, and save yourself the sanity.

Remember that no matter how cool the thing you made is, and no matter how hard you worked on it, there are some people who just won't bite. They won't watch your videos, won't listen to your podcast, won't buy your books, and won't play your game... and there's nothing you can do to persuade them.

So don't waste time trying... instead, focus on reaching people who will actually become part of your audience, and who do want you to keep making more stuff.

Support The Literary Mercenary

If you want to see me produce more work, consider some of the following options!

- My Facebook

- My Blue Sky

- My LinkTree

- My Weekly Newsletter

- The Azukail Games YouTube Channel (where I contribute video content)

- My Rumble Channel (longer videos that won't show up on YouTube)

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!

Also, if you're curious about how to write for tabletop RPGs, don't forget to check out my show Tabletop Mercenary, which you can find on both the Azukail Games channel, as well as my Rumble channel listed above!

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, the Hardboiled Cat series about a mystery solving Maine Coon in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list. 

A Majority of Making Art Is Boring and Tedious (And You Need To Get Used To That)

We've all experience that New Relationship Energy. You know, when everything is fresh, and new, and every day is full of discovery and excitement? Sometimes that energy lasts for a couple of weeks. Sometimes it sticks around for a few months, or in some cases for a year or so. However, that heady sensation eventually passes. When it does we face a choice; seek out that same high somewhere else, or commit to where we are right now, and work on actively building the relationship we're already part of.

A lot of people talk about how it feels like the spark died. About how the color went out of things. They pine for the days when everything was new, and exciting... but they overlook an important truth. A majority of what makes relationships work isn't extreme chemical reactions, and potent attraction; it's commitment. It's adjusting your life to one another's eccentricities, it's doing chores when they need done, it's finding solutions to problems so you can both live easier lives. It isn't sexy, and it often isn't fun, but it's the thing you need to do in order to build a life.

Now use this as a metaphor for art, and how it's made.

Most of it is blood, sweat, and tears, instead of glitter and rainbows.

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!

The Results Are Sexy (The Process Isn't)

Making art in all its forms, whether it's plotting a story, conceptualizing a podcast, painting a painting, getting ready to animate something, and so on, and so forth, often have a New Relationship Energy phase as well. After all, when the idea or concept is fresh it's got a power and pull that can be compelling and exciting. You're going through the early stages building a world, or sketching out a rough idea, figuring out how you're going to turn it into a reality, all of that.

But the longer the process goes on, the less of that initial excitement there's going to be. Oh you'll still have moments where you come up with a really great turn of phrase that you're proud of, or you figure out a solution to a sound effect that was giving you problems, but between that whirlwind of Initial Excitement and Project Completion you just have a long stretch of Execution.

And Execution isn't fun. It isn't sexy. It isn't glamorous. It's the artistic equivalent of doing the dishes, throwing in the laundry, putting the baby down for a nap, walking the dog, and all the other necessary chores you have to do. It's boring... but if you don't do it, the art doesn't get made.

Consider this video essay I made for the Azukail Games YouTube channel (which you should go subscribe to if you haven't yet). Now, when I first had the idea of how to fix the evil corporate antagonist that is Pentex, it really set my brain on fire. It merged with all the knowledge I had of history, and I immediately thought of several really fun things that could be done with it. Even writing the script for the video essay was pretty fun, since it was only about 4,000 words and change, and I got to dive down several historical rabbit holes throughout the process.

You know the part that wasn't fun, though? Sitting in front of my screen for something like 16 hours to assemble all the disparate parts of this video essay. Because I had to find all the video clips, make all the title screens, assemble everything to transition at just the right times, and add in all the effects I wanted, while trying to make it all look seamless.

And that is the part where so many people give up.

Whether it's picking up the brush and making the thousands of strokes to bring a painting to completion, or taking a certain space of time to add a few hundred (or a few thousand) words to a document every day, or editing a little more of a big video on your days off, so many people give up when they reach the actual art stage of making art. Some of them do it for a while, but then they miss the spark when it was new. They miss that excitement, and the rush they had when they were playing in a sandbox, or handling a steaming hot, completely fresh idea that captivated them.

Too many people out there think that making art is all frenetic energy and manic excitement, with furious typing or being seized in the grip of the muse for hours or days on-end. And that really isn't how a majority of the process happens for most people who make art. There's some of that in the beginning, absolutely, and little fits of it here and there as we hit different snags or challenges, or we get to pieces of the project we were really looking forward to. But most of the time, making art is just a boring ass grind where we put one word, one brush stroke, or one more sound effect in front of the other until the job's done.

To return to my favorite metaphor, it's like following an exercise routine. Nobody gets absolutely shredded, completely built, or able to lift hundreds of pounds overnight. But no matter how impressive the results are (whether in terms of power, endurance, or just aesthetic), everyone who achieves their fitness goals had to put in the hours to get them there. And some of those days might have been fun. Some of those workouts might have given them an endorphin rush. Most of it, though? It's just putting the fuel into the machine, and getting in the reps and steps until you're that much closer to the goal.

The end result is amazing! But getting there? It's just grind.

And I'm saying this because so many people think art is supposed to be this inspired thing that just flows through you, just like how so many people think that love (or at least relationships) are supposed to be effortless, that things should just come naturally, and if you have to work at it that's a sign that your relationship is dying. In truth, that's just the way all of these things happen.

Being able to work through that grind, and to find meaning and purpose in it, and to find the discipline to watch the end result take shape... that's what separates artists in any field from people who are just pissing about. So remember that when you start getting bored, and wondering why this feels like work.

Because the simple reason is art is work. No matter how skilled you are, no matter how hot your creativity burns, forcing something to transition from an electrical impulse in your mind into a completed, finished thing is work. Period.

Support The Literary Mercenary

If you want to see me produce more work, consider some of the following options!

- My Facebook

- My Blue Sky

- My LinkTree

- My Weekly Newsletter

- The Azukail Games YouTube Channel (where I contribute video content)

- My Rumble Channel (longer videos that won't show up on YouTube)

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!

Also, if you're curious about how to write for tabletop RPGs, don't forget to check out my show Tabletop Mercenary, which you can find on both the Azukail Games channel, as well as my Rumble channel listed above!

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Craft of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, the Hardboiled Cat series about a mystery solving Maine Coon in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list. 

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!

It Doesn't Matter What You're Writing, As Long As You're Writing

When I first decided I wanted to be a writer back in high school, I had a very definite idea of what that meant. I wanted to write novels, and just focus on telling long, involved stories while cashing checks large enough to keep a roof over my head, and food in my fridge. Maybe I'd win awards, or have my work adapted to screens big and small, but those were stretch goals rather than requirements.

As we all know, even the finest battle plan never survives first contact with the enemy. So while I have written several novels (and they're all available on my Amazon author page), I've had to step away from them over the past couple of years for one very specific reason.

They don't really make me any money.

While that hurts to admit, it is what it is. I've written 4 novels and 2 short story collections, and even though I've taken them to dozens of conventions and made lord only knows how many online campaigns to try to get people to read my books, it rarely amounts to much of anything. In fact, I believe my last royalty payment was somewhere around $6 and change.

Though making this decision was painful for me, I wanted to remind everyone out there that just because you aren't writing the exact thing you want to that doesn't make you less of a writer. The only thing that can do that is giving up, and no longer writing.

And I don't want anyone out there giving up.

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!

What I'm Doing Now

To give my readers a little insight into my daily work schedule, the first few hours of my day are spent on promotion while I sip coffee and wake up. Once I've got all those posts out (or at least once I finish off some of the bigger platforms), I move on to writing blogs or articles, typing up my current TTRPG supplement, and then adding new words to the handwritten rough draft for a (usually) separate TTRPG supplement. In the evenings I typically add 500 words to whatever fiction project I have on my desk, and I'll spend the rest of the evening editing the current video that's going up on the Azukail Games YouTube channel.

The sharp-eyed readers among you have likely noticed that I said "the current fiction project" in that description. Because while I'm not currently writing novels, I am very much still working on fictional projects... they just take a a very different form these days.

Some months I'm working on short stories, like the Leagues of Votann tale Pyramid Scheme, or the most recent addition to the saga of the Imperium's bravest ogryn, Gav and Bob Part VI: The Laughter of a Thirsting God. Other months I've been working on scripts for my upcoming Chronicles of Darkness podcast Windy City Shadows (which, when the first season is done, will be roughly the length of a novel). However, regardless of what the particular project happens to be, I have not given up creating new works of fiction.

I've just changed the format I'm using.

And this is something I wanted to remind folks of today. Because even if you start out doing one thing and have to switch, or you really wish you could make a career creating a different kind of work than you currently are, what matters at the end of the day is that you didn't give up. You didn't stop. You didn't take your fingers off the keys, or your eye off the ball. You're still writing.

It is better to write something, anything, than to write nothing. To go back to my favorite metaphor, it's a lot like going to the gym. Even if you wanted to be a champion power lifter, that might not be feasible at the moment. Maybe you can't afford that kind of diet or time, or maybe you're recovering from an injury that means you don't have that kind of capability right now. It's better to shift over to a different workout that still lets you utilize your strengths, and which keeps you in some kind of shape, than to just give up, go home, and sit on the couch while eating Twinkies.

By all means, be frustrated about it. Be annoyed that you can't do those things you want to do. However, do not ever be ashamed of having to switch gears because of financial needs, creative requirements, or needing to try to find another way to create things. As long as you don't stop creating, and you're still putting work out there, that's what matters.

Support The Literary Mercenary

If you want to see me produce more work, consider some of the following options!

- My Facebook

- My Blue Sky

- My LinkTree

- My Weekly Newsletter

- The Azukail Games YouTube Channel (where I contribute video content)

- My Rumble Channel (longer videos that won't show up on YouTube)

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!

Also, if you're curious about how to write for tabletop RPGs, don't forget to check out my show Tabletop Mercenary, which you can find on both the Azukail Games channel, as well as my Rumble channel listed above!

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Craft of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, the Hardboiled Cat series about a mystery solving Maine Coon in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list. 

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!