Demanding What You're Worth is Hard When No One Can Afford You (Reality For Writers)

When I started writing professionally a decade and a half ago, the going semi-pro rate for writers was 3 cents per-word. The pro rate was 6 cents per word. Between then and now the professional rate has gone up (last time I looked it was somewhere around 8 cents per word), and the semi-pro rate had increased to at least 4 cents.

The problem with these rates is that, while they're a lovely thing to know, it's sort of like being told that pristine Pokemon card you have is worth $40,000. It's nice that's what it's been valued at, but you aren't going to get that if you can't find someone willing to pay it. It's the same shit when you're a writer.

Yeah... I can pay $20 for this. I could maybe do $25?

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!

They Can't Pay What They Don't Have

I've been a professional writer since I was 28 years old or so. That was the last time I worked a clock-in, clock-out job, and ever since then I've been making my living writing books, blogs, RPGs, and any other kind of job I can get my hands on. I've worked for a variety of clients of all shapes and sizes, scraping together everything I can to make sure my bills stay paid and there's food in my fridge.

And you know what? I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I've received a "professional" rate for my work. If you're curious, it was the Leagues of Votann story Pyramid Scheme for Warhammer 40K, the short story The Irregulars written for Paizo, one of the adventures in the Dreadful Tales collection for the RPG Victorian Gothic, and Night Horrors: Primordial Peerage for Beast: The Primordial.

So why is that? Why have I published so many pieces of work over the years, and carved out my niche as at least a semi-pro individual, and yet I've almost never been paid even the semi-pro rate from 15 years ago? The short answer is that it's because most people who hire me can't afford it. Period.

They can't give you what they don't have, after all.

This is where authors run into that rock and a hard place. Because on the one hand, professional writers should be able to ask for professional rates for the work they're doing. However, if all the companies and clients that would employ you are only offering below-professional-standard rates, and they simply cannot afford to pay you that much, then you don't have the ability to get what you're worth.

You might be a pristine, first-edition Charizard card, but if there's not a collector on the market willing to pay $40,000 for you, your option is either wait, or sell yourself for a lower rate... and most of us don't have the ability to wait.

So, if you ever wondered why it is that authors are working 12+ hours a day, but we're still using food banks and need multiple roommates, it's because most us aren't being paid what our work is actually worth... but we can't force customers and clients to pony up money they don't have. All we end up doing is pricing ourselves out of the market.

You All Have The Ability To Help

Everything I've been talking about so far is about writers who are working for clients and companies on a per-word basis. However, that isn't the only way most of us get paid these days. If you have an author whose work you enjoy, then you have the ability to help them make a living.

So whether this is for me, or for another author you want to see succeed, consider taking the following actions to help:

- Watch/Read All Their Free Content (in addition to my blogs, you can find my work on Vocal.media, as well as on the Azukail Games YouTube channel)

- Subscribe To Their Social Media (you can find me on Facebook, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and Pinterest)

- Buy Their Merch (tee shirts, buttons, stickers, and books... like my noir cat novels Marked Territory and Painted Cats)

- Tip Them (you can find me on Patreon, as well as on Ko-fi)

When you buy an author's merch, they get a portion of the proceeds. When you watch their YouTube videos, listen to their podcast, or read their free work on a site with ads, they still earn some money because of your interest. When you follow them on social media, and interact with their posts, that tells the algorithm to push them up higher, and to give them more attention.

Again, no single individual is going to completely bankroll an author whose work they like. But if 50, 100, or 1,000 people all choose to do something small for a particular author over time, then those snowflakes are going to become a snowdrift. And eventually that avalanche is going to bear down on them, and wipe away bills, debts, and the things holding them back from making even more of the stuff you want to see.

Because if you have a loyal following that's supporting your work, well, you suddenly have the ability to tell a company that isn't paying enough for a job no. You have that ability to just wait it out until someone who wants to hire you can pay your minimum rate. And if they can't afford it, you can tell them that you'll still be here when they have a bigger budget to work with (or when they're willing to allocate part of that budget to you).

You, the audience, are the ones who have the power to lift and support creators. And if you really want to make a creator's day, you should exercise that free will to the fullest extent you can!

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)

- The A.L.I.C.E. Files (an audio drama channel I launched with Alice Liddell)

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 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.

YouTube, Dailymotion, and Spotify... Challenges and Payoffs

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:

- Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theliterarymercenary
- Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/theliterarymercenary

Follow the author's social media for the latest updates:

- Twitter: https://twitter.com/nlitherl
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NealFLitherland
- Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/neallitherland/

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?

I covered this back in Direct Donations Really Are The Best Way To Help Creators You Love, but since a lot of folks haven't read that blog entry, here's the numbers (on average) you're earning when you're on these platforms:

- 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!

- My Facebook

- My LinkTree

- My Weekly Newsletter

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

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

And if you happen to have some spare dosh lying around, consider become a Patreon patron, or leaving a tip by Buying Me a Ko-Fi!

Like, Follow, and Stay Tuned!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing!

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'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!

How You Can Help Me Keep My Content Free (Paywalls and Paychecks)

Most of us who create art, whether it's writing novels, making videos, drawing comics, or any of a thousand other creative pursuits, do so because we want people to be able to enjoy the fruits of our creative labors. We want people to see what we make, and to be able to enjoy it, because that's what completes the cycle for a lot of us.

Unfortunately, we live under capitalism. As such, we can't just give things away for free. Creators have bills to pay just like everybody else.

With that said, though, you can do your part to help the creators you love get paid without spending any of your own money. It will take a bit of time and effort on your part, but if you want to make sure creators you love can afford to keep making stuff you want to consume then this is the best way to do it.

And trust me, it all adds 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!

Spinning Straw Into Gold

A majority of content you find online exists to generate a profit. From the ads on social media and streaming video, to podcast sponsors and native content featured on blogs, it's all out there to make money for somebody. That somebody is rarely the creator, of course, because it takes a rather absurd amount of traffic in order for "free" content to turn enough of a profit that a creator could pay rent or cover their bills with it.

How absurd, you ask?

Let me shine some perspective for you.

Well, consider a platform like Vocal. My archive there currently has about 253 articles in it, including TTRPG content, short fiction like 50 Two-Sentence Horror Stories, explorations of weird history, and more. As one of the Vocal+ creators, I earn about $6 for every 1,000 reads on my articles. I say reads and not views, because just opening an article and closing it after a while doesn't count; someone needs to actually scroll through and read the damn thing.

For me to cover my rent and bills, I would need to get about 4,000 reads per day, give or take. Is that possible? Sure, it could happen if something went viral, or got mysteriously popular, like when my article It's Okay To Admit There Are Problems in Your Hobby first hit social media and the flame wars didn't die down for weeks on end.

Realistically, though? I get about 100-400 reads in a day. Sometimes there are outliers and unexpected booms of traffic, but that's what my average looks like.

Alternatively, consider video content like the piece above. Now, my Daily Motion channel isn't huge in following or library (yet), but it is monetized. And much like on YouTube someone can expect to earn a couple of dollars for every 3-5k views on their content... provided, of course, the person viewing it doesn't have Ad Block on their device. Ad Block means the ads don't get seen, so you don't end up earning anything. Those views are counted as far as your traffic goes, but they aren't counted for your earnings.

Realistically, you're lucky if 1 in 10 viewers doesn't have Ad Block, and even that is being pretty generous. That's how I can have over 5k views on my content in a month, and basically earn a nickel for my trouble. A nickel that I don't even get to keep, as much like YouTube, Daily Motion doesn't cash you out until you reach $100 of earned money.

This is Where You Come In

This is going to sound like I'm beating a broken drum, but creators do not have the power to get ourselves paid. We can create the content, we can stay active on social media, and we can try to get people to look at it, but 9 times out of 10 we get ignored, downplayed, blocked, or kicked out. It's a Catch-22; everyone will tell you to get out there and sell yourself, but when you do all anyone will say is how sick they are of everyone promoting their work.

You can't have it both ways, guys.

To reiterate what I said in Why Your Likes, Shares, Reviews, and Follows Matter to Creators, we are the gladiators. We are down in the arena putting on the show... but we have zero power outside of that. It's you, the members of the mob, who decide our fates. We need you to cheer for us. We need you to show up and be present when we have a match, and to talk about us so that other people find out about who we are and what we do.

Without you all doing your part to build us up, we'll be unseen, unknown, and forgotten.

What does that look like, though? Well it means that you:

- Regularly consume our content (we need views, reads, etc.)

- Follow us on social media (the more people we have, the more the algorithm promotes us)

- Like and share our content (we need help boosting the signal)

- Leave comments (big help on YouTube, most forums, etc.)

In short, creators can only afford to make things for free if their fans actively hype them up and grow their base to other people. Because I can guarantee you that if the 100 or so people who read one of my Vocal articles today also shared that article on their social media groups and pages, I would probably have several hundred to several thousand reads just for today. If a hundred people watched a video and shared it then it would climb to thousands of views, and likely several new subscribers.

But I cannot make that happen. No creator can make that happen. Only you, our audience, can do it. And you do it by raising your voice, and showing your favor, so that the Caesar declares us victors when it's time to render the decision.

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!

- My Twitter

- My Facebook

- My LinkTree

- My Weekly Newsletter

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

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

And if you happen to have some spare dosh lying around, consider become a Patreon patron, or leaving a tip by Buying Me a Ko-Fi!

Like, Follow, and Stay Tuned!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing!

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'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!

Direct Donations Really Are The Best Way to Help Creators You Love

 I talk a lot about how to best support creators on here, mostly because a lot of the content consuming public doesn't actually know the ins and outs of how their activity translates into funding for those artists they like. And this week I wanted to remind everyone that if you want to keep the creators you like in business, the best thing you can do is give money to them directly. It doesn't have to be a lot, but services like Patreon, Ko-Fi, etc. are your best bet when it comes to making sure your favorites can keep food in the cupboard and rent covered from month-to-month.

Incidentally, folks who get to the end of this and decide they want to help fund my efforts are encouraged to check out The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page in addition to my Ko-Fi!

Seriously, every little bit helps!

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!

Eyeballs Versus Donations

When most of us think of supporting the creators we love, we think about following them on social media, sharing their posts, buying their books, reading their blogs/articles, or watching their YouTube videos. And all of that is helpful, don't get me wrong... but it's not always as helpful as just handing the artist you love a tip and saying, "You do good work, champ, keep it up!"

And to illustrate this point, I'd like to throw some numbers at folks.

- YouTube pays roughly $3-$5 per 1,000 video views.

- Spotify pays roughly $0.04 per every 10 streams (meaning you need more than 200 streams just to earn $1)

- Vocal (where I put articles like 5 Tips For Playing Better Evil Characters) pays $6 per 1k reads if you're a Vocal+ member. Half that if you use the free version.

- Sales for an RPG product like 100 Cults to Encounter can range from $0.15 to $0.40 each.

- Sales for a novel like my sword and sorcery tale Crier's Knife range from $2-$4 each.

Now ask how popular something would need to be to pay your rent.

Looking at this, there's no denying that your eyeballs and activity have value as a member of an audience. However, even if you leave a video, stream, or channel on all day, you probably didn't earn that creator more than a handful of nickels. Even if you spent hours every day digging through a blog or article archive reading everything you found, it would be worth maybe a couple of dimes. Even buying a copy of three dozen RPG supplements, or an arm load of novels, would only earn that creator a couple bucks.

Incidentally, this is the reason so many individuals have sponsors for their work. Even I was lucky enough to get a sponsor for my article How To Build The Catachan Jungle Fighters in The Pathfinder RPG, and that sponsorship was really the only meaningful payment I received for putting that guide together.

Now, does that mean you shouldn't listen to music by bands you like, watch YouTube videos of creators you enjoy, or read blogs? Absolutely not! We all create this content for it to be enjoyed by people like you. However, in order for traffic alone to pay our bills we would need a truly massive audience who were all tuning in and reading/listening/watching every single day, sharing the links on their socials and making sure our signal got boosted to hell and back.

Most of us don't have that. We probably never will, no matter how hard we work.

Direct Support is What's Most Effective

Do you have $1 you could spare to help keep a creator whose work you enjoy flowing? For most of us out there (even those of us with very limited budgets) the answer is probably yes. We could scrounge 4 quarters from the couch, and pass that along to an artist we love.

We could. But most of us don't.

So come on... help a fellow out here?

Consider this. I have just over 800 people following my Neal F. Litherland Facebook page at time of writing. That's really not a lot of followers for a professional creator. However, if every person who has elected to follow me all went to my Patreon page and pledged $1 a month, my monthly bills would go from, "Making me sweat bullets as I struggle to make ends meet," to, "Everything's paid for, I can actually save a little bit, and maybe splurge on a pizza on game night."

Hell, if even half of the people on that page all became $1 patrons, my bills would be covered. Things would still be close, but I would worry far less than I do now. I might even be able to take my foot off the gas a little bit to work on larger projects that don't have a 1-month turnaround because I could financially survive long enough to get new novels, RPG campaign paths, or equally big projects finished and ready for my readers to check out.

Again, the lesson here is not that we should all stop streaming music, watching videos, or reading blogs. Rather that we need to all acknowledge that if we really want to help the creators we love actually cover their bills that it's better to just give them a little tip, in addition to watching, listening, sharing their content on social media, buying merch when you can, etc.

Because it just makes the bigger impact... even if all you're giving is pocket change.

Also, before I forget, if you haven't subscribed to the Azukail Games YouTube channel yet, please do so! Audio dramas, world building, game discussions, and more are going on over there, and we're trying to get the thing monetized by the end of the year. We need 1k people and 4k hours of watched time in the past year, and we're nowhere near that level.

Like, Follow, and Stay Tuned!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing!

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 noir thriller Marked Territory, its sequel Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife as well as my recent collection The Rejects!

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!

Understanding Cascade Sales/Views, and Why More Products Means Steadier Earnings

One of the most common pieces of advice I see from writers is that you should always work on a series, because it's a guaranteed income. While I don't agree with that wording (nothing is guaranteed in the world of entertainment), the nugget of truth they're trying to get at is sound. In short, if you write a series of books then you are getting your readers invested in a bigger project, and making them feel like they're obligated to buy the next one in order to see what happens to their favorite characters. However, you don't have to write a series in order to net yourself more readers; just by virtue of writing a book that a reader liked, they're going to want more from you.

When they go looking for it, that is what I call a cascade.

Once the rapids get them, they're all yours.

In short, whenever you release a new piece of content (whether it's a book, a blog, a video, etc.), you're tossing a rock into a pool. Whether the initial splash is big or small, it causes ripples. Those ripples represent the way the impact flows outwards, and how even a modest initial splash can still have meaningful repercussions down the line.

I'll give you an example of what I'm talking about.

So, for those who don't know, I write a gaming blog called Improved Initiative. Not all that long ago I put up a post titled The Non-Problem of Making Monks Fit Your Setting. Short version is that there were some people out there who had cognitive dissonance about mixing "Eastern" martial artists with "Western" fantasy, and thus they just banned these kinds of characters. I wrote the piece pointing out how it's really not all that much of a stretch to include multiple kinds of fantasy in a single, collaborative project, and gave some examples of how you could make it work. As long as everyone follows the rules, you should be fine. I'd also written an older article, 5 Tips For Playing Better Monks, which I linked in that post, since I was talking about monks and such.

Apparently this was a sore spot in the gaming community, with a lot of people agreeing with my points, and an equal number of people vehemently disagreeing that you could ever have more than one strain of fantasy active in a given game. That led to some rather spirited debate in the comments, but it also led to a lot of people sharing the article around. While it snarfed up about 10,000 views in its original release run (not bad for one of my gaming articles), the advice article about playing better monks also got a thousand reads and change out of the deal. Which meant that, in addition to how well the actual post did, I got another couple of bucks to put in my pocket as a related but separate post of mine also caught some of those ripples.

That is, essentially, how a cascade works.

Keep The Cascade in Mind

Whether we're talking about book sales, article views, blog reads, you can get a cascade out of nearly anything. And often times it's the things you don't expect that yield some of the biggest results.

Which is why you need to always look at the impact something could have, and make sure you set up your marketing in such a way that you get the biggest possible splash onto your already existing content.

Or that the new fire re-ignites old ashes, if you like that metaphor better?

 

For example, when I wrote an article about Bartitsu, which is basically Victorian-era MMA, I made sure that I linked an article about Glima, which is Viking-style wrestling, just in case it got popular with the fight crowd. I always make sure to link back to my archives when I write new articles, making sure I can direct the flow of interested eyeballs to go read older pieces in a particular category. And when I come out with a new book, I make sure to mention My Amazon Author Page so that interested readers can see the whole spectrum, instead of just the latest installment.

Any given cascade might be a one-time runoff... but it might not be. There's always going to be a few readers out there who don't just read one article, watch one video, or buy one book. They're the ones who bookmark your site, who favorite your channel, and who add your work to their wish list. Those people were just curious readers when they clicked your initial link, but now they're budding fans.

Once you get those readers going deep down the rabbit hole, they're yours. But you need to make sure you gave them more than just one thing to look at. Because some readers will just walk away after satisfying their initial curiosity... but those who want more are going to happily dig through your archives, pick up older works, and just have a merry time spiking your views and sale counts.

As long as you left them a signpost for where to go next, that is.

That's all for this week's Business of Writing! 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!

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!

Want More Eyes on Your Work? Try Sideways Marketing

In order to clearly define who you are, and to make yourself easy to find for readers who are looking to buy what you're selling, authors tend to do our very best to carve out a niche for ourselves. Usually that niche is built around the genre we write in (or at least the genre we're best known for), and all the keywords we try to associate our names with. And sometimes you can get so invested in that label, and the niche that you're aiming for, that you forget your work might appeal to more than just that specific, target audience.

The question, of course, is how do you broaden your impact zone to include more readers?

Well, I've changed the sign. Was sort of hoping the rest would just come.

If you've been wracking your brain over this particular question, then might I suggest something I call sideways marketing?

What Is Sideways Marketing? How Does It Work?

To understand sideways marketing, you need to understand sideways thinking. Also called lateral thinking, it's a type of problem-solving where you tend to examine preconceptions, sift through wishful thinking for potential solutions, and let your creative processes take over. It is most defined, though, by asking one, important question... why?

How does that help you sell books, exactly?

Since lateral thinking is sort of hard to wrap your head around, I'll provide a concrete example that I just had some small success with.

About a month ago, I wrote an article titled What Is The Monster in "The Ritual"? For those not familiar with the film, "The Ritual" is a horror movie with an extremely unique monster in it. A group of friends go hiking in Sweden, they wander off the path, and find themselves in the territory of a primordial creature... a god that was all but forgotten from the old days. One of its worshipers tells us that it is a jotun, a bastard child of Loki, but we never hear its name spoken. So I laid out my theory as to which of the god of mischief's children the monster was, and how its identity might be reflected in the film's creature design.

Now, when I completed this article, I did my best to boost its signal through channels that focused on horror... because, after all, it was about a horror movie. And while I got some positive results from Facebook, Reddit, and several other places where I lurk, the overall numbers were not that great. And, since the earnings for that article depended directly on the number of readers I attracted, I had to figure out some way to get more people to read it... but how?

That was when I asked myself why? Specifically, I asked why I was restricting myself to horror-specific avenues. Because while there were definitely folks interested in my viewpoint who were horror film fans, the discussion was about a modern piece of art depicting a Norse god and Norse mythology. Once I realized that I'd been the one choking my potential audience, I expanded my marketing efforts to include pages dedicated to mythology, to history, and to the lore and religion of the Norsemen.

What I found was that horror fans were passingly interested in what I had to say. But that mythology fans were quite interested in my interpretation of the monster, and the choices the creature design team had made to realize the bastard child of a shapeshifter onscreen. And that interest led to comments, discussions, and a much more sustained effort by readers to pick up my work, and see what I'd had to say.

I more than doubled the exposure, clicks, and reads in less than a day, just by including a niche I hadn't actually considered when I'd first written the piece.

It Takes Some Getting Used To

Lateral thinking is not something you just start doing one day. It takes practice, time, and effort. However, in terms of your marketing, every successful application of a sideways strategy helps create a kind of mental muscle memory. And, even better, it often helps you see future places you could expand your work into.

Sometimes it's obvious what you can do to get your work in front of more people. However, if you take a moment, and examine your strategy, you might find there are some really simple adjustments you're not making that might open the floodgates.

That's all for this week's Business of Writing topic! If you've had any great successes by applying lateral thinking to your marketing efforts, feel free to boast about it in the comments below. For more of my work (from discussions of the effects cannibalism has on the human body, to how you can make parchment paper using tea) check out my Vocal archive. To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter. Lastly, if you'd like to help support me in my work, you can drop a tip in my jar by Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or you can become a regular patron by going to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page and signing up. Free stuff, and my eternal thanks, await you!

Want To Make Money Writing? Check Out Vocal!

Writing is hard. Getting paid for writing is even harder. Because in this age of instantaneous entertainment, where even the most obscure novel can be at your fingertips in seconds, it seems like more companies than ever before are trying to get writers to work purely for the exposure (as evidenced by companies like the Huffington Post asking to publish Wil Wheaton's work as a way to "take advantage of their unique platform").

Trust me, grocery stores don't take that shit in trade.

That's why I try to test the places I find that purport to pay writers for their work, and those who past the acid test get shared with you find folks. Like how, a while back, I wrote Make Money Writing (By Joining Infobarrel.com) after I'd put together an archive, looked at the metrics, and gotten a sense for the return on investment for work you put on there.

That's also why, this week, I'd like to let you all know about Vocal.

What Is Vocal? How Well Does It Pay?

To paraphrase the search results, Vocal is a long form social publishing platform where contributors are paid based on their personal traffic streams. Or, translated into common English, Vocal is a place that pays you for the traffic all the articles you write earn. All you have to do is sign up, write something, submit it for publication, and soak up reads.

Yeah... but how many readers do I need to get paid?

I've been contributing to Vocal since last summer, and I've amassed a small archive of my own. As such, I can tell you with some authority that it takes about 300 reads to earn $1. Not that I said reads, not views. People who just glance at your content don't count; they have to go through what you wrote, and actually take it in.

Fortunately, that's easier than it sounds. Doubly fortunate is the fact that Vocal has so many different sites under a single umbrella. So whether you want to write about sex (and put your articles on Filthy), or you want to write about games (and put your articles on Gaming), there's a site on Vocal for that. From dating and music, to politics and life hacks, there are all kinds of options out there. And as soon as you hit $35 in your archive, you can request a payment through Stripe. A few days later, bam, cash in your account.

How Much Do You Want To Make?

Most people ask how much they can make, but that's the wrong question for the setup Vocal uses. Instead, you should ask how many reads you can get for your content. Because some pieces I've written, like It's Okay To Admit There Are Problems In Your Hobby or 10 Signs You're Actually A Dom got thousands of reads when they first went up, and they've had fairly steady traffic since then. On the other hand, articles like What Are Charity Arcades? have barely broken 100 reads, and haven't generated a lot of ongoing interest since I put them up.

So, long story short, it's a popularity contest.

Fortunately, the more you write, and the more you build up your audience, the bigger your views get. Even if you only write a few articles a month, it's perfectly possible to make at least the minimum $35 every month. Two if you're slow in your marketing. As to the maximum... like I said, how many reads will you be able to get?

That's all for this week's Business of Writing update. Hopefully it helped some folks out there. If you want to see some of the different kinds of content the site accepts, check out my Vocal archive. For those who want to keep up-to-date on my latest releases, simply follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter. Lastly, if you want to help support my work, go to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page, or click here to Buy Me A Coffee.