Even Small Goals Can Seem Out of Reach When You're an Independent Creator

One of the recurring themes on this blog has been the disconnect between how the public perceives the earnings of creative professionals, and what those earnings actually look like. Because as I've mentioned time and time again, most people only see famous millionaires (Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, etc.), or fictional authors (Angelica Fletcher, Richard Castle, and so on), so they have an extremely biased view of what a reasonable income would be for someone who writes for a living. And even if they know that most writers aren't bestselling millionaires, they assume that if you're a "real" author that you at least make the same as someone earning minimum wage.

Truth is, most of us don't. What's really frustrating about it, though, is that the numbers a lot of us need to hit to make a living are so low, yet we still can't manage them except through years of sweat, and occasionally lucky rolls of the dice.

Come on, come on... it's not that far!

Before I get into the numbers, you can help me reach my goals by becoming a Patreon patron today! And if you just want to stay on top of all my latest releases, subscribe to my weekly newsletter as well!

Some Examples of Small, Unattainable Goals

Before we get started, I want to lay out some numbers for you. I live in government-subsidized housing in a small town in the Midwest. So, the numbers I'm going to throw around are going to be nothing compared to what authors would need to live in big cities, or pricier suburbs. Additionally, if I make more than $16k in a single year I would lose access to what healthcare I have through the state of Indiana. So I'm not even talking about thriving in many of these situations, just paying bills and occasionally going out for tacos when a new book drops.

Something to keep in mind as I start laying out facts and figures for you.

This is also why I spread my eggs among many baskets.

Let's say I wanted to earn $12k a year. For most people that's a laughable wage that's far below the minimum, but we'll take that as an example. After all, since it's so small, it should be pretty easy to make that, right?

Well, if I wanted to earn $12k a year from Patreon I would need to clear $1k every month. I have over 700 followers on my author page on FB, and over 1,200 and growing on Twitter, and there are social media groups with 100k+ people who see my work on the regular. So, in theory, it shouldn't be too hard to find 100 of them to give me $10 a month, right? or 200 who could part with a fiver? Even a thousand people who could each give me $1 every month, which is less than the price of a Netflix subscription?

At time of writing I have 39 patrons. I deeply appreciate all the help they give me, however, my monthly take-home support from them is less than $300. And even at the highest subscription numbers I ever had on that platform, I never made more than $320 or so per month.

Given there are people making thousands to tens of thousands of dollars a month on Patreon, that goal doesn't seem unreasonable. But I've been on the platform for years, and I've reached out in all the ways I can, but it's never grown anywhere near the level I would need it to be at to make a living. You could help that by becoming a patron today, though!

Okay, but what about my books?

Let's move onto the next basket... what about all those books I've written? From my Hard-Boiled Cat mysteries Marked Territory and Painted Cats, to my sci-fi thriller Old Soldiers, to my independent books Crier's Knife and The Rejects, I've got a sizable archive of stuff for dedicated readers to check out.

So what would it take to make that very small living just selling those?

Well, I make about $3 or so per sale. There's variation depending on platform, format, etc., but we'll use $3 to lowball it. So, I'd need to sell about 4k books a year to make bank. That's about 1k books per season, or three hundred and change a month. 10 books a day, give or take. And since there's over 300 million people who speak English in the world, surely it's not unreasonable that I could sell at least that many novels per day?

At time of writing, that's just not the case.

From my Ring of Fire books (two cats and the space marines), I get paid once every 6 months. That check has been consistently in the $120 range, which isn't nothing, but does translate to about 40 books sold over a 6 month period. Far as the pulpy sword and sorcery novel and the independent short story collection, I'm lucky if those move any copies at all these days. Doesn't matter where I link them or how I promote them, they're just a tough sell, and I don't have any companies backing me up on the marketing for those two.

Again, it's not an impossible number... it's just one that feels impossible to reach without the next best thing to divine intervention. Almost as impossible as actually getting people to read the books and leave reviews. You only need 50 of them for Amazon to start promoting you to other browsers, but the best I've managed to do is 25, and that's on the oldest novel I have out. None of the others have even broken 20 yet (though anyone who decides to finally leave their rating and review could make a big difference there).

What about all those RPG products you work on?

One of the biggest earners I have is the sheer bulk of RPG supplements I put out every month (all of them collected on a pin board for the tabletop folks reading this). With roughly 120 supplements with my name on them out at time of writing, one would think that I make all sorts of bank off of them. After all, even if my royalties are a small cut of the overall sales, they've got to add up when we're talking about such a large archive, right?

Yes and no.

While my royalties and affiliate earnings have gone up over the years as the archive has grown, we're still talking very small numbers. The largest amount I receive from any of my supplements is $1 per sale, and that's only for a handful of titles. The rest range from $0.10 on the smaller end, to $0.60 on the larger end (such as for Ironfire: The City of Steel that you see above). So after 4 years or so of hammering away on title after title every month, what does that add up to? On average, between $200-$250 a month. Sometimes it's higher than that because I was part of a big bundle or a popular deal, but that's the range I'm looking at right now. And I didn't start regularly earning over $200 a month on those sales until May of 2021.

So I'd basically need to increase the earnings on those five-fold just to make less than minimum wage. A feat that, all other things being equal, could take me 20 or so years of additional labors.

All of These Things Require The Audience To Act

One of the unfortunate truths about being an author is that I actually possess very little power to change my own situation when all is said and done. Because it doesn't matter how many novels I churn out, how many blog updates I write, what conventions I attend, or how I tweak my keywords... because at the end of the day what makes or breaks creative professionals is you. The audience.

Without you, we are nothing. You are the crowd, and our rise or fall is determined by your whims alone.

Are you not entertained!?

So if you made it this far and you want to help, there's a lot of things you can do. If you have the spare dosh consider becoming a Patreon patron, or buying some of my books and games. If you're broke (just like me and everyone else), consider leaving a review of anything of mine you've enjoyed. Follow me on my social media links below to help boost my signal, and share around any books or supplements you think are cool. Hell, check out my Vocal archive and give it some reads (since it pays me based on how many reads my work gets)! There's over 200 articles in that archive, and you're sure to find something you like and want to share with your social media circle.

And remember this whenever it comes to other creators out there who make the things you like. Because except for some very notable exceptions, we're trying to ice skate uphill and could use the help.

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!

Writers Need To Parse Criticism Carefully Before Making Changes

When your whole job is making sure you have a happy audience, it's important to keep an eye out for criticism. I've said more than once that if you create something, and people don't like it, that doesn't mean the audience doesn't "get" what you were doing as a creator; they're the ones who have the final say in whether or not you are successful. Talent, vision, a large platform, a big marketing budget, all those things can help, but at the end of the day the question is whether or not this thing you made pleased your audience.

But there is a flip side to that coin. Because there's going to be criticism of your work no matter what you choose to make... the question is whether the people and quarters the criticism is coming from matters, and if it should require you to change course or not.

Original comic by Phillip M. Jackson

As always folks who don't want to miss any updates should subscribe to my weekly newsletter. Also, if you want to help me keep the content flowing, consider becoming a Patreon patron as well! It makes a big difference, even if you can only spare a little bit each month.

If They Aren't Part of Your Audience, Who Cares?

I talked about this back in my post Cancel Culture is Not a Thing, but I wanted to reiterate it this week for all the authors who are feeling skittish here. You cannot please everyone. Period. You could write the most heartfelt romance with absolutely soul-clenching drama, and there are going to be people who hate it. They might not be fans of the genre, or they think it's too bombastic, or they feel there's no substance; whatever it is, there will be people who hate your work. You cannot avoid that.

And that is not the kind of criticism you should be worrying about. At all. Why? Because the people who are making these complaints aren't part of your audience. There is nothing you can do to please them, so it's pointless to try to do so because (as the comic above proves) you're more likely to alienate your current audience than you are to win over a new one.

Your complaint has been noted. Now piss off.

Imagine for a moment that you ran a burger restaurant, and someone came in off the street to complain about your menu. You didn't offer pasta, or your vegetarian options were lacking, or you didn't have a smoothie machine, and they're mad about it... what difference does that make to you? Are they an existing customer of yours? Have they been loyally supporting your operation, and they're simply making a request about something they'd like to see you offer in the future? Or are they someone who doesn't actually patronize your establishment who is loudly complaining that you aren't catering to them, even though they aren't actually part of your demographic?

Because if we're looking at the former, those are people you might want to listen to. They're already interested in what you're making, and they'd like to see more of it, but they also want you to take their wants into consideration for future expansion. If we're talking about the latter, though, who cares what they want? Especially if the things they're demanding aren't part of your service, and it isn't something they're going to support, they're just blowing wind.

Consider Who You're Trying To Please

Too many of us just assume that if people are criticizing us that we must be doing something wrong, and we need to fix it before we do damage to our reputations and careers. And that might be true... or you might just have blowhards screaming at you because they're mad they aren't the center of your universe.

And sometimes, if you listen very carefully, the criticism you're getting can actually tell you if you're going in the right direction.

The guy with the Confederate battle flag in his profile is upset? Good.

Give you an example. When I was working on my 100 Kinfolk Project for Werewolf: The Apocalypse I had all sorts of less-than-desirable folks slinging negative criticism my way. I had people who were upset that neo-Nazi characters were only present in the villain book, and not available as "edgy" allies for heroic characters. I had people throwing hissy fits that I "overrepresented" gay and trans characters in the project (something I addressed in A Response To The "Flaw" in My Kinfolk Project for those who are curious). However, given that the whole purpose of the project was to be more inclusive of the sorts of people usually ignored by the game's material, and to make it clear that we were no longer playing in the 90s, these were basically people who were mad I'd baked a chocolate cake. They didn't want chocolate, they wanted vanilla, and they didn't want to share it with anyone else.

If you get my drift.

Should I change the content I'm putting out to make those people happy? No. If they don't like it, or they think it isn't white or straight enough for them, I don't really care. If my work upsets somebody because now they can't play a neo-Nazi without everyone calling them out for it, good, I helped in a small way. But if someone who was part of a marginalized group reached out to me and told me I'd messed something up, or used hurtful language? If someone wanted to correct a mistake I'd made regarding a tribal identity for an indigenous character? Now that I would listen to, because that is literally the audience I'm aiming for, and the purpose the work was supposed to fulfill. So if I can't make my intended audience happy (or if they appreciate the effort, but feel I should fix problematic aspects) then that is something that is definitely a problem that needs corrected.

So keep that in mind when your work is being criticized. Are the people pointing out factual errors that should be fixed to make the work stronger? Are they trying to be helpful, or telling you what they want to see more of when you come out with your next piece? Or are they just screaming at you because you aren't catering specifically to them, and they're mad about it?

Consider the source, and if what they want is something you want to serve with your work, before taking out the red pen.

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 cat noir novel Marked Territory, its sequel 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!

Creators Need Support, Not Another Hustle

If you're a regular reader here, or if you know a creative professional in your daily life, chances are you're already well aware of the struggle most of us face. Whether we're trying to sell books, get reads on our articles, hustle for Patreon patrons, or a dozen other things it can often feel like we're dancing on the edge of a volcano, and that we might fall in at any moment.

The volcano in this metaphor is capitalism, and there's no safety net to stop us from being burned up like an evil ring at the end of a trilogy if we miss a payment.

Capital has but one master, and it answers to no other!

And while there are a lot of folks out there who are willing to give advice, I want to take this week to ask you to please, pretty please, stop suggesting that we pick up "side" jobs or "real" jobs until we make it. Because you're not helping, and if possible you're making things worse.

Before I get into the nitty gritty details of that, though, remember to subscribe to my weekly newsletter if you want to stay on top of all my content. Also, if you want to help me stay on top of my own bills consider becoming a Patreon patron!

A Side Job? Oh If Only I'd Thought of That...

If you have a friend, family member, or even just a close acquaintance that's a creative professional, chances are good you've let fly with this sentiment at some point. You've probably wondered why the simple solution of just picking up a few shifts at a local grocery store or gas station until they break big hasn't occurred to them. After all, it seems so easy. The author sacrifices a bit of time, they get an extra few hundred bucks a month, and they're not as worried about the performance of their work.

A win all around, right?

Just don't be poor? Shit, why didn't I think of that!

There's a lot of reasons why you're probably getting scornful looks from your creative friends if you've made this suggestion to them, either in-person or in text. So I want to take a moment to break down both why it's insulting, and the underlying message that it conveys to them since it's something the person making the suggestion rarely thinks about again, but which will stick with the creator for months to years afterward.

First and foremost, let's talk about the tone of the suggestion. It's often presented as a simple solution to one's problem, as if somehow the creator in question doesn't know what wage labor is, and hasn't even considered it as an option. Secondly, the suggestion is usually presented as something that's easily achievable, which it often isn't. Even if there are businesses hiring in someone's area (far from a guarantee), there may not be any that are willing to offer the schedule a creator needs, to be understanding with their requirements (you can't go to shows and conventions if your job won't give you weekends off, for example), or which will compensate them fairly for their efforts.

Thirdly, and this is the category I often find myself in, a creator only has so much time and energy in a given day. If they are suddenly using that time and energy to perform labor for someone else (and especially if it's labor they hate, find difficult, or which is extremely draining for them), they aren't going to be able to make art at the same rate they were before. In some cases it's possible that this "side" job siphons out all their energy entirely, making it impossible for them to keep making their art at all.

As the song says, being a rock star is a fun job, but it's still a job. And when someone is already giving their all to push a rock up a hill, you showing up and suggesting they put on this pair of ankle weights as if that will somehow make things easier is not helping.

There's Also The Underlying Message We're Hearing

In the interest of absolute clarity, I'm not talking about when a friend offers a writer a job as a stringer for a news site they have connections at, or brings them on as a short-term editor so they can get a fast paycheck to cover their bills. I'm talking expressly about when someone suggests you simply go out and get a standard, minimum wage, part-time gig that has nothing to do with your creative field, but which is meant to supplement and support your creative efforts. Because a different message is being sent in these two situations that people who think they're being helpful might not realize.

If someone offers you a job using your craft, what they're saying is, "I value your talent as a professional, and I trust you to get this job done for me."

If someone just suggests you go pick up a few shifts as a clerk, or find a part-time security officer gig, though? The message there (whether you intend it or not) is, "Well, clearly your art isn't worth anything on its own, so go get a real, grown-up job if you insist on following this dream."

As we all know, subtext is often present whether we want it there or not.

If you think the artist you're about to talk to creates good art, and that they should have the time and resources to create more of it, they don't need you telling them to spend their energy on other things. What they need is you to hold out your hand, and help them make those ends meet.

Because talent is meaningless when it comes to the success of art. We rise and fall, live and die, by whether we have an audience that supports us. Period, end of story.

Again, if you have money, you can support your creative friends directly. Buy their art, become patrons, and make sure your cash goes directly toward helping them. If you don't have money to give, though? Boost their signal using your voice. Share their art on your social media pages, leave good comments, and tell your friends and family members about them. Help them reach a larger audience so that they can get the eyeballs (and patrons) they need.

That might not feel like a lot, but I'll give you a concrete example of how this could snowball.

Seriously, go check this out!

About a week ago I released the short story Devil's Night over on my Vocal page; a fun little fantasy tale about devil-worshiping fascists getting punched right in the face in the low-town district. It took me plenty of time to put together, but at time of writing it's gotten maybe 50 reads or so... which amounts to about 30 cents in my pocket.

On average, roughly 100-500 people read my entries on this blog. If 100 people out there read this short story, it would probably put another 50 to 60 cents in my bank account. But what if 100 people all went and shared it on their social media pages? Sure a lot of those shares might go unremarked, but with that many shares chances are good it would catch on somewhere, and reach a far wider audience. It's possible that it could spread, reaching hundreds (if not thousands) more eyes than I could ever reach on my own. For every one thousand people who read said story, I'd earn $6... and there are millions of potential eyes on those platforms.

Will all the people who read this article click through to share that tale? Probably not. But that one, concrete action taken by even a moderately-sized group of readers could have rather dramatic consequences for me as a creator. And it would be far more helpful than any advice that I just pull myself up by my bootstraps until something eventually got popular enough to pay me what I'm worth.

Be the change you want to see in the careers of the creators you like. It makes a far bigger difference than you know.

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!

Trust Me, Writers, You Should Really Google That Idea First

It's a running gag that if you're a writer you probably have a somewhat suspicious search history. From how long it takes for a buried body to decompose, to what the effects of certain hallucinogens are, to the murder laws in particular states or countries, we often find ourselves in pursuit of rather strange information... and that's just for stories that don't involve magic, super science, and other impossible weirdness!

However, a lot of us should really run a few Google searches whenever we think we've had some brilliant, insightful breakthrough. Because a lot of the time you're going to find out that someone has probably had the idea already, and their take on the idea might alter the course you want to take with your own work.

Seriously, just check. Measure twice, write once.

As always, before we get started, I want to remind folks that I have a Patreon, and that's what keeps the wheels greased and the content coming out. Additionally, if you don't want to miss anything I put out, make sure you subscribe to my weekly newsletter while you're at it!

"Hey! They Stole My Idea!"

As writers we all have those moments where we are so convinced we've come up with a new idea, or a new twist on something that it just excites our imaginations and sends us into fits of creativity. And most of us have felt the cold steel of the pin puncturing that balloon when we've realized that we were not, in fact, the first ones to have this idea. And in at least a few cases, the idea has been around in the genre not just before we became writers, but often before we were even born.

What the hell? Who's been reading my notes?

For a perfect example of this, a younger writer I know practically had a meltdown while they were watching Wandavision. Because to hear them tell it, they were convinced that they came up with the idea of chaos magic... not just that, but they were so sure that the name in particular was something they'd come up with first, and that Marvel had somehow beat them to the punch. In case you're not familiar, Wanda's powers have been described as chaos magic for decades. The actual practice, which I talked about in What is Chaos Magic? for those who want to do further reading, has been around even longer. Not only that, but the term has showed up in dozens of fantasy novels, roleplaying games, and other intellectual properties since practically the 1970s.

So why was he so convinced that he'd coined this term himself, and come up with the idea of a character whose powers are strange and unpredictable? Well, partially it was because he had a relatively bland and samey media diet, so he hadn't seen those movies, played those games, or read those comics. But mostly it was because he didn't do a quick search on the words "chaos magic" because he was so sure that no one else had this idea that he could just proceed with his story without checking.

To be clear, none of this meant the writer in question suddenly couldn't have chaos magic in his novel. The concept isn't copyrighted, and he could have continued on with his plan. The only thing that changed would be that if he tried to use the, "So, the magicians in my story tap into chaos magic," as a selling point he was suddenly going to have people with more genre savvy asking if his book was like X, Y, or Z property. Or, in some cases, accusing him of either homage (or just ripping off) an older property who had already fleshed out that idea.

And for some of us, standing in the shadow of previous books is enough to make us re-evaluate an entire project.

Measure Twice, Write Once

If you're going to check to be sure that someone can actually survive the particular type of stab wounds you're dishing out, or that gas tanks made after a particular year can actually explode, then it pays to do a bit of searching regarding what you think are the unique selling points of your story. Whether it's the type of magic system you're using, the particular genre blend you're trying out, or even the names of your secret societies you're titling your books after, just check. It saves you a world of headache later.

Because nine times out of ten the fact that someone else had this idea ten, twenty, or even a hundred years ago (the pulp era was strange, and full of bizarre creativity) doesn't actually stop you from putting your own spin on it. Whether you're trying to impress readers or an editor, though, it's important to go in with open eyes knowing what the market has already done with a particular kind of book. Because there's nothing worse than walking a well-trodden path absolutely convinced that you're the first one to ever discover it.

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 cat noir novel Marked Territory, its sequel 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!