{"id":6053,"date":"2019-11-15T10:59:15","date_gmt":"2019-11-15T10:59:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jerichowriters.com\/townhouse\/articles\/how-to-win-at-writing\/"},"modified":"2019-11-15T10:59:15","modified_gmt":"2019-11-15T10:59:15","slug":"how-to-win-at-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jerichowriters.com\/how-to-win-at-writing\/","title":{"rendered":"How to win at writing"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, yesterday was the first of our super-brilliant autumn webinars. Last night\u2019s discussion was about how to self-publish your work: the mindset, the basic model, and some extra tips for adding thrust to those efforts.<\/p>\n

One thought I had afterwards is one I often have:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a kind of regret that these conversations are restricted to writers-interested-in-self-pub. Because actually, the heart of what I spoke about yesterday is Author-Led Marketing \u2013 the kind of marketing that you can do very effectively, for very low cost, and totally irrespective of who your publisher is<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In other words, let\u2019s say you are dead-set on trad publishing. Nothing wrong with that. Maybe you even have an agent or are progressing nicely down that happy road. Very good.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s say you get your book deal. (Yay!) Your book starts heading for market. (Double yay!) And then it occurs to you that the fate of your book is wholly in someone else\u2019s hands. Those other hands will be trying very hard to get your book bought by all the major supermarkets and other physical retailers, but what if they don\u2019t succeed? And, given that all big publishers are hurling a lot of titles at a limited number of retail slots, they are quite likely not to succeed. So what then? What happens to your book then?<\/p>\n

The scary truth is that the marketing budget for your book will rapidly shrink down to a little bit of nonsense on Twitter and the like, and the chances of your book selling well start shrinking down to a small, round zero. Those odds aren\u2019t much affected by how good your book is. If your book doesn\u2019t have a substantial retail platform, its chances of rescue by word of mouth are basically nil.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where author-led marketing comes in \u2013 and it\u2019s my personal view that every serious author these days needs to invest in their own marketing system<\/em><\/strong>. (Invest time, I mean. The actual costs are pretty small.)<\/p>\n

That marketing system will elevate your sales no matter what your outcomes in the world of bricks-and-mortar print. \u00a0That marketing system will guard and protect you. It will insure your career. It will increase your income and give you more flexibility over what you can profitably write.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a modern author-essential.<\/p>\n

These discussions tend to be wrapped up in a self-publishing wrapper, simply because every single author-led marketing technique of the last decade has emerged from the world of indie authors. Some of those techniques work well only for self-publishers, but the big red engine at the heart of all indie success works for everyone. Trad, indie, hybrid, anyone. It can work for you.<\/p>\n

In other words, if you have never thought about how to market your books, it\u2019s high time you started. You can spend an hour learning the ropes on our Webinar Replay page right here:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/jerichowriters.com\/bf-self-publishing-webinar-replay\/<\/a>
[The formatting on that page is a bit weird at the moment, but the video plays normally if you click it, and we’ll sort out the formatting as soon as we can.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Right. Bish, bosh. That\u2019s done.<\/p>\n

There was something else I wanted to pick up from yesterday, and it was sparked by questions like these:<\/p>\n

BENEDICT:<\/strong> Is it possible to make money publishing Middle grade e-books, if you’re not already a popular writer?<\/p>\n

CAROLINE<\/strong>: Hi Harry, one thing that concerns me is that it sounds like to make it work, you have to be churning out books very quickly! I am not a fast writer… Is self-publishing still going to work for me?<\/p>\n

SARAH<\/strong>: Hi Harry, my series is planned out at 27 books (not all written yet!), but is also planned to be split into three sets of nine books with past, present and future time periods\u2026 Do you have any tips for setting out with something this ambitious?<\/p>\n

DIANA<\/strong>: I have written my first novel. Edited and rewritten after Jericho editor report. It’s literary fiction. My next novels will be significantly different. Your model seems to suggest that a series is the most important aspect of self-publishing \u2026 Lit fiction is probably not the most lucrative market?<\/p>\n

GAIL<\/strong>: I’ve written a memoir – a WW2 pilot. No series. How do I build an email list?<\/p>\n

And, look, there are specific answers to all these questions. (Roughly: yes, middle grade can work. Yes, less prolific authors can succeed with self-pub. Yes, there is probably a good way to sequence some massive 27-book endeavour. Yes, lit fic is a hard sell in self-pub terms, but that doesn\u2019t mean it can\u2019t work at all. And yes: marketing a one-off memoir is hard, but there may be ways to cheat the system a little.)<\/p>\n

But the big answer is broader and bigger. So is the underlying question. Because the underlying question is often something like this:<\/p>\n

What does success look like? What would it be to be a successful author?<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s just no one single right answer to that question. Or rather: the single right answer depends on you and no one else.<\/p>\n

Yet I think there\u2019s often a tendency to think that there\u2019s only one model of successful author. Or maybe two: Lee Child (if you\u2019re thinking of commercial fiction) and, I don\u2019t know, Jonathan Franzen if you\u2019re thinking of literary fiction.<\/p>\n

Millions of copies sold. Or prizes won. Or both.<\/p>\n

And if you don\u2019t check one of those boxes, you haven\u2019t succeeded, or not really.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s horse dung, my friend. Fresh, bright, and steaming.<\/p>\n

Here are some other ways to succeed:<\/p>\n