Is your writing just a hobby?

Last week, I got this email from a writer – we will call him Mitch. And I believe that Mitch lives on a ranch in Kentucky, can handle a shotgun, has an easy seat in the saddle, and inclines towards a leathery manner in his personal relationships. Also, I don’t know why, but I see him with a small white terrier, named Rascal.

Mitch writes:

I fear that my writing is just a hobby and I’ll never achieve my modest ambition to get a readership that covers my self-pub costs. How do you tell? What are the signs/criteria that it’s time to move on? The industry is full of encouraging people telling everyone to just keep writing. If I played guitar or painted I wouldn’t necessarily expect to find an audience but so many writers do. But we’re not all good enough to find an audience. I’m asking you as you talk straight and don’t sugarcoat things. 

I’ve self-published two books of historical fiction and benefited greatly from Jericho Writers – your video self-pub course was great and I enjoyed being a FNL finalist in 2021. [FNL = Friday Night Live, an amazing event we run at both our Summer Festival of Writing and our York Festival of Writing].

I decided to self-publish after winning a prize at a literary festival, getting multiple requests for full MS, and being offered a (scandalously bad) contract from a digital first publisher. The books have attracted some decent reviews and very modest sales. But now I’m questioning whether to continue investing the considerable amount of money to ensure my books are professionally edited and presented. The time is not a problem as I enjoy it. I don’t want to end up like the self-published author I know who’s published 17 books with fewer reviews in total than I’ve had on my two and even lower sales. But he keeps plodding on.

What questions should I be asking myself?

 Well – good question, and I don’t really know, but here are some of my thoughts:

Are your books good enough?

If you are an FNL finalist then your book is unquestionably strong enough that it can make sales.

I’d say that, in the past, whoever has won our Friday Night Live competitions is almost always strong enough to get an agent and be taken on by Big 5 publishers. I’m definitely not saying people should necessarily choose that route over self-publishing, just that the Big 5 do lay down a clear quality hurdle, which an FNL winner has successfully leaped.

If you’re a finalist but not a winner, then you’re still there or thereabouts. So, if you were playing the trad publishing game, you’d be expecting to be taken very seriously by agents, you’d certainly be looking at offers from reputable digital-first outlets, and you might or might not get an offer from a Big 5 house.

Either way, your books are strong enough to be published and – definitely – self-published. I won’t name names, but there are unquestionably million-plus selling authors whose books are not as good as yours. So do you have the basic quality? Yes.

For anyone reading this email whose books aren’t yet in that zone, I’d generally recommend that you work more on your books (and yourself) before publishing. Mitch is in about the right zone to get published. People who aren’t yet in that zone can get published and can make sales … but real quality makes everything easier, there’s no doubt.

Trad or self-pub?

I think for you, there’s a real question about which route to follow.

Historical fiction is one of those genres which hasn’t been so heavily colonised by indie authors. It also tends to invite standalone writing, which is just tougher to sell than anything in a series. It’s not that there’s a huge market for traditionally published hist fic, but at least there’s an ecosystem already present and thriving.

But that’s not my main concern. The thing about self-pub is that – with very few exceptions – books don’t sell themselves. You need to be really clear-eyed and determined when it comes to:

• Editing and proof-reading
• Cover design
• Book description and metadata
• Email list set up and use
• Website
• Promos & advertising

And you also need to write plenty. It’s hard to make any real sales from one or two self-pub books. The flywheel really starts to spin when you have three or more … and even three is only a start.

The issue here is that any shop works better when you have more to sell. So it’s tough to advertise successfully on Facebook, if you are trying to make your money back from a $4.99 ebook. But if you are promoting a $0.99 ebook that leads a reader into a series of several further $4.99 books, then your conversions will go up (because the first step is so cheap) and your income will go up (assuming that enough readers end up buying the series.)

In other words, if you want to stay self-pub – and, remember, I love self-pub – then you need to make sure you’re being professional about everything, not just the editing. And you need to write more.

But good books + proper marketing + several books in the series? That sounds like a winning formula to me.

Other types of trad

My hunch – not based on anything much – is that you’ll be happier when accompanied by the right kind of publisher. That could definitely be digital-first: the best of those publishers are relentlessly excellent in their digital marketing. The best of them also have excellent author relationships, very often better than those to be found in the Big 5.

But there’s also that long tail of regular print-led publishers I spoke about last week. The Big 5 houses don’t have all the best editors. They don’t have all the best marketers. A sizeable proportion of Big 5 authors end up completing their contracts, having made disappointing sales and never having felt the power of a big marketing machine rolling into action. I think if I were you, I’d be looking to make contact with several of those firms and see what you can make happen. Outside the Big 5 and their nearest peers, you don’t need an agent to make the approach.

If you do want to go down the agent route, then the simplest, easiest route to seeing how near or far you are is to book a few one-to-one sessions with an agent (more info here). For not very much cost, you’ll get a pretty accurate read of how you’re doing. My main tip here would be to get opinions from more than one agent. In your case, you’re certainly in the zone of being saleable, and you don’t want to rely on just a single verdict.

The great unknown

And in the end, Mitch? None of us know, right? I’ve had some book deals which worked really well, others which really didn’t. The quality of my work was not always, or even usually, the largest factor in those outcomes. As authors, we’d like quality alone to determine success – the competition would still be horrendous, but at least we’d accept the basic terms of the race. But life’s not like that. It’s just less predictable. So I can offer advice, and the advice might even be wise … but reality might snake away in a different direction all the same.

I hope this helps, a bit.

Give Rascal a tickle under the ears from me. And easy with that old mare of yours there. Her withers look a touch inflamed.