The Business of Content Creation
When I was a kid, the calling of author seemed a sacred pursuit.
Here’s what I thought happened: writers would be be picked, plucked out of obscurity, and granted a contract that assured their success. Then, free from the worries of the world, they could sit in a dark room in a remote cabin and craft their next masterpiece in beautiful solitude. And when they emerged, hordes of eager fans would wait, wallets open.
Clearly, that’s not the state of publishing today. Writers waiting to be picked may wait forever, and unless you’re an accidentally celebrity no one will find your content unless you lead them there.
But leading readers to your stuff isn’t the only thing to do. It has to be content that will actually help them, and you have to woo them, too.
Lots of authors get this wrong. Urged by publishers to use social media, a whole cottage industry of accounts presumably being paid to spam the twitterverse with a constant refrain of “buy my book.”
Like the gentleman raised his hand in a recent social media seminar and impatiently demanded, “Just tell me how to twitter.”
More recently an author’s guild survey showed a 42% decline in author incomes. In other words, successful traditionally published authors with a backlist of a dozen books were making pennies.
And those are just authors in a traditional sense.
Does that mean that authors shouldn’t bother? That self-publishing is the only way, or—as I often see—complaining that someone “needs to do something” about the way authors are treated?
What if instead, it’s an opportunity. Bloggers, youtubers, influencers, and other content creators have found ways to make a living through creating.
What if you can too?
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I became fascinated by the business of writing while penning my first, second, and third manuscripts. And more so when a book proposal led to a traditionally published book, and after exploring other paths to publishing such as kindle scout, blogging, and medium.
All this researching and trying danced around a central question: can content creators make a living in this new age of publishing?
And if so, how?
This section chronicles my adventures exploring that question. I hope you’ll find something that helps you on your own journey.
