Don't plan on making a lot of money from your writing. A survey by The Authors Guild a few years ago found that the average author earned about $4000 a year from his or her writing. That was a general survey, but even in the genres, there are plenty of people struggling--many of them quite good writers. If you make it into print, you are doing well. If you succeed in breaking out commercially, you'll be among the extremely fortunate few.

--Jeffery A. Carver

So, what does it take for a writer to beat the odds? In my opinion, he/she has to pull ones self up because nobody else is going to do it for you. Writing is the small part of the job. After you get published it is your responsibility to sell the publication. If you think differently, then you will never reach a higher level of success. Over the years I have taken Marion Zimmer Bradley's advice to heart:

Stay out of amateur "writing workshops" where amateurs sit around and read their failures to each other. Twenty times zero is still zero. Never listen to criticism from anyone unless they can sign a check. Never mind what your best friend, or your aunt, or your English teacher thinks. Trust only professional criticism.--Marion Zimmer Bradley

With that in mind I've sought advice on how writers succeed from some highly successful folks, both the writing and publishing side of things. Two things stand out from their advice. One--you have to be a talented writer. If you can't write, then nothing else matters. Two--you must self-promote. It is the writer's responsibility to sell the work.

Here's what one professional writer who made it out of the potato patch had to say:

 --Robert J. Sawyer Hugo and Nebula Award Winner

I've read similar advice from Stephen King, Richard Paul Evans, Orson Scott Card... The list goes on and on.

But there are some editors and wannabe writers around who are giving other writers bad advice. They are telling writers that they should never spend a dime out of their own pocket to promote the works in which their writing appears. They tell writers that "money should always flow to the writer". And there are a lot of small potatoes out there reading this advice from other small potatoes and taking that advice at face value. I'm not an advocate of self-publishing. You should never pay to get your work published. But you should pay to promote your work after it's published. Writing is like any other profession. If you want to make money at it, you have to invest money in to it. That's what the pros say.

Of course I'm just another potato buried out here in the patch with the rest of you, but I'm tempted to take the advice of Ms. Bradley and listen to people who know more than I do.

At Journey Books, we will get your work in print (that alone cost a hell of a lot of money), buy advertising for our products, setup websites and take care of orders, bookstores, and distributors. We'll list in catalogs, try to garner some nice reviews and all that stuff a small publisher is supposed to do. But in the end our results are also dependent on our author's ability to promote their work. If you're not willing to do that then don't submit here. Your job isn't finished when the writing is done.

I'll leave this with one more quote that kind of nails this all together:

One of the greatest misconceptions harbored by writers is that the job is done when the book manuscript is mailed. While manuscript completion is a time to celebrate, it is also the time to switch hats. The book writer now becomes the book promoter.

A book is like an iceberg. The writing is the easier part; the 20% visible about the waterline. The promoting is the most important part and usually consumes even more time and money. The promoting is also often the part not anticipated by the author.

Bringing a book into the world is like a bringing a child into the world—you are presented with an obligation to raise it. --Dan Poynter

Ed, you are so right. Nobody cares about your stuff like you do, except maybe your mom, and she doesn't know anyone who will buy the darn thing anyway.

If nothing else, attend the cons-- go to Kinkos and make a book board and huck it and some copies of the magazines and books you are in with you. Club cards are cheap, or even business cards with the cover of your book and your website and the publishers.

You goal early on is to build your readership. I too am small potatoes, but Saturday night at my book launch I knew I was on the right track when a fan bee-lined into the room with a copy of the book--- and 2 other magazines that I appeared in for me to sign. Without my relentless promotion of the "little stuff" over the last few years nobody would have cared about the book. And now the book is the step to... more books, more readers, and someday that villa in Tuscany and the summer house in Bali.

"Art is the celebration of the ego's destruction."

Wow, great thread, Ed.  Thanks for starting it! 

Hmm, where to start?  I have been a fulltime writer for almost 20 years now.  I started in this business by self-publishing, which is not unusual for a small press poet.  What is unusual is I majored in art in college and spent 10 years building a business as a painter selling my original paintings, notecards, postcards, posters, and prints of my art before I switched careers and became a writer.  That trained me in a mindset very different from most small press writers.  I saw my career as a business, and you learn really fast if you are going to survive fulltime as an artist that you must HUSTLE!  The galleries won't do it for you.  A few will, most won't.

I also think self-publishing is a fabulous way for a writer to start out.  So many advantages to that.  Mainly, it gives you a chance to build a market and make yourself know to readers and reviewers/editors.  That is important whether you plan to go with an agent and publisher later on.  Why?  Because they all want to know what is your marketing platform, who is your market, how big is it, etc.  If you don't know this stuff they probably won't be interested in you.

Up until 2005 the best way to sell books was through magazine ads, direct mail, and rented mailing lists.  I sold tons of books this way, staggering amounts every year, really, and built a customer list of 12,000 people that grew daily.  But in 2005 these strategies stopped working.  Why?  The internet.  So the last few years I have done tons of testing to find out how to make money selling books through the "new marketing" (which is what I call it). 

These days most of my income comes from royalties and sales from the 4 publishers (3 small press book publishers and 1 major art print publisher) who publish my books and poetry art prints.  Here's what I have learned.  Use direct mail sparingly and make sure what you are doing works, because postage is crazy expensive now and really cuts into your profits.  Retail buyers don't buy books cold now from an ad or a review.  They buy because one of their friends told them about the book and raved about it.  That is a big change from a few years ago.  That means building a presence in the blogging world, forums, Yahoo groups, and on social networking sites are the most important way an author can build an audience now and sell lots of books.  I have tested all kinds of web marketing the last year or so, mainly the kinds of tactics that would make me the most profit with the least amount spent.  Because profit is where you make your money (net sales) not gross sales.

What does my day look like?  I get online at 6:00am every day and market until about 2:30pm.  Then I write, working on my current novel until 5:00pm.  I work fewer hours on Saturday and Sunday online, but I market online 7 days a week.  Yes, I do have a life...husband, house to clean, many many cats to care for.  I just schedule everything.  I once read where a writer said if you spend a lot of time marketing, your writing will suffer.  I don't agree with that.  I have found the time I spend marketing and networking with my readers definitely improves the quality of my writing, because I know exactly what they want from a novel and I can give it to them.  I also read novels in my genre (urban fantasy) every night after dinner.  I want to know what is being published in my market.  But I also must be able to talk with my readers about the books they love by other authors.  It all goes hand in hand now with the new marketing.  These people buy from me because they feel like I am their friend, not just some author "pimping" (I actually saw this term on one of the social networking sites *eek!*) her books.  

I'm always testing, so (as my friends in the business know *grin*) the minute I test something that works really well I will spread the word!  

Happy bookselling! 

Thanks, Dragon Angel and Jason!!

Postcards have been mentioned in this thread, and I forgot to mention them in my other post.  It has been my experience, when it comes to book marketing, that good sales copy will sell many more books than a color photo of the cover.  A great cover grabs people in a bookstore or in a magazine ad, but when it comes to postcards the copy is what sells product.  Because of that I have never used color postcards to sell my books.  And most of my books have been sold through postcard mailings to my customer list and to rented mailing lists.

One of the best marketing investments a writer can make is in a laser printer for your computer that can do duplex printing, meaning it can print on both sides.  I design my postcards on Word, 4-up (4 to a page), run them through my computer printer on 67 pound cover stock, and trim them with a paper trimmer (also a great investment).  They just contain the ordering info for the novel, my contact info, and a blurb about the book.  Before 2005 I would drop several hundred postcards every week to my lists, and sold a lot of books that way.  Now with the new marketing I just mail postcards to my customer list twice a year.  I have sold as many as 3 different books on one postcard, and that worked well in the past and increased the $ amount of each order.  Something you can test with your own books.

I also design a 3-fold brochure flyer on Word and run them through my computer printer on color paper, printed on both sides.  This flyer contains ordering info for the novel, my contact info, blurbs from reviewers, a synopsis of the novel, and the first chapter of the novel.  I always carry a bunch of these novel flyers in my purse and hand them out all the time.  They sell a lot of books for me.  But I have also hired a new book marketing company now to distribute flyers for me.  I mentioned this company elsewhere in this forum...Bohemian Book Marketing (http://www.BohemianBookMarketing.blogspot.com).  Earlier this year I had hired a classified ad blaster for $35/month to place my book ads on 1000+ websites around the web every day.  That worked well for my SEO, but after 7 months of testing this strategy, I found book sales were minimal.  BBM distributes 100 flyers for me every month to bookstores and retail buyers in eastern Canada for $25/month.  I print the flyers on my computer and mail them to her.  The cost is almost the same as the ad blaster, but I started seeing sales the first month with BBM, so I am sticking with this strategy for now (grin). 

It goes without saying a duplex printer will also allow you to publish books of all sizes, from stapled chaps to coil-bound books.  In that case you would just need the appropriate bindery equipment, which I have and bought very inexpensvely at an office supply chain like Staples. 

In the beginning I published all my poetry books and novels.  Now all my novels and most of my poetry books are published by other small press publishers, and I only publish my Collected Poems (Cats and Chrysanthemums) through my Kittyfeather Press company, which is a large book of over 200 pages.  That one I run out on my duplex printer, trim to book size, and coil bind.  But in the past I have also published smaller stapled poetry chaps and small novellas on my printer. 

BTW, my computer printer is a HP Laser Jet 1320.  Got it at Staples and LOVE it! 

However, I should mention I also buy all of my books from those publishers and sell them through my Kittyfeather Press catalog.  Some of my customers prefer to buy my books this way, so their copies will be personalized by me.  I don't encourage this, because at this point in my career I like to send all my buyers to Amazon, B&N.com, and their local bookstores.  But also selling the books through my catalog gives my customers more options and gives me yet another source of income.

Hmm, maybe I'll try a villanelle when I get a chance.