Hello from longtime lurker and writer

[Earthling]

That would be hard to create since probably all of the most lucrative websites aren't owned by a single person. Anyway, even the owners of less lucrative sites have something that authors don't have - a possibility to sell their business easily. A self-published author and a website owner can both make, say, $50k a month. The author (unless they use ghostwriters) is stuck with this income. The website owner, in addition to $50k a month, can always sell their site for at least $1 million or more (20-30x multiple).

There are tools to estimate traffic and revenue like SEMrush, etc. (very very crudely, SEO only) for any site, so some data is already out there in raw form.

But yeah, exactly. A website is more of a proper "business", which is why I find it appealing. Books have some advantages too, but some large weaknesses. That's why I was thinking about an integrated nonfiction/site approach. That's not really possible for fiction.

 

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[Bertram]

Yeah, if nonfiction doesn't make more money (over the long term), it's a failure. But at the same time, I put a ton of energy into trying to expand the market of my current fiction, and it isn't going anywhere.

I beg to differ on selling myself short. If I had an entry level position at FAANG, was good with politics, and saw a path upward, okay, that would be a decent job to continue.

This is all risk, little upside for the amount of work and sacrifice I put in. Part of the reason I expect the income not to grow further is that it is not sustainable at a personal level.

I'll put it this way. You can look up numbers, but 200K profits from fiction places me beyond the 0.1% of self-published indies, probably around 0.05% or less. Bezos has discussed numbers in the past.

I saw some numbers for salary by state. In the worst state the top 1% make over 250K a year (across all careers, not writing). In NY, the top 1% makes over 2 million a year. That is the top 1% - we're not even talking about the top 0.1%.

Comparing the size of your bank account with others isn't always a good idea, but I do think it is important to point this out to others who think about venturing here. For the same amount of hard work, discipline, time, sacrifice, etc. to achieve a high level of (admirable) excellence, you are ending up 10x worse than the average for all careers.

If I went into programming, do you think that the top 0.05% of programmers make only 200K? I mentioned there was some luck, but I put in a lot of sweat, blood, and tears - I bet as much as anyone else, as much as my body could handle without sacrificing my family, to achieve that 0.05%.

I chose writing specifically because it was compatible with my personal needs to take care of a small child, and the associated mental/time requirements. There are some benefits when dealing with a small kid versus something like programming (programs have to be perfect or they won't compile/exeute properly; fiction can have flaws, even typos, and it still sells. Try being a perfectionist with a kid on your hands...)

I'd rather make 50K/year from stable rental income in some college town than 200K flash-in-the-pan from writing. That 50K means you've build up the assets that earn that. Ditto with a real business with 50K profits. The 200K value is all in my head, which is useful to some degree, but not in a strict business sense.

Still thinking about potential paths...that's why I posted here. Again, I find it useful to hear differing opinions; thanks to all who replied so far. Currently, I'm still planning to continue writing fiction 80% of the time, with 20% devoted to "something else". That "something else" will be searching for a larger audience or delivering more value through writing, or I may just abandon writing and move on to another business entirely.

The more I think about sunken costs and opportunity costs, the more I am inclined to abandon writing entirely (within 1-2 years max, or as soon as I can build an actual business asset).

Earthling, I want to thank you for the very generous sharing of ideas.
Having read "Dare to Lead"recently I identify with your earlier self-doubt and wonder if you may be exhausted from loneliness. Raising a young child and an independent writing job can really limit social connections, but carrying your body of work on your shoulders alone can be too much for one person.
I wish I knew the secrets to a successful publishing career. I was identified a few times as one of the strong writers in both fiction and nonfiction but was bitten right in two repeatedly by well established rivals as a starting writer. So I began writing for others just because I was sick of the pain and victim experience and because I found satisfaction stepping out of the role of author. But I haven't stopped writing my own work. And not publishing my own work feels like trying to make a life for oneself after losing the love of your life. Every day.
Now just this past week a current business project totally stalled and there's a gap of time, three months, in which to 1. write and publish my own books and 2. open two online stores.
I can usually write 20-23 pages a day on a project, 4-5 days a week, research and editing excluded. Do you think self-publishing with a web site is unrealistic, compared to indie publishing? I plan on self-publishing first and then approaching indies.

Anyway thanks.

 

[Mattie]

I've been lurking here now and then. I finally decided to sign up.

I'm a married guy with a toddler currently self-employed as a fiction writer. I spent a long time in academia, got fed up with it, dabbled in some website development/affiliate marketing (the typical...), and settled into writing fiction for about a year now.

I make a decent amount from my books, more than I ever did in academia, but it's a constant grind. It's far from an ideal long-term financial strategy.

I've been thinking more lately about developing a business that makes financial "CENTS". I've been reading UNSCRIPTED lately and got into thinking about value creation as it applies to writing.

The challenge with fiction is that it has a very limited scope. Or to put it another way, each book I write only provides a little bit of value to a narrow group of people. I think there are some ways to increase the scope and serve more people - for example, audiobooks, foreign translations, and so on. At the end of the day, though, it's hard for me to envision my books providing far superior value than the myriad of other entertainment options out there.

The value proposition is a bit different for entertainment than most other businesses. Consumers want a constant flux of large quantities of novel entertainment. You can dip into this giant stream of consumption for short-term gains.

When I break it down, I believe that the value I'm really delivering is novelty. The reason someone who read George Martin also reads my books is because George Martin can't provide a steady supply of new material. I'm filling that gap. If, in some other universe, George Martin could write a new book every day, very few people would read my books.

Once I identify the real value I am delivering, I have to ask, can I deliver even MORE value? Can I deliver even more NOVELTY? The answer, in my efforts, has been no, not much more.

I've tried to increase my production rate with ghostwriters, voice dictation, editors, the whole shebang. I haven't had much success in providing significantly more value. That is, I don't think my production level would increase by more than a factor of two, ever. Someone like James Patterson has been able to succeed via this route, but I don't think I can.

So that's disappointing.

Of course, fiction can provide value in ways other than novelty. I believe that fiction books can change lives. You could argue that the Harry Potter books profoundly changed the lives of many young and adult readers.

But I have to be honest with myself and admit that I doubt any story I tell will change lives. Even if I devoted myself to writing a story offering this kind of value, I don't know if I can succeed. The market is brutal.

Because of this conclusion, I've been wondering whether I should pursue nonfiction writing instead. Nonfiction can change lives; this forum's namesake is a prime example. More importantly, I believe that I have a much better chance of providing life-changing value from nonfiction than fiction. It will be quite difficult, no doubt, but I think it's much more within reach than with fiction.

I have a decent thing going with my fiction writing, but I would be wiling to drop it if I think there's a better path. Most aspiring authors would probably kill to have my sales figures, but I believe that's only because the general perception of success in fiction is a very low bar.

I'll probably continue to write some fiction, treating it like a day job, while trying to transition to a better business opportunity.

I expect that building a platform and generating visibility for nonfiction will be much more difficult than for fiction. A small part of me hopes that if I succeed in writing a book that can change lives, its audience should grow on its own. In that case, the challenge is whether I can actually write a book that can deliver this much value.

There's a lot of hot-air that succeeds based on marketing, but I don't think I have the marketing chops to pull that off. So I really need to write a good book.

It's kind of a crazy, yet at the same time, mundane, challenge: can I change someone's life with mere words, especially in today's age of media saturation? There are a lot of obvious me-too topics or approaches that won't work.

I'd prefer to solve a very difficult problem like this rather than continually grind away at churning out novelty (violates TIME commandment). So these day I'm thinking... who's life can I change, and how?

I believe it's coming up with the one original idea that separates you from the rest of the writers. While I have basically been working on my novel for a few years, for the simple reason I had to learn a lot of stuff in the process of becoming a writer. That one "Idea" I haven't seen yet out there. Although, in my research, I know I've just learned who the audience is, what they're focused on, what they're drawn too. " Not to mention I do think a lot like them, lived a lot of experiences like them.

What I've noticed is I get more followers just mirroring their psychology, their experiences, feelings, emotions, thoughts, and creativity. You have to understand human nature, they're seeking out themselves in the characters, the Hero's and Heroine's similar to those in their lives, the sabotage, the self-sabotage, the adversity, the hardship, the fighting of the Villains, perhaps the sword fight between their duality and polarity in their psyche. Subconsciously this is why they say Literary fiction actually helps people learn something about life. Exactly, why people watch movie's.

Is it Entertainment or it is it teaching the audience the same things we learn in real life every day. You're just adding the costumes, the make-up, the fantasy, fiction, magic, mystical, the "Walt Disney".

When you take apart all those movies and get in depth it's just the Heroine and Heroine's journey.

The series "Once Upon a Time" They took those old stories and re-wrote them. Isn't that what we do with most movies, take old one's, re-write them, because this is what people love.

I believe sometimes it's doing the opposite of doing what you've been doing. Usually we get stuck in the repetition or cycle of doing the same thing over and over again even in our writing. It's breaking out of those habits, and taking a new direction, seeing from a different perspective.

Which is what I'm doing at the moment.