Is writing a book fast lane?

[MTF]

Just to make this thread a bit useful, I'll offer some feedback instead of sending you to other threads.

In my opinion, it's highly unlikely that writing one book will lead to Fastlane. Unless you're already a well-known expert or have an existing business (which essentially means you aren't starting from zero), one book probably won't change much in your life.

Yes, there are exceptions. There are people with incredible stories or writing skills who were discovered by major publishers. There are people who somehow generated powerful word of mouth. For the vast majority, it takes at least several books to start making some money and probably 10+ to turn it into a Fastlane business - this assuming that you want to make money just from books (as most fiction writers and many non-fiction writers).

Things are a bit different if you want to use books as a way to promote your services or other, more expensive products.

If you're a great plastic surgeon living in California, writing several books about some common problems people deal with can generate a lot of business for you and be worth six or seven figures. The same applies for public speakers (you can launch a public speaking career just by writing books, particularly for the corporate environment). If you're a plumber from North Dakota, publishing books won't really boost your business.

To sum up, the answer is yes and no. It depends on your genre or niche, on whether you want to build a business on top of your publishing efforts, and whether you're capable of consistently writing new books (particularly if writing fiction) or monetizing your audience with other products (in non-fiction, unless you write in a very popular niche).

Self-publishing can be a good way to make extra income. Turning it into a full-fledged business requires much more dedication and I believe it's more of a career than a business (since it's not easy to sell a self-publishing business as it depends on you as the author).

 

[ChickenHawk]

This is an interesting question, and actually one I've been pondering a lot lately, especially after on a related thread, @COSenior said that she no longer believes that writing a book is fastlane. Not to straddle the fence, but I believe the answer is yes, it can be, but the odds aren't terrific, and here's why...

One book isn't enough. With very few exceptions, you'd need to write multiple books to even enter Fastlane territory. Here are a couple of exceptions. Our gracious host wrote a book, "The Millionaire Fastlane " which has become a legendary classic. It still sells years later. Even if he writes no more books, it will continue to sell. In fact, the book is so good and so legendary that other writers mimic it and occasionally plagiarize it, looking to claim a piece of the action. This type of success is rare and unlikely. Another exception is the book "Fifty Shades of Grey." Even if the author hadn't written another book in her life, she'd have enough money to live on forever, even moreso than a book like "The Millionaire Fastlane ," because they made a movie of it.

Diminishing Income from Backlists. "Backlist" refers to previously published books by the same author. In the past, a nice backlist could sustain an author even if they weren't producing a ton of new stuff. However, Amazon has greatly reduced the profitability of backlists, because their algos strongly push new books over older books. This means that unless you're constantly putting out new books, sales of your older books will probably dry up completely, unless, of course, you've written a legendary book like "The Millionaire Fastlane " or "Fifty Shades". Personally, I've had books that were huge hits, but unless I produce new books fairly regularly, I will see nearly zero sales of those previous hits. Some of this is because I write genre fiction, and some of this is because Kindle Unlimited (Amazon's book subscription service) is wreaking havoc on my genre. Either way, the hamster wheel must not stop, or the passive income goes poof!

Timing. Oh man, where do I start? Like most Fastlane ventures, timing plays a huge role. Right now, if you're writing genre fiction, especially romance, the timing is horrible. In fact, if you had a terrific romance book that you were itching to publish, I'd suggest holding off until Amazon deals with their Kindle Unlimited mess. A couple years ago, I'd say, "Don't wait, hit that publish button now, baby!" You've got to look at your niche and see what it looks like, and then act accordingly.

Overall Summary. You didn't say what kind of book you were looking to write, so it's really hard to say how much potential it has. I do think that books can be Fastlane, but unfortunately, the low barrier to entry, not to mention weird market incentives from Kindle Unlimited, has the market all twisted up right now. We're probably due for a consolidation. Increased competition plus scamming in Kindle Unlimited has driven a lot of authors out of business. But at some point, the scamming will be stopped and/or another player, possibly Kobo/WalMart will challenge Amazon's dominance. If your book is non-fiction, I'd say write it as soon as possible and get it out there, see what it does, go from there. If your book is fiction, I'd STILL say to write it as fast as possible, and then see what the market looks like when you're ready to publish.

As for myself, even with the market upheavals and scamming going on at Amazon, I'm very glad to not have a boss. I work from a mountaintop home and never have to worry about TPS reports. I have a ton of flexibility to take my kid to appointments, etc. I have months where I make a ton of money and months where I make nearly nothing. (This part is a bit scary.) Sometimes, I think it takes nerves of steel, because my income isn't guaranteed, and I might put hours and hours (weeks/months, etc.) into a book, only to see lackluster results. On the flipside, I can see books take off like a rocket. Recently, I happened to read an interview with a superstar romance author, and she said that a third of her books succeeded. That's an amazing batting average, and yet, it also means that two-thirds of her books disappoint. Can you pick yourself up after a disappointment? If not, this might not be the business for you. But if so, and if you have a real talent for it and find a good niche, oh yeah, can definitely be Fastlane.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

One book is unlikely to "be Fastlane" -- but a slow and steady output of GOOD WORK can.

 

[Scot]

J.K. Rowling is a billionaire.

Writing books is absolutely fastlane. But, it requires a lot of sales on your part to get it there. Even long after JK steps down from the public spotlight, herself, her estate, her grandchildren, will still get royalty checks in the mail.

 

[Supa]

Currently writing a book (a novel).

To quote a paragraph from Stephen King‘s incredible „On Writing“:

Writing isn't about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it's about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It's about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Getting happy.​

Writing a fiction story, for me, is something you don‘t do for money. Don‘t get me wrong, of course the author should do everything he/she can to get it out there, earning money with it by getting it in the hands of as many readers as possible. Stories should be read, right?

But.

Writing itself is something different.

What I mean is, while you are actually writing the story, all that should matter is the story itself.

Down there, in the world of your story, it‘s not about Amazon direct publishing printing costs and Kindle royalties.

Actually, those things are not down there in the storyworld, they are outside stuff. While you are in there, down there, they basically don‘t exist.

What exists there, are the people in that world (on the outside they are called characters), and those people do not care about your Amazon sales, word count, etc. All they care about is stuff on their mind, you just sit there, watching and writing it down.

This is my view on it.

All the other, outside, stuff comes when they story is done.

 

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[ZCP]

Write the book to provide value not to chase money.

Stop thinking of reasons not to, just do it and see what happens!

Do, learn, adapt, do better.

 

[Bearcorp]

If you have an idea for a book and think it will add value then write it. Get it out in the world. Who knows what doors it can open.

 

[MTF]

do you think its a bad idea to make a project like a book and get it out there even if you think there is a low chance of getting your money back if any of it? Or is it a good idea because you are getting entrepreneurship experience, and you are learning to operate in different areas?

Your first book will almost certainly fail, just like any other product you'll create. You need to learn by experience, and putting out a book is a fairly affordable way to learn by practice.

 

[Scot]

I agree that it can be Fastlane - especially if you do self Publishing or even have your own Publishing Company. I just like to point out that J.K. Rowling is often seen as an example for an EVENT rather than the PROCESS. We all know the inspiring Story of a single mom, who wrote the world success Harry Potter in a Café. And as impressive as it is, People often see it as an overnight success. She wrote that book and boom! became a millionaire/billionaire. But that's far from the truth. If you dig a little deaper, you'll find out that she has been writing for almost all her life. Since early childhood she practiced the art of writing fiction - of creating whole universes with characters, places and stories. Btw Hollywood is doing exactly that - creating whole fictional universes you can then capitalize on (e.g. Star Wars, Marvel, D.C., ...). Anyhow the PROCESS of practicing and writing all those unpublished stories before Harry Potter nobody really sees.

Or to sum it up: You can't just sit down and write the next Harry Potter. To write good ficiton you can make a living on with the classical model with a Publisher will probably take you years, for a world class success probably decades. Come to think of it that applies to almost every Kind of mastery or building almost every kind of business. Anyhow it's possible but it's not easy.

I never said JK was an overnight success. She grinded for years to get where she was.

I’m mostly using her as an example of separation of time from money. Because she doesn’t have to do a single thing at this point, but her books will still continue to pay her for life.

 

[Leo Hartas]

This is exactly what I am doing. Writing and illustrating children's books with my partner. We have a long term plan to get 20-30 titles completed over about 3-5 years. So far we have two out via Createspace (Amazon's self publishing print on demand system). Our goal is not to make tons of money, but rather provide a reasonably stable living income that is ongoing and will act as a pension. We figure that we need to sell a minimum of 3 of each book a day to achieve that goal. At the moment our first book is selling around 7-10 a day. On top of that there is a chance the books will become a breakout success, just as Harry Potter did.

Self published books can be seen regularly in the top 100, even top 10 of all books selling on Amazon where it would be selling 100s each day. We are very aware that selling exclusively on Amazon is putting all our eggs in one basket (and Amazon helps itself to most of those eggs!) but over time with consistent marketing we are hoping to gather a reader base to our website and sell from there. It's been extremely useful to have wide set of skills between us as we both have experience working in publishing. I draw and have all the skills required to bring the book to a print ready state along with web design, etc. My partner is a very experienced storyteller and editor.

My advice would be to consider many books around the same single subject. We've designed a complete world for our characters that can be explored from many different angles. In fact, with the characters and world established in detail it almost generates it's own stories. Also, as previous comentators have said, think about other media related to the book, as either marketing or for direct sale. For example we're learning game coding to create simple games that will hopefully work as marketing direct to kids (selling anything for kids has the added complication that it's the parents who typically buy them).

If you do write a book do not underestimate the the time required to polish it, even the cost of professional editing. There are plenty of good videos and books that go into great detail about the whole process. Even if you don't directly make lots of money from the book itself just getting it out there can lead to new oppotunities. I'm working right now on an illustration commission that came directly from the client having seen our books.

 

[MTF]

I know why, and it's the same reason I quit writing under my own pen name. I resist marketing.

At least you're self-aware, and that's the first step to fix it.

I resisted marketing, too, but ultimately realized that if you don't deal with this limiting belief, you won't succeed in business (or many other things for that matter, because you're selling yourself in one way or another every day).

 

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[Raoul Duke]

 

[wade1mil]

Is The Millionaire Fastlane or Unscripted fastlane?

 

[Seeker]

J.K. Rowling is a billionaire.

Writing books is absolutely fastlane. But, it requires a lot of sales on your part to get it there. Even long after JK steps down from the public spotlight, herself, her estate, her grandchildren, will still get royalty checks in the mail.

I agree that it can be Fastlane - especially if you do self Publishing or even have your own Publishing Company. I just like to point out that J.K. Rowling is often seen as an example for an EVENT rather than the PROCESS. We all know the inspiring Story of a single mom, who wrote the world success Harry Potter in a Café. And as impressive as it is, People often see it as an overnight success. She wrote that book and boom! became a millionaire/billionaire. But that's far from the truth. If you dig a little deaper, you'll find out that she has been writing for almost all her life. Since early childhood she practiced the art of writing fiction - of creating whole universes with characters, places and stories. Btw Hollywood is doing exactly that - creating whole fictional universes you can then capitalize on (e.g. Star Wars, Marvel, D.C., ...). Anyhow the PROCESS of practicing and writing all those unpublished stories before Harry Potter nobody really sees.

Or to sum it up: You can't just sit down and write the next Harry Potter. To write good ficiton you can make a living on with the classical model with a Publisher will probably take you years, for a world class success probably decades. Come to think of it that applies to almost every Kind of mastery or building almost every kind of business. Anyhow it's possible but it's not easy.

 

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[Late Bloomer]

I think the two main factors in this equation are Productivity and Scalability. How much time and effort does it take you to write the book? What else could you have been doing with that time? Then once the book is done, how will it get into the hands of people who would like to read it, and how will that in turn scale up to more money?

Will you get paid for selling the book itself, or is it the key that unlocks the door for a much higher paying business relationship? In the book ghostwriting contract I'm in that got approved today, the ultimate client is the owner of a technology and consulting business, who wants to get more big corporations to pay for their $50k software + training package. It really doesn't matter how many people buy the book, as long as some of them are inspired enough to buy a deployment package. I hope from doing this project this year, that I'll see how to use the same process for promoting my own business next year. So it's not directly Fastlane, but it is a great way to get paid to learn some things that might soon help me steer my own vehicle more skillfully.

On the other hand, the are authors like JK Rowling who didn't write a book in order to get paid for more phone calls to personally tell bedtime stories to individuals, but to write out the story once and ultimately sell millions of copies.

A book is a tool, like a hammer or screwdriver. Different people might have different purposes for having a hammer in their toolkit. One might use it to assemble new houses all day, another might use it to demolish condemned buildings all day. Which of them is the better business user of hammers? It depends!

 

[ZCP]

Go ahead and write a teaser chapter and put it out there!

 

[TreyAllDay]

So I've had this idea for a while for writing a book. I had some ideas which I think could really bring value to people, and know roughly what I would be writing. Just curious on peoples opinion on writing a book as part of joining the fast lane.

You're going to get crapped on for asking this question lol. But here's my take, you just need to ask yourself if you're satisfying CENTS. Needs, entry barriers, control, scalability, and time.

Needs - is there a need for what you're writing about, or for another book about the subject? This is the part where people are not honest with themselves, or do not scope out/test the need, and end up playing themselves. Do you want to invest all the hours into writing a book and find out you were wrong about the need? Writing is also incredibly saturated so you have to be exceptional.

Entry barriers - relatively low, anyone can write about what you write about. I find authors need to build their brands before they have any real "barriers" that keep other authors from biting their content.

Control - Don't know the book market very well but many people entrust amazon or some other channel in distributing their product. You don't control it.

Scalability - Relatively good as you can sell a book to anyone anywhere (if you have online distribution)

Time - Relatively good, as once you write the book once, you can continue earning income on it forever.

 

[COSenior]

This is an interesting question, and actually one I've been pondering a lot lately, especially after on a related thread, @COSenior said that she no longer believes that writing a book is fastlane.

Sorry to come late to the party, but I want to point out I never did believe writing fiction was Fastlane. If I said anywhere else that I 'no longer' believe it, I misspoke.

For the record, I came here to the forum with my long-time ghostwriting client after he discovered Held for Ransom's legendary fiction thread. That's where I met @ChickenHawk, and that's what started my client down the fiction road. He still believes in fiction for Fastlane, but I'm preparing for the time when he stops believing it.

For me, Fastlane means a business with residual passive income whose products I can outsource when I have it established. The three keys there are residual (as ChickenHawk pointed out, in self-publishing there are diminishing returns on a fiction backlist), passive (meaning I don't have to turn out 3-4k words daily to prop up the backlist with 4-6 week new releases) and outsource (ironic, since that's exactly what my client does, and I'm the provider).

Five years after joining this forum, I still haven't found that fast lane, and I continue to write as a freelancer to support my search. I know why, and it's the same reason I quit writing under my own pen name. I resist marketing.

Which brings us back to the original question. ChickenHawk's, E L James', and J. K. Rowling's (among a very few others') experiences to the contrary (because they are outliers), without constant marketing the answer is no - writing a (fiction) book isn't Fastlane.

However, writing a non-fiction book to support or advertise your core business is a terrific idea, time-tested and approved.

 

[ChickenHawk]

That's unfortunate... I was reading HFR's and @ChickenHawk 's threads and the whole thing sounded like a lot of work but quite rewarding (shipping books regularly) and possible to make money. But it seems like those good days in 2013 are gone...

Happily, Amazon has done a lot in the last few months to clean up their Kindle Unlimited mess. This was long overdue, because scammers were in the process of destroying any integrity in the fiction bestseller lists, not to mention making it really hard for honest authors to gain any traction.

It's true that the "easy money" days are behind us, but the market has definitely improved. If you have a knack for writing and are willing to put in the time, now might be a pretty good time. Good luck regardless of what you decide!

 

[Galaxy16]

So I've had this idea for a while for writing a book. I had some ideas which I think could really bring value to people, and know roughly what I would be writing. Just curious on peoples opinion on writing a book as part of joining the fast lane.

It has FastLane potential due to the fulfillment of MJ DeMarco's 5 commandments.

 

[Raoul Duke]

@LiveEntrepreneur

@ChickenHawk mentioned Amazon book scammers. She made a thread about that very subject -
Money-Chasing Burns Bestselling Author...*Poof!* His pen name is gone.

 

[COSenior]

As an author, I think you can ship at least one short book per month?

I'd like to address just this one sentence from your long post. You mentioned 'books' of 10k-20k, which are actually short stories to novella-length. It is quite possible, with a bit of lead time, to publish even novel-length books of some genre categories once a month. However, you need to know what that means.

If you're an 'ok' writer, you'd probably benefit from some developmental editing, which takes some time. You'll certainly need a proofreader and copy editor or combination, no matter how expert you are with grammar and spelling - every author does. More time. A cover will take some time, though you can get that done while you're still writing the book or having it gone over pre-publication. All of it takes a little money (or a lot, depending on the length of the book and the level of expertise you hire).

In other words, it isn't just the writing. Now, in contrast to Chickenhawk, who polishes every word and sentence before showing it to others, I write fast and let my support people do the polishing. If I were to start over, I'd write two books in quick succession, turning over the first one to be edited as I wrote the second. I'd turn over the second to be edited, and while that was happening, I'd write the third. Only then would I begin to publish, and with that kind of lead time, I'd be able to publish at least every six weeks or so (based on the category length of my genre and how much time I want to devote to it). That said, it's a brutal schedule unless you can write 1000-1500 words per hour or write in a category that tolerates shorter novels.

I say all this not to discourage you, but to help you understand the industry better than I think you do at this point. Better to learn the truth now IMO, than to burn a pen name or two, or worse yet, your own name, because you didn't understand the timing.

I don't for a moment believe that there's no more opportunity in publishing. On the contrary, I see new authors breaking in all the time. It's a matter of professionalism, learning the ropes, and yes, productivity. If you want it badly enough, you can do it. I just urge you to do it right, to give yourself a chance to succeed.

 

[LiveEntrepreneur]

So I've had this idea for a while for writing a book. I had some ideas which I think could really bring value to people, and know roughly what I would be writing. Just curious on peoples opinion on writing a book as part of joining the fast lane.

 

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[Seeker]

I never said JK was an overnight success. She grinded for years to get where she was.

I’m mostly using her as an example of separation of time from money. Because she doesn’t have to do a single thing at this point, but her books will still continue to pay her for life.

Sorry if it sounded like I implied you said that. As said before I agree with you completely. I just thought that this aspect of this process was worth adding.

 

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[Vigilante]

@ChickenHawk your opinion?

 

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[ChickenHawk]

Thanks for the interesting post! I don't know anything the Kindle Unlimited mess. What's going on?

If you look at the post, Money-Chasing Burns Bestselling Author, there are some links on the bottom of the original post to news stories that provide a good summary of the problems. In short, Amazon is a mess right now with "authors" stuffing books to scam the Kindle Unlimited System. Hope this helps!

 

[LiveEntrepreneur]

I

You're going to get crapped on for asking this question lol. But here's my take, you just need to ask yourself if you're satisfying CENTS. Needs, entry barriers, control, scalability, and time.

Needs - is there a need for what you're writing about, or for another book about the subject? This is the part where people are not honest with themselves, or do not scope out/test the need, and end up playing themselves. Do you want to invest all the hours into writing a book and find out you were wrong about the need? Writing is also incredibly saturated so you have to be exceptional.

Entry barriers - relatively low, anyone can write about what you write about. I find authors need to build their brands before they have any real "barriers" that keep other authors from biting their content.

Control - Don't know the book market very well but many people entrust amazon or some other channel in distributing their product. You don't control it.

Scalability - Relatively good as you can sell a book to anyone anywhere (if you have online distribution)

Time - Relatively good, as once you write the book once, you can continue earning income on it forever.

Interesting. I finished reading a book yesterday that mentioned making an MVP, starting with only a couple of chapters and post articles, and if there is an audience go for it.

 

[TonyStark]

The Fastlane is a road, is your book a Ferrari or a Honda Civic?

 

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[MTF]

specially given I was thinking about writing fiction, which looks worse than non-fiction as per @ChickenHawk 's comments.

Both fiction and non-fiction are more difficult now. It's because the platform is getting more and more crowded and readers are now used to low prices. Before, getting a good book for $3 or $4 wasn't that easy so any self-published author who was good enough (not even the best) had it relatively easy.

Today, even high-profile authors with incredible books sell them for just a couple of bucks. As a new author, it's difficult to compete with them.

 

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[LiveEntrepreneur]

Just to make this thread a bit useful, I'll offer some feedback instead of sending you to other threads.

In my opinion, it's highly unlikely that writing one book will lead to Fastlane. Unless you're already a well-known expert or have an existing business (which essentially means you aren't starting from zero), one book probably won't change much in your life.

Yes, there are exceptions. There are people with incredible stories or writing skills who were discovered by major publishers. There are people who somehow generated powerful word of mouth. For the vast majority, it takes at least several books to start making some money and probably 10+ to turn it into a Fastlane business - this assuming that you want to make money just from books (as most fiction writers and many non-fiction writers).

Things are a bit different if you want to use books as a way to promote your services or other, more expensive products.

If you're a great plastic surgeon living in California, writing several books about some common problems people deal with can generate a lot of business for you and be worth six or seven figures. The same applies for public speakers (you can launch a public speaking career just by writing books, particularly for the corporate environment). If you're a plumber from North Dakota, publishing books won't really boost your business.

To sum up, the answer is yes and no. It depends on your genre or niche, on whether you want to build a business on top of your publishing efforts, and whether you're capable of consistently writing new books (particularly if writing fiction) or monetizing your audience with other products (in non-fiction, unless you write in a very popular niche).

Self-publishing can be a good way to make extra income. Turning it into a full-fledged business requires much more dedication and I believe it's more of a career than a business (since it's not easy to sell a self-publishing business as it depends on you as the author).

I see, this clears it up for me. Thanks for the in depth information.

 

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