Kate Baggott's Blog: Cornfields of the Sea - Posts Tagged "making-money-on-ebooks"
How 40 year-old Writers Spend Friday Nights
It's Saturday morning, my youngest has just awoken and is busy greeting the dog with good morning pats on the head. I have been awake for hours thinking, thinking and thinking. This is a completely different activity from tweeting, Facebooking and other ways that I waste time.
Last night, in celebration of Friday night, I googled myself and found an archive of articles from a site I used to write for in the UK almost a decade ago. TrAce was a university-run forum for the discussion of issues in arts, education and Interactive Media. I wrote an article about blogs and won a writing contest they ran. Over the next few years their editor, Randy Adams commissioned me to write a pair of articles about spam and eBooks.
When I released Love from Planet Wine Cooler in January 2012, I didn't even think of the article I'd written or consider the lessons I'd learned about writing for a living or media income streams.
In May 1996, right after I finished my MFA in Creative Writing, I paid my rent with a cheque I'd earned writing. The article was about how the advice well-meaning people give young women about how to find a man, is always a bust...unless you apply that advice to finding the right shampoo. The article appeared in a free beauty magazine drug stores used to give to customers who spent $10 or more on make up. Since I lived in a run-down house in China town with 5 other graduate students, rent was more easily paid than it would be today. Still, earning rent money as a new writer, will never be as easy as it was then and that has nothing to do with slum standards or rising real estate prices.
Shortly after that article appeared, I got a got a job conducting research into how children and teens use the Internet and other Interactive technologies. I've made most of my income as a result of my ability to understand and explain new technologies ever since. But, and this important, I also teach and consult and those income streams buy my children their meals, summer camps and Christmas presents, not writing.
My eBook experiments have not lined my pockets. In fact, more than a year after its release, I expect to get my first royalty payments for Love from Planet Wine Cooler in July.
In fact, when I wrote the eBook article for trAce in 2005, I was probably just beginning to consider my first eBook experience.
My first eBook was a little guide to Internet dating called "The Practical Romantic" and it was a 2500-word extension of a 600-word piece I'd written for the Globe and Mail in 2002. I worked with a published called VidaVille about which I remember nothing and can no longer find anything about. The book sold 11 copies, was mentioned on several friends' blogs and I earned $25. Later, I released a collection of technology Columns called Singing the Digital Blues. Since I released it without telling anyone more than five years ago, it has sold 2 downloads. But, and this is key, I have never released an eBook without having been paid something for the contents in another form.
I even took all the risk out of Love From Planet Wine Cooler. Most of the stories in the collection were published in journals and on web sites long before the collection as an eBook was thought of. Some, like Mr. January and First Names Only, earned just $10 each when they appeared on Fiction365 while others, like The Love Detox won me quite a bit of prize money. In publishing the stories separately, I also got to work with editors whose comments helped me improve each piece individually and my short story writing in general. And, being chosen by editors from the slush pile also gave me a sense of success as a writer.
Since a Canadian author working with a small press can only expect an advance of about $1500, I figured I was ahead of the game when I self-published Love From Planet Wine Cooler.
Would I recommend the same strategy to new writers hoping to earn their living as writers? That might be irresponsible. Everything I wrote about the difficulties of making money as a writer in 2005 are still true. I think writers need to take risks and to experiment with opportunities emerging technologies offer. I also think we need to be very careful with our work and be certain to get paid for it. Anything else and we just write as a hobby, not a profession.
Last night, in celebration of Friday night, I googled myself and found an archive of articles from a site I used to write for in the UK almost a decade ago. TrAce was a university-run forum for the discussion of issues in arts, education and Interactive Media. I wrote an article about blogs and won a writing contest they ran. Over the next few years their editor, Randy Adams commissioned me to write a pair of articles about spam and eBooks.
When I released Love from Planet Wine Cooler in January 2012, I didn't even think of the article I'd written or consider the lessons I'd learned about writing for a living or media income streams.
In May 1996, right after I finished my MFA in Creative Writing, I paid my rent with a cheque I'd earned writing. The article was about how the advice well-meaning people give young women about how to find a man, is always a bust...unless you apply that advice to finding the right shampoo. The article appeared in a free beauty magazine drug stores used to give to customers who spent $10 or more on make up. Since I lived in a run-down house in China town with 5 other graduate students, rent was more easily paid than it would be today. Still, earning rent money as a new writer, will never be as easy as it was then and that has nothing to do with slum standards or rising real estate prices.
Shortly after that article appeared, I got a got a job conducting research into how children and teens use the Internet and other Interactive technologies. I've made most of my income as a result of my ability to understand and explain new technologies ever since. But, and this important, I also teach and consult and those income streams buy my children their meals, summer camps and Christmas presents, not writing.
My eBook experiments have not lined my pockets. In fact, more than a year after its release, I expect to get my first royalty payments for Love from Planet Wine Cooler in July.
In fact, when I wrote the eBook article for trAce in 2005, I was probably just beginning to consider my first eBook experience.
My first eBook was a little guide to Internet dating called "The Practical Romantic" and it was a 2500-word extension of a 600-word piece I'd written for the Globe and Mail in 2002. I worked with a published called VidaVille about which I remember nothing and can no longer find anything about. The book sold 11 copies, was mentioned on several friends' blogs and I earned $25. Later, I released a collection of technology Columns called Singing the Digital Blues. Since I released it without telling anyone more than five years ago, it has sold 2 downloads. But, and this is key, I have never released an eBook without having been paid something for the contents in another form.
I even took all the risk out of Love From Planet Wine Cooler. Most of the stories in the collection were published in journals and on web sites long before the collection as an eBook was thought of. Some, like Mr. January and First Names Only, earned just $10 each when they appeared on Fiction365 while others, like The Love Detox won me quite a bit of prize money. In publishing the stories separately, I also got to work with editors whose comments helped me improve each piece individually and my short story writing in general. And, being chosen by editors from the slush pile also gave me a sense of success as a writer.
Since a Canadian author working with a small press can only expect an advance of about $1500, I figured I was ahead of the game when I self-published Love From Planet Wine Cooler.
Would I recommend the same strategy to new writers hoping to earn their living as writers? That might be irresponsible. Everything I wrote about the difficulties of making money as a writer in 2005 are still true. I think writers need to take risks and to experiment with opportunities emerging technologies offer. I also think we need to be very careful with our work and be certain to get paid for it. Anything else and we just write as a hobby, not a profession.
Cornfields of the Sea
When I was in high school, I was lucky enough to be part of a writing workshop with author Barbara Greenwood. Every member of the workshop was to write a short story for a group anthology. I thought w
...more
- Kate Baggott's profile
- 35 followers
