K. Victoria Chase's Blog

#WednesdayWriter ~ #Goals

 

The year hasn’t ended and it’s still time to set and accomplish goals.

My goal? Make my new pen name successful enough to become a full-time writer by the end of the summer.

Plan? I have a specific daily writing goal and a publishing schedule from June through December 2018.

Am I Working? Absolutely. I’m ahead of schedule in my writing. Plus, I’ve met financial goals in order to prepare me for the future I see for myself as an authorpreneur.

Can I Stick To It? If I keep the goal front and center. My ‘why’ has to continue to be big enough to keep me moving forward, and I have to keep moving to maintain momentum.

When Will I Reach the Goal? Hopefully in the next few months.

If you don’t make a plan you plan to fail. Not just in writing but in life. Do you have any goals? Make sure to make them S.M.A.R.T.

S = Specific (Earning enough income to support me by the end of the summer-date is written down)

M = Measurable (# of words I need written and # number of books published and when)

A = Action-Oriented (I have to write to make it happen)

R = Relevant (It’s one of the very few things I see as a vocation)

T = Time-Bound (Countdown clock has started and I’m on schedule)

 

 

 

Photo Credit: planyourmeetings.com

 

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#WednesdayWriter ~ What Did You Just Read?

I’m furiously writing the first book in an 8-book series for a pen name that will be books written to market. “Writing to market” is about creating stories that are proven to sell well. Why? The goal is to be a full-time writer, and I’ll need books that will sell to make the dream a reality (no one really wants to be a starving artist).

I’d love to find out the last romance you read. Me? Rachel Van Dyken’s Elite–a new adult romance. I have a few ideas for some novellas I’ll be publishing as well and I’m curious to see if they match what you’re already reading. Below is a one-question survey. Would you mind taking about five seconds to complete it? Please?? Don’t forget to scroll down and click “Done.”

Thank you!!!

Create your own user feedback survey

Photo Credit: sheknows.com

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#WednesdayWriter ~ Get GRIT

If you follow me on instagram (@KVictoriaChase), then you know that the non-fiction book I’m reading for the month of March is GRIT, by Angela Lee Duckworth, PhD.

My first introduction to Angela and her message about GRIT was in a TED Talk about passion and perseverance and that both working in tandem produce that intangible element that keeps us going through the toughest obstacles to win: GRIT

[Passion for justice and to catch her father’s killer and their perseverance through obstacles is why both Mattie Ross and Rooster Cogburn have TRUE GRIT]

In last night’s chapter about ‘Hope,’ I read those who are optimists with a ‘growth mindset’ are less likely to suffer depression, will be the ones most likely keep searching for ways to change their situation, will interpret failure as a sign to try harder instead of lacking the ability to succeed, and overall are happier, grittier people.

And grittier people are more likely to succeed than those with ‘fixed mindsets,’ who are pessimistic, more likely to be anxious, quicker to give up, have negative self-talk as a descriptor, who see themselves suffering without the ability to control it–which ultimately leads to a state of hopelessness.

I’m going to be frank; last year, after the release of my last book Strings of Subversion, you could’ve definitely used the previous paragraph to describe me. Sometimes, we writers can perceive our experiences in publishing–especially if they’re negative–as something we can’t control. Refreshing our Amazon KDP Dashboard and seeing no sales (when you have about 18 titles for sale) for 7 straight days. Seeing other new authors break out with one book. Counting dozens of reviews for a new book for from readers who not only promised a review, but delivered. Wondering how many more books do you have to write just to lower the odds of you selling one of each of a fraction of them, which would financially support you. Battling the rational that you could publish a book a month, but that’s no guarantee anyone will buy them–including those readers tell you they’re dying to read.

And on, and on, and on.

A lot of these challenges/obstacles are mental games. We writers have to have a ‘growth mindset,’ or an ‘abundant mindset’ as I’ve heard the phrase coined. Recognizing that we’re not fixed, unable to learn and adapt to our situations; that we can’t grow past our current state into something different or better/more capable/ready to tackle the next challenge. When you fail, you’ll see it as not only a learning opportunity, but a chance to leave what doesn’t work behind to celebrate what will work in the future. You have to believe in your success, because you’ll need GRIT to get there. See the goal to achieve it. It’s not the ‘name it, claim it’ strategy. Simply put, the more the goal is in the forefront of your mind, the more likely you’ll remain positive and focused on achieving it, thereby making decisions that’ll put you on a trajectory to success.

I didn’t publish anything after that May release. This is the longest I’ve gone without publishing a book in the last, I believe 5 years.

FIVE.

I don’t have time to play the blame game anymore. The more time I waste assigning my lack of whatever on someone or something else is time I could be using to get me one minute closer to success.

A ‘fixed mindset’ is detrimental to not only your health but your situation. You’ve virtually guaranteed your outcome will be the opposite of what you truly want.

Go get what you want. Let your passion and perseverance work together. Get GRIT.

Let’s read it together!

Below is Dr. Duckworth’s TED Talk. It’s worth a listen (Only 6 minutes).

Only those on this Wait List will know about these new books.

Photo Credit: Movie Quotes and More, FakePhotos.com

Video Credit: Youtube

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#WednesdayWriter ~ Reduce Stress. Break Your Scale.

My Weight Watchers scale died today, a week and a half into my “lose 20 pounds by June 1st” diet plan. I am one of those people who experiences a little stress when the number remains the same or goes up (who feels lighter when that happens? You don’t because, technically, you’re heavier).

I did, however, feel a slight sense of relief when it died, knowing the number that displayed right before going dark was probably a lie–at least, that’s what I told myself. Yay! No scale! And then I promptly thought about ordering one from Amazon Prime because it’d be here by tomorrow.

In many areas of life–including writing–you can literally be subservient to things that trigger stress your body can’t afford to live with over time. Actual pounds is one (if you’re overweight), the stress of not losing weight/working out/wanting to look sexy in a bikini in front of guys/insert your thought here/tackling a huge writing project of 50k word drafts every month.

Small chunks. This can also be referred to as portion control–if you’re eating.

Have a game plan and work towards small wins. I can see my hips slimming so I know I’ve lost some fat, even if my scale lied to me. Progress is key. If you’re not seeing progress, you’re doing something wrong (and I don’t care how much chicken and how many salads you eat, and how often you avoid sweets; fat is still fat). Even people with medical limitations manage to take control of their situations. Most of us probably don’t have that excuse, so let’s do something with our lives! And our writing.

The Return of the Writer

Whatever happened to #WednesdayWriter?

Well, that writer deployed for a short time to Jordan. When I wasn’t fighting terrorism, I enjoyed the sites including the once Roman-occupied city of Amman and, of course, Petra.

Feeling strong in the Temple of Hercules at the Citadel (Amman)        Maklouba in Petra                   This needs no intro–unless you haven’t seen Indiana Jones. If that’s the case, I suggest you watch The Last Crusade.            

What now? Well, I’m back to blogging–and writing. In fact, I’m teaming up with a fantastic writer to publish some awesome fiction. We’re talking paranormal, suspense, historical, contemporary… It’s going to be incredible. We’ll be using pen names, so make sure you add your email below to get on the waiting list, because you won’t see them on this site. We’ll let you know when the first of our products will be published–which will be very soon. Then try Brandi’s writing by clicking the cover below.

See you next week!

www.brandiboddie.com

 

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#WednesdayWriter ~ What a Romance Author Actually Earns (On Average)/Stats Part 2

And we’re back!

I’m in the US for some training and since my legs have locked up after a great workout yesterday (today is Monday), I’m in bed and able to post a blog.

So, where were we? Oh yes…what romance authors earn. Today we’ll look at what which genres actually earn money.

Whoa, so contemporary authors earn more, right? Well…I know they definitely command much more money per title than say Multicultural & Interracial–with the majority of titles featuring minorities–and that these books are priced the lowest among powerhouse genres and that devaluing probably factors into how only a few authors are able to command above the market value for their bestselling works.

Delving deeper, we see the particular subgenres that are performing well.

If you want to write to market, New Adult & College, Military, and Sports subgenres will earn you more money per ebook per day.

But remember how paranormal books were high on the list of earnings? Well, writing about psychics and angels will net you more money per day than your typical werewolf or shifter stories–which are everywhere; still planning on writing my chipmunk shifter romance.

We’re not done yet. Next time, I’ll talk about earnings for authors who have their books in Kindle Unlimited. I wasn’t making any money, and right now the royalty per page read is $0.004425.

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Powerpoint Credit: Data Guy/authorearnings.com

#WednesdayWriter ~ Strive

But…my sales have flatlined! My email subscribers won’t even open up my emails; how am I supposed to convince them to buy my new book? It can’t be done.

How??

You know what this sounds like to me? This: 

I’ve missed a lot. This is nothing more than a dream…again.

You have an answer for everything, don’t you?

 

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Photo Credits: various including pinterest and Shaun T.

 

#WednesdayWriter ~ What a Romance Author Actually Earns (On Average)/Stats Part 1

Yes, this is a business/statistics post–for ROMANCE authors–because that’s what authors who are publishing to make money are in: a business. Thank goodness Data Guy (a genius who has secret bots that troll the Amazon site and syphon data about book sales that Amazon can’t/won’t publish) put together a massive powerpoint presentation (2016 figures) on book sales data. He’s been doing this for a couple of years now and it gives the authorprenuer a lot of insight into market forces (what’s selling, how to sell, etc.)

I have 18 titles published. I’m in an elite group of authors who have more than 11 titles to their name. There’s only 14% of us. Nearly half of us only have 1 title out there in the world.

So you have all those titles out, you must be making money, right?

Let’s see…

This next graph shows that because I have between 16-20 titles published, I should be making somewhere around $60/day. I’m way below average because I’m around the 2-3 books range making anywhere from $0-$7/day.

Look at what authors with 101+ titles are averaging a day; nearly $350.00. 101+ titles=nose to the grindstone.

But hey, this is just the average of the 190,000 top-selling titles. My books aren’t top-sellers. Some authors out there are making a killing and dragging that average up.

Well, I only have one title. What does that skinny yellow line at 1 actually mean?

Glad you asked…

Per title, my books should bring in about $3.60/day (16-20 titles). Look at the far right; 101+ titles actually brings your earnings down. If you’ve been in this business for any length of time, you’ve heard the phrase, “the more titles you have out there the more chances people have of finding your work. The likelihood of you making a sale increases because your work is more visible.” Although the previous slide showed authors in this range make around $360/day, each title brings in less than if you had nearly three quarters fewer books.

More titles equals more money though, right?

Well…

And that’s probably the most important takeaway from the previous slide; you see the most money once you’ve hit around 20 books.

Again, I’m at 18. Here’s hoping the next two books means I can buy a kiddie pool to toss all my money in and swim around like Scrooge McDuck.

I said kiddie pool.

And market forces are different than they were two years ago when I could actually make $3/day per title when I had half the number of titles. Years ago you could write what you wanted and sell that a lot easier than today–in my opinion–where you have to write to market. Sure you could have a breakout novel, but the less difficult path to seeing a buck is to write to market (and remember, creating/producing products isn’t cheap, so we need to make money to keep up with reader demand).

Maybe.

To be continued…

Powerpoint Credit: Data Guy/authorearnings.com

#WednesdayWriter ~ No Such Thing As Fair

I’ve read a couple of posts recently about Kindle Unlimited and how some readers–and this author–believe that Amazon isn’t paying authors a fair rate for books read in their program.

Currently, authors are paid $0.004 (that’s less than HALF A CENT) per page read.

So for any 250-page book an author might’ve charged $2.99 for and received the 70% royalty split from Amazon (that’s about $2.09), the author only receives:

$1

I used to be mad about this but now I just find it laughable because it’s completely absurd–to the author. To the reader? Not so much.

Don’t believe me?

Myself and other authors have been contacted by readers who have the stones to tell us they wouldn’t pay more than $0.99 for our books EVEN THOUGH THEY ENJOY READING THEM AND WILL CONTINUE TO DO SO (especially if they’re free).

So you see, nothing’s really fair when you have readers who won’t pay–who don’t believe our products are worth even a buck because they’re just an ebook. I can’t tell my cover artist I don’t want to pay her because her work is just going to be a picture file for an ebook.

Readers certainly won’t tell their nail artists–who they see weekly–that they won’t pay what they’re being charged. And those nails will fall off/crack/have to be replaced every week or so.

My ebook is forever.

(Okay, so maybe you don’t get your nails done. Hair? Go to the movies? Go out to eat? Insert anything you consume here.)

You think Amazon wouldn’t charge more for their KU subscription service (currently $9.99 a month) if it meant they’d remain competitive in the marketplace (and they could get away with paying authors so cheaply? Oh wait, they’re already doing that)? Of course they would.

And readers would pay it, if there wasn’t too much friction.

Yet, there is so much friction that hell would freeze over before they’d pay more than $0.99 for an author’s ebook. KU is utterly and completely a bargain for readers; most aren’t going to abandon it even for the principle of the matter.

I appreciate readers emailing Jeff Bezos about how “unfair” this all is, but in reality, his bottom line isn’t hurting so…what’s the problem? KU is having record-breaking page reads a month and the payout to the author continues to goes down.

This post is more for authors. Don’t get stressed, depressed, anxious, sad, mournful, etc.. This is the marketplace you opted to be in (as Uncle Scar would say, “Be Prepared!”). There’s no such thing as “fair” when the purse-strings are controlled by the readers. They’ll pay if they want to.

And they don’t (well, not all of them).

We can talk until we’re blue in the face about how culture has changed to cultivate readers who are conditioned to pay less. It’s visible across genres. But we don’t have to. It’s here and it’s not going away anytime soon.

We as authors need to figure out how to communicate our value to readers so they would be willing to pay more than $1 for a product that takes 100,000% more to produce (is my math right? I’m trying to get to $1000.00. Hey, I’m a writer, not a mathematician…even though this is probably sixth grade math. Okay, I’ll just stop embarrassing myself).

I’ll be honest; I haven’t quite figured that out. I have a few loyal fans who pay full price for my books, but based on my sales many don’t, and enticing new readers to buy is the Mount Everest of selling for me personally. I won’t physically climb that mountain, but I’ll try to conquer it in my author business.

Before you get too despondent over readers not seeing the value of your work, I’ll end this post.

Photo Credits:

captainpixie.deviantart.com, www.youtube.com/watch?v=SapLyHFXtPU, www.koreanclass101.com/

#WednesdayWriter ~ I’m a Slacker

I’m one.

And if you’re a writer who isn’t a Guinness World Record holder for most written novels in one year, you’re a slacker too.

Who are the writers who set the bar ridiculously high?

Romance writer Barbara Cartland, the 1983 Guinness World Record winner for most novels written in one year. 23.
Science Fiction author Issac Asimov published 500 books in his lifetime.
US author Lauran Paine wrote over 1,000 books.

I’ve heard of writers taking a decade to write their novel, and I’ve heard of writers writing a novel a month. It’s a myth that slow writing equals great writing and it’s also a myth that fast writing equals poor writing.

What’s also a myth is that we’re more prolific than we actually think we are. Or maybe we don’t.

What’s not a myth is that up against these record holders and epic writers, WE ARE SLACKERS.

If your goal is to write a novel this year, or maybe one a quarter–like me–you’re slacking. We know their names and their works because of the sheer volume of work they produced. If I want to write for a living one day, then I need more than the measly 19 titles I have published.

If you write it, they will come.

If you write it 1000 times, for sure.

These writers did nothing but live and breathe writing and they probably pushed themselves to do more and be better. Ugh. Just the thought is overwhelming.

Well, it can either raise you up or push you down into the pit of despair.

I’ve got to get writing.

Photocredit: amazon