It’s Not All About the Benjamins

Making money writing Novels

When we’re talking about income streams, writing novels is not a lucrative one for me. I am serious when I tell you I don’t write books for the money. I’ve written—and spoken—on this topic before and people look at me like they think it’s some kind of line. It absolutely is not. I write novels because I love to write them. And I publish them because I love to share them. If I wrote a rough draft and never took a story beyond that point, it wouldn’t be shareable. So I revise, edit, revise and edit again, design a cover or hire a designer, format, and publish.

And that takes a lot of work.

Going through all that work—including the time invested in writing the manuscript in the first place—seems like it ought to come with some return on investment. The novels I have published so far, Peppermint Lightning, Jack-o-‘Lightning, and Justice for the Missing, are almost always on sale for the least amount Amazon will let me price them. I price them that way because I want to get them into your hands.

I have given away more copies of Peppermint Lightning than I’ve sold. It’s a novel about giving, the holiday spirit, and goodwill after all!

I’m not a very good capitalist in that respect—or a poor business person at least.

Passive Income for busy writers

If I was independently wealthy, I would give my books away for free. Well… probably. Because that’s not likely to happen, I guess I’ll never be able to put it to the test.

What I really want out of my novels is community. I want people to read them and talk about them. I want people to ask me questions about them—or ask one another questions about them. I want to put stories into the world that weren’t there before. Simple as that.

And everything else I do, I do to support that dream. I may never be an independently wealthy man-of-leisure who can dedicate all his time to creative pursuits, but if I can successfully create and maintain passive income streams, I can use most of time and mental real estate writing and publishing novels, I’d be a happy man.

This is why—despite the fact that I haven’t taken the time to real craft a plan or work a system, yet—I am slightly obsessed with the idea of multiple income streams. I started digging into the idea when my wife and I tossed around the idea of selling our house and buying an RV. Passive income and travel? Oh yeah!

And if you’re reading this article, you have at least a passing interest, yourself. I’m certainly not an expert, though I can point you to someone who is—but I’m learning as I go, and I invite you along for the ride.

But, why share your tips? You’re creating competition.

Again, maybe a poor business choice, but I’m a teacher at heart. Teaching is my day job and has been for nearly a dozen years. The educator in me sees value in sharing whatever I can to help others be more successful—help others accomplish their goals. So, maybe what I try works. You try it and it works for you too, but I’ve created competition. That’s okay with me. I’m not in it to swim around Scrooge McDuck style in my money bin. I just want the income streams I create to give me greater flexibility—even it isn’t until retirement—to focus on writing and sharing my stories.

Click this link!

Oh affiliate marketing, how complicated my feelings are for you. This is an area I haven’t sunk my teeth into yet, but an experiment is probably in the cards. There are people who make decent money with affiliate programs, and good for them. But nothing is more irritating to me than reading a blog article that is little more than a series of links and thinly veiled advertisements. I will never be that guy.

But, adding affiliate links to a blog post for a product or service I believe, use, and sincerely recommend? I suppose I wouldn’t feel dirty doing that. People expect ads. They expect the internet to be trying to sell them something everywhere they go. I need to do a little more research before I try to make this one of the income streams I delve into. And if it’s something you’re considering, I encourage you to do the same.

How do you feel about affiliate marketing? Leave a comment.

Low-Content Books

I have dabbled in this area. I put out a half-dozen or so teacher-themed blank journals last year. The first was the Holiday Planner I put out in 2021. It’s got places for addresses, recipes, shopping lists, etc.. I thought it made a nice companion to Peppermint Lightning. And I plan on putting out several more in 2023. The next batch with I’m designing as travel diaries, using photos from my own vacations.

I haven’t done a lot of research or created a marketing plan. I just put them on Amazon, mentioned them in my newsletter, and moved on. As income streams go, this one is pretty simple. Design a cover, get a nice template for the inside matter—lined pages, graph paper, address book, etc.–and publish on Amazon with very little hassle.

Monetizing this Blog

It’s no secret that authors on Medium can join their “partner program” and earn a little income from people reading their work. It doesn’t cost the reader any extra. I get to share my journey with you—hopefully you enjoy yourself or learn something—and I make a few cents. It requires a minimum number of followers, though. If you enjoy my articles or find them informative, entertaining, educational, etc., it would be a big help if you clicked “follow.” And if I’m going t be writing anyway, why not make it work for me?

And I don’t mind asking you to do that? Do you mind being asked?

It’s down to this

And this is going to sound really hokey… it’s about building a dream. As I have said before, the only thing I ever wanted to do more than teach was write. And I do that. I do a lot of that. But, because of how busy my life is sometimes, because it takes a lot of mental real-estate to write well and see a book through the publication process, I haven’t done as much of it as I would like to.

There aren’t as many of my stories out in the world as I’d like, and that’s the end-game. That’s the goal. Write more stories and put them into the world. For some of you, the goal might be to make stacks of money with your books, and that’s great. I hope you do. For me, generating income streams is about financing a dream. And what I have learned so far is that it’s not as hard to do as you might expect. I’ll share what I learn as I go.

What have you learned? Leave a comment.

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Phillip Davis is the author of Peppermint Lightning, Jack-o-’Lightning, and Justice for the Missing. (Sequel coming in 2023!) He is an elementary school teacher, mental-health advocate, long time NaNoWriMo participant, and member of the Ninja Writer’s community. He writes on the topics of writing, building an author platform, mental health, and self improvement.

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