Tarun Gupta’s Kindle Notes & Highlights for How to Make a Living with Your Writing: Books, Blogging and More

7%

Entrepreneurs create value from ideas.

8%

With scalable income, you create once and sell over and over again.

8%

creating intellectual property assets that will put income in your pocket for years to come.

9%

it's the same principle for making a living with your writing. It's important to make sure that you have more than one source of incoming cash. If you're reliant on one publisher, one self-publishing distributor, one client, one product or one book, at some point, you’re likely to find yourself in trouble.

10%

A book that will change your perception on this is Abundance: The Future is Better than you Think by Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler. Or check out www.SingularityHub.com.

10%

Write down your definition of a living and how much you want to earn from your writing in the next year and then the next five years.

11%

It's really about considering what's important to you and about how you're going to measure that success.

13%

Diarize your time and make slots for your writing as you would for any other appointment.

14%

The other tool I’d struggle without is Scrivener software. I use it to plot and (roughly) outline as well as write, organize and manage my books. It's incredibly powerful software and if you want to maximize your usage, I recommend the Learn Scrivener Fast training course which you can find at www.TheCreativePenn.com/scrivener

17%

The best thing to do is to write that book, then another, then another, then another. Work with a professional editor on every book and learn from the experience. You will improve every time. Read a lot and learn from other writers. Practice technique as you write, focusing on different aspects per book.

20%

Social karma is about generosity: sharing other people's blog posts, talking about other people's books and reviewing them on Goodreads. It’s about giving what you would like to receive with no expectation of it coming back to you in exactly the same way. This positive energy will keep you enthused and will attract others to you. It's also a happier way to live!

21%

First of all, let's take your finished manuscript and think about ebook editions. You can sell ebooks on the biggest stores: Kindle, iBooks, Kobo and Nook. But you can also sell on Smashwords, Scribd, Tolino and lots of other global retailers, with more emerging every day as digital reading spreads.

Ebook retailers

21%

Then you can have a print edition. Print on demand technology means that you don't have to pay upfront or warehouse and ship physical products anymore. You can use services like Createspace or Ingram Spark to upload files and have your print books available for sale online through Amazon, Barnes & Noble and many other online bookstores. When a customer orders the book, one copy is printed and sent directly to them, and you receive whatever profit margin you set up.

Print On demand

22%

Then you can have an audio edition, which you can now commission yourself and do royalty split deals with narrators in some countries.

Audio

24%

The pros of traditional publishing

26%

The cons of traditional publishing

29%

If you're looking at a traditional publishing deal, there are two books I recommend that you read: Closing the Deal on Your Terms … Agents, Contracts and Other Considerations by Kristine Katherine Rusch The Nine Worst Provisions in your Publishing Contract by David Vandagriff Both of those books will help you with contract terms. Spend a few dollars on these books and you will save yourself money and heartache along the way.

33%

So what about print? In March 2015, The Bookseller reported that online print book purchasing overtook in-store print purchasing. That means more people are buying print online than they're buying print in stores, which puts independent authors on a par with traditionally published authors. I have print books for sale online and they have the same chance of being discovered as any other author's books. With the advent of KDP Print and the integration of Amazon Ads for print books, authors who embrace advertising could sell a lot more print books in the years to come.

41%

The hybrid model: It’s not an either/or choice anymore The industry has changed and many authors now take a hybrid approach to publishing. They will make the decision per book per series and by particular rights, using the indie model for some things and taking traditional deals for others. This empowers the author to make decisions and choose the best possible route for each project. After all, a career isn't built on one book. For example, Hugh Howey sold his print rights for Wool and did a number of foreign rights deals, as did indie author J.A.Konrath. Jasinda Wilder sold several new books ...more

42%

If you go indie, you’ll need to pay for editing and cover design upfront. But these prices shouldn’t break the bank and you should use professionals that other authors have recommended. If you want to use services that charge for other things, then please check the following resources: Watchdog Service Ratings by the Alliance of Independent Authors: www.TheCreativePenn.com/watchdog Choosing a self-publishing service by the Alliance of Independent Authors, available on all online bookstores. Written by authors and for authors so you get unbiased advice. Need more help with going indie? Check ...more

Resources For going indie

45%

Write your sales description This is an art and one that we are all trying to improve! Your aim is to entice the reader to download a sample or buy. There are many aspects to a good sales description and one way to get into the mood for writing one is to look at 10-15 top selling books in your genre. Copy out the sales descriptions for each. What do you like? What resonates? What words do they use? Model your own on those. Check out Libbie Hawker's book, Gotta Read It: 5 Simple Steps to a Fiction Pitch That Sells, or listen to this interview with Bryan Cohen on writing sales descriptions: ...more

Sales description

46%

Format your ebook You need to have a mobi file for Kindle and an ePub file for the other platforms but don't let technicalities put you off. There are a number of options for ebook formatting. Load Word documents into the various sites e.g. Draft2Digital and let them auto-format your files. This is really only good for plain text and you won't be able to fix up any formatting you don't like. Do it yourself using Vellum ebook formatting software. This is what I use now as it creates gorgeous ebooks, but it is Mac only. You can find it at: www.TheCreativePenn.com/vellum. I’ve also made a ...more

Format your ebook

46%

Go direct to the retailers For the best royalty rates, ease of control, speed of changes and enhanced metadata, it's a good idea to publish direct to the retailers, all of which are free. I use Amazon KDP for Kindle, Kobo Writing Life and iTunes Connect for iBooks. Use an aggregator like Draft2Digital, PublishDrive or Smashwords You can use one of these sites to distribute to all of the stores, which will cut down on the number of platforms you have to monitor and make changes to. You can also use them for other stores. I use Draft2Digital to get my books onto other stores, including Nook. I ...more

Go to retailers

47%

Choose your categories Categories are the genres and sub-genres that you will find on the online bookstores, for example, Romance > Historical, or Thriller > Conspiracy. You assign these to your book when you self-publish and your choices will be critical for discoverability. Spend some time deciding on the best ones for your book. Think about how people shop on the online book stores or on devices. They will usually drill down into the sub-category that they like to read, for example, I like to surf Thrillers as well as Action Adventure, and in non-fiction I will always check out the latest ...more

Categories

49%

A couple more useful points: Many of the platforms now use a Series field to group books together. Make sure that you spell the series exactly the same on every book so that they are correctly linked together. This is critical for the various algorithms to recommend the books as a series. And if you're not writing a series, why not?! It’s the best way to make more money as an author. You can also use pre-orders on the retailers, which each have varying guidelines. This is useful if you have a series and you know more books are coming. You can drive sales over a longer period rather than ...more

Series field

49%

How does the money work? The percentage royalty differs per retailer and also per region, as well as whether you're in Amazon's exclusive KDP Select program. You can read about the pros and cons of exclusivity here: www.TheCreativePenn.com/exclusive. The range is usually 35%-70% of the net price which you set yourself as a self-published author. You will generally receive payment 60 days after the month of sale so at the end of May, I will receive royalties from March sales. Some retailers pay using PayPal monthly and some quarterly. I can see reports at any time on all the main retailers ...more

Money workings

50%

It's also good for comparison pricing. Look at a book sales page on Amazon and if there's an ebook as well as a print book, you'll see a 'saving.' The customer then considers the ebook price to be a good deal. So purely having a print book for comparison pricing is a good reason to do it. This is why I even do print for my short novellas.

Comparison pricing

51%

Print on demand: You upload up your interior and cover files to one of the print on demand (POD) service companies. When a book is ordered, one copy is printed and sent directly to the customer. No paying upfront for print copies. No holding stock. No post office runs. You just get the profit after the sale. I highly recommend this option for most people as there is very little risk and you can buy a few of your own copies for giveaways, marketing and ego reasons. This is what I do and I'm very happy with it.

Print on demand

51%

Before publishing You will need to have a formatted interior and a book cover ready before you publish. You'll need to decide the size of the print book and either make the files yourself or pay a professional formatter to do this for you. Your interior formatting options include: Use the free templates available at the POD companies. Just download the templates for the size you want and complete them. For interior files, use the reasonably priced and very professional Book Design Templates: www.TheCreativePenn.com/templates Pay a professional formatter. Here's my list of formatters: ...more

Before publishing print on demand

52%

Recommended Print On Demand companies There are two main options for print on demand, both recommended by many authors. Createspace: This is Amazon's own print on demand company. It has a simple 'wizard' process, downloadable templates and online help along the way. [In 2018, Amazon launched KDP Print as part of the kdp.amazon.com dashboard and most authors are now using KDP Print instead of Createspace. It uses the same functionality and fields, and you can easily move books over from Createspace to KDP Print.] Once you've uploaded your files, you'll be given the cost of the book and then you ...more

This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.

Print on demand companies

53%

How does the money work for print on demand? You set the profit you want to make per book and you can see reports of sales online at any time. You'll be paid by direct deposit or check (dependent on your country) at the end of the month following the month of sale.

Money for print on demand

54%

Use ACX to go indie for audio

ACX

58%

The more books you have, the LESS you have to market them because you'll have an audience ready and waiting, critical mass on the digital shelves and multiple streams of income.

59%

Spend some time looking at the sub-genres and how they are structured. I know many writers hate 'boxes,' but you have to choose two sub-categories when you self-publish a book and your agent will want to know what you're writing if you want a traditional deal. You need to know who your comparison authors are and this will help you to investigate the genres and discover what sells better. For example, I write books that can sit within Supernatural Thriller, Conspiracy Thriller and Action Adventure. My books don't fit within Medical Thriller or Espionage. Literary fiction is also a genre and ...more

People want to buy by genre

66%

If we take books out of the equation, what are the other possible income streams from your writing? Here's just a basic list – then we'll go into these in more detail in the next chapters. Product sales - Digital e.g. books, online courses. Physical e.g. t-shirts, journals, mugs and other merchandise Service sales - consulting, coaching, professional speaking, freelance writing, copywriting Advertising or sponsorship - this can be based on traffic e.g. YouTube videos or by niche e.g. a pet food company sponsoring a pet based blog. This can also include fan sponsorship through Patreon Affiliate ...more

Other Income sources

67%

Content marketing is essentially creating quality content that is entertaining, inspirational or educational in order to attract a certain target market. This can be through written articles or blog posts, podcasts, audio, video or images, all of which can utilize your writing skills in various ways. Remember: There does need to be a point to your content if you want to make money!

Content marketing

70%

2.2 Product sales

Product sales

72%

Some tips on multimedia courses I've run a number of courses online over the last few years. Here are some thoughts that may help you if you're considering it: Do your research into what people actually want and will buy. Don't just create something that you think they will need. If you have an audience already, do a survey and ask people. If you don't, then use Twitter search or other social listening tools to figure out what people want. Choose the title very carefully. If it resonates, people will buy. This principle is the same for book titles. The language used should be based on the ...more

Multimedia Courses