0 Comments
Or: Still doing it all wrong and getting it right.
So, last January, I posted about how I spent very little money on my first book as a contrast to fellow author Lisa Medley’s post on the costs she incurred in putting her first book together. Everyone’s path is different. Lisa paid for some things I wouldn’t have, while I didn’t hire out some things I really ought to have. My original point was that you don’t HAVE to pay out a thousand dollars on a book if you don’t have it. You have other assets at your disposal. It is probably one of the most popular posts I ever did, and it was reblogged by Passive Voice. I wanted to show people what you are capable of when you put your mind to something, that a lack of money can be overcome. Unfortunately, that wasn’t what most people took away from that post. The big takeaway was that “He doesn’t value his time and effort.” Why did they come to that conclusion? Because I didn’t put a dollar value on it. In spite of the fact that I listed it as an investment. So, I want to set the record straight on this. I don’t put a dollar value on my time and effort because I have a hard time coming up with numbers large enough to accurately express how much I value it. I also didn’t put a dollar value on my time and energy because at the time I invested it, I don’t know what my return was going to be. The first year I invested time and energy into my books, my total ROI was under ten thousand dollars. Last year, that return was over sixty thousand dollars. Next year that return could be much higher or it could be much lower. But the REAL value of my time and energy can’t be assigned a meaningful number of dollars in my head. There just isn’t enough money in the world. To paraphrase my friend Roanen Barron, until I earn a billion dollars a second for the time I could be spending with my friends and family…I’m underpaid. Now, other people may value my time less than I do. And the truth is, when you’re trying to negotiate a wage, you’re not trying to convince them of what YOU think your time is worth. You’re negotiating to THEIR value of your time. So, when I post my time and effort as an investment, don’t think that because I don’t put a dollar value on it that I don’t value it. The opposite is true. I value it too much to relegate it to mere dollars and cents. That’s why it has a column all its own, because it’s my most valuable asset, and as such, it’s priceless. Wow. I keep saying that, but it’s been that kind of year. Last year, leading up to Vision Con, my whole world was on the precipice of a huge change, one I had been hoping for but didn’t see coming. I guess I’d always seen it as happening more gradually. But over the space of one weekend, at Vision Con, was where my life actually changed. Vision Con has always been special to me. It was my first science fiction convention, and my “home” convention. But last year’s con was even more special to me.
The Friday before, this was my life: I had a decent paying job, no car, and just enough money to pay the bills most months without getting overdrawn. I was still in the churn phase with my writing, where everything I earned from my work pretty much went back into the next book. I had recently released The Demon’s Apprentice, and it was doing rather well, breaking into the top 1000 on Amazon in the days before con. And I thought THAT was about as cool as my life could get. Mentally, I was far from planning regular convention appearances or attendance as a vendor. I had intended to hit a couple of cons later in the year, and I had to base THAT on if I could get a ride and plan it around getting vacation time from work. I was planning on releasing the next in the Demon’s Apprentice series at con, and looking forward to a little extra money coming in from that. It was doing well in pre-order, and I was hoping it would hit the top 100 like its predecessor had. Friday came and went, and I was making some sales. Things were going well enough. Saturday came, and it was a full day as I adapted to the new sales environment, tying to sell books with two other authors at the table. Now bear in mind, these two other authors were talented, articulate, pretty women…at a convention full of geeks. Needless to say, there were times when I felt almost invisible next to these two ladies, but hey, at least I was in good company! We joked with con goers, did a couple of podcast interviews and in general had a great time selling books. Then came our panel, one of the most fun panels I had ever been a part of, the Publishing Panel. The energy in the room was high, and all three panelists were feeding off of each other and the audience was getting in on the fun. Afterward, a bunch of us went to a nearby restaurant to east. And this is the moment where my life changed. I was sitting at the table, taking the first free moment I’d had all day to FINALLY checked my sales. I had expected a big jump in sales because of the preorders all hitting my feed that day, but when I checked my sales RANK, I was literally stunned. Page of Swords OWNED the top spot in Paranormal and Coming of Age, and it was ranked at number 187 on Amazon. I sat there for a couple of moments, unable to do anything but stare at my phone and wonder if I was looking at the right book. Was this actually happening to me? Was this MY life I was in the middle of? Evidently it was. It became a little more real to me when Gerry Kissell, an artist friend who had done one of the covers for my zombie series, asked me if I was okay (evidently, shocked and stunned looks the same if it’s something good as it does when it’s something bad). I tried to explain what was going on coherently, and eventually I got the point across, because Gerry brought me back to reality with a simple phrase: “I knew you’d get there.” See, at the previous Vision Con, Gerry had encouraged me to have faith in my work, because if I didn’t give up, I’d make my dream of writing for a living come true. And damn if the man wasn’t right. About three months later, I bought my first car in years, quit my job, and began to do this writing thing full time. Now, coming into Vision Con for 2016, I’ll be there as a hybrid author, writing both my own series, and writing for New Babel Books in a spin-off series for the Apocalypse of Enoch. I’m a member of the Science Fiction Writers of America, a dream of mine since I first heard of the organization. My whole life has changed since last Vision Con, and that is where it started. Going to Vision Con this year is going to be returning to my roots, as it is every year, but it’s also going ot be where I come full circle. I can barely imagine where I’ll be next year. For the past few years, Jim Hines and John Scalzi have done blog posts where they talk about how much they made that year. I figured this year, it was my turn. They also use pie charts to show certain things, and who doesn’t like pie? So, I might find a use for one, too. Maybe a graph or two, even! Because numbers. First, a little background. In 2014, I released my first self-published book, Zompoc Survivor: Exodus. It did pretty well, selling about 2500 copies or so its first month. All told for 2014, I made a little over $7,000. Not a bad first year. As the year ended, I decided to release my Demon’s Apprentice series again after getting the rights back from the publisher, and it started off reasonably well. But nothing prepared me for January of 2015, when The Demon’s Apprentice started to take off. And I was even less prepared for what happened in February, when Page of Swords blew its predecessor out of the water and hit #1 on the Paranormal chart on Amazon. The rest of the year was a bit of a roller coaster ride, and I’ll chart it with you. All told, before taxes, I made $67,384 in 2015, which is only a little less than what Jim C. Hines made, if you add in what he made before his agent’s commission. Now, before that sounds too braggy, remember that since his royalties are from traditional sales, he probably sold a metric ton more books than I did. My guess would be that he sold at least three to four books for every copy I that I sold, which is why agents and big publishers aren’t kicking down my door just yet. Earnings doesn’t equal salability. Products and Distribution What this represents is a total of six books in two series sold exclusively through Amazon. After a certain point roughly half of this income represents revenue from Kindle Unlimited. The series are the Zompoc Survivor series and the Demon’s Apprentice series. The genres are post-apocalyptic/dystopian and YA paranormal respectively. Most of my revenue comes from the Demon’s Apprentice series. In fact, every month where I earned more than $10k corresponds with or closely follows a release in that series. While my career is proof that you can make it by selling solely through Amazon, that may not be the path for everyone. But it sure seems to work with YA paranormal and zombie novels. Later on, I may go with a wider distribution, but for now, this is working. Breakdown by Month Below is a chart that shows my total income each month. The thing to remember is that the month I earn the money is two months after the sales have actually happened. So, January is showing what I earned in November, February shows what I earned in December and so on. So, as you can see, my income varied greatly by month. The chart below breaks it down as a percentage of the annual amount was earned in a given month.
One thing you can easily see from both charts is that more than half of my income came in three months. What happened in those months? Oh, that part is easy: I had book releases around those times. Demon’s Apprentice in late December, Page of Swords in late February, ZS: Odyssey in August and Vision Quest in mid-October. And between book releases, you can see how my income went down. Now, some may argue that my income drop also was most pronounced during the summer, which is typically a dry time for self-published authors. I released the third in the Zompoc Survivor series in August, which caused the small jump in October, so that could also add weight to that line of reasoning as well. Another thing I learned in looking at this is that for me, a book release has a strong cycle of about two months, and then things drop to a much lower level, one that stayed pretty steady between books. In a way, this kind of mirrors what traditional publishing sees, I think, a strong start and then a drop off after a month or two. The difference is that my books stay available on line after that, which is where my main customer base is, while traditional books, unless they do REALLY well, tend to fall off the shelves after that big sales period (and traditional authors see returned copies come out of their royalties). So this is another place where I think I tend to have an advantage over a traditional author, because I don’t have that drain on my royalties. My physical books are print on demand. So, like a traditional writer, I have that bigger influx at the beginning, then I’m in the trough between books, only I’m still making a little money. Handling Finances One thing that I learned this year was patience. While February ended with more than $10,000 in sales, I didn’t see that until the end of April. That was a long sixty days. As soon as that hit, and I knew I had another fifteen grand on the way, I was at a point where I could quit my job, since I would have what I made in a year at that job essentially in the bank before I hit the middle of the year. From there, I knew I had a bit of a cushion if I needed it, and I kept that buffer in place. And as soon as I DID have the full amount in my hands, my wife and I sat down and figured up our total bills for a month, and I set aside enough to cover my half of them for the rest of the year in a completely separate account. All of our bills were set to autopay, and overall, we didn’t change our lifestyle in a lot of big ways. We still live like I made what I used to. If I had to point at one big change in this year, it’s been that we just haven’t had to worry about money. My largest new expense was a decent used car for going to conventions. No new jewelry, no long vacations or any other huge expenses, and no sudden move to a bigger house. Getting There Up until May of this year, I worked in customer service for a credit card company (much like Dave Stewart in the Zompoc series, except mine wasn’t the hell hole his was). My work week was 34 hours, and I devoted those extra hours and more to writing. My wife worked overnights and in recent years, went to evenings, so most of my writing time happened between midnight and three or four AM. I used to put in about fifteen to twenty hours a week on writing. Since May, that number has gone up considerably, though I also end up putting in a more than a few hours each week on marketing and the nuts and bolts of actually putting a book together and managing my writing career. Convention appearances and speaking engagements take time to do right, or at least, they do for me. Conclusion Whatever conclusions you might draw from the numbers and patterns, looking at this does prove one thing for certain: as an independent author, you HAVE to publish regularly. And you have to keep your name out there where people can see you. Many of my sales during the summer came from convention appearances and just handing my card out to people. While I didn’t make it into the $100K range like some writers, I also acknowledge I’m something of an outlier, and that as much skill and effort as I put into things, there was still a measure of luck involved. But luck only does so much. Once you’ve been blessed with a little you have to do something with it, like write the next book and up your game a notch. For aspiring and current authors, I hope this gives you an idea of what is possible. A LOT of people have never heard of me, and that's okay. Enough people have that I can write for a living, and that's the important part. It IS possible to succeed at this without selling your soul or compromising your craft. You don't have to make the NYT Bestseller list in order to write full time. (It helps, though).
I’ve been meaning to do this for a few days, but with releasing a new book and doing new covers for the other books in the series, plus getting another book done and sent to the editor, without needing Gilder to frame for it all, I’ve been a little behind. Which is a shame really, because the guys at Zombie Tools really deserve some serious respect in my book. Back in 2013, when I was first writing Zompoc Survivor: Exodus, I asked the guys at Zombie Tools if I could mention a couple of their creations in my books. A day later, they responded and said it was cool, thus giving birth to one of Dave’s signature weapons, the Deuce II. Fast forward a few months, and one critic was doubting that Dave could have done all of the things he did to prep on a writer’s income. Challenge accepted! Thus began my quest to get everything Dave started out with. For the most part, I’ve succeeded (I don’t have a mysterious and well-funded benefactor to help me finance the land yet. I am still accepting offers, however.) But, in a year and a half, I’ve gotten almost all of his physical gear. The Deuce was the final piece of the set I needed. Eight days ago, it arrived. And let me tell you something: The folks at Zombie Tools came through like the champs they are. I bought the Scyllis and the Deuce II, and got them in a lot less time than the 7-9 weeks on the site. They also included a message for me, even though I didn’t make a big deal about who I was when I was ordering the blades. One of their tag lines is “A fist full of ‘Fuck yeah!’ ” and after holding both blades, I get that in no uncertain terms. The Scyllis, which is a beast of a knife, is just as thick in the cross section as the sword, and both of them are thicker than most blades I’ve seen. The Scyllis dwarfs my Winchester hunting knife, and if size matters, then the Scyllis wins hands down. Until you put it next to the Deuce, which kicks ass in a whole new weight class! Both blades are well balanced, both have some serious heft to them, and I would trust my life to both of them. So, I’ve posted some pics below. Most are self-explanatory, but the first picture does require some explanation. This is a pic of my version of Dave’s basic load out. Unlike Dave, I went with the Ruger 10/22 Takedown from the start. I also put a short 4X scope on it, since I’m pretty short sighted. The black bag in front of the chair is the backpack/carrying case that comes with it. Now, I don’t make it a habit of detailing all of my preparation, but it has enough room for the rifle broken down, the cleaning kit, extra magazines (I stuck with the 10 round rotary mags) and up to 500+ rounds of 22LR ammo in a paint ball tube with plenty of room to spare. The little blue disk is the carrier for some of my ear protection. The tactical vest is primarily a prop, since Dave ends up with one several times throughout the books. The pistol is my Walther CCP. It’s a good little firearm that fits my hand well. And of course, the Deuce, carried across the back the way Dave does it. My only disappointment is that I was the second person to get a Deuce based on the ZS series of books. A few weeks before I ordered mine, the folks at Zombie Tools let me know someone else had ordered one after reading one of the books. I sent that guy a set of signed hard copies of the first two books for being so cool. That piece of paper is the personal message the guys from ZT included with my invoice. If I’m ever up Montana way, I’m bringing a case of PBR to their shop. Down at the bottom, I’ve also included the YouTube video of the boys at ZT working hard to destroy a Deuce. And yes, they had to bust their ass to break that bad boy. So, a week or so ago, my buddy Kyle shows up to our weekly game night with a five foot length of PVC pipe covered in duct tape and wrapped in cord. Immediately, I’m thinking “Cool staff!” Now it bears mentioning that Kyle has a secret identity where he’s a quiet and understated engineer of amazing things. So when I told him how cool his staff looked, he just smiled and nodded and then proceeded to take it apart and show me all the goodies. I had to have one. And in a few days, I did. I asked if he could do it with wood-grain tape. Turns out, he can. If they make a duct tape of it, he can use it. He calls them Survival Sticks, and they are pretty damn cool. The outer shell is 1 inch PVC pipe, but when you remove the two end caps, you can see that the inside is not only reinforced with another layer of PVC pipe, it has an inner core of PVC that runs the entire length. Now, notice hos the inner core is recessed a little bit? Yeah, that’s because this thing isn’t just a staff. It’s a blowgun. Kyle can also make attachments for a spear and a fishing gig. Plus, with the reinforced inner core and some clever use of the cord wrapped around the base, it can be used as a survival bow. Also, he has plans for a version with a somewhat deeper recess of the inner core to make room for a small survival kit. The blowgun comes with three kinds of darts. One is bamboo, very light and good for longer range shots (and don’t let the light weight fool you. I put one of these through a neoprene target and three layers of cardboard.), the second is a lightweight steel dart with a flattened tip, and the third is a heavy dart that is basically a three inch nail. The two metal darts hit hard! I used a cardboard box propped against a tree as a backstop, and ended up having to pull them out with a pair of plyers when I missed the bird target Kyle provided me with for practice. This is one of the most versatile items I’ve ever seen, and it was worth every penny I paid him for it (I can’t quote an exact price because each one varies according to how it’s made.). As you can see, it’s pretty damn accurate. I chose a conservative range, but when we first tried these things out, we were shooting across my yard with them and putting them through multiple layers of cardboard. And because of the way it’s reinforced, not only will it support a grown man’s weight, it is also heavy enough to pack quite the wallop. And whatever you have in mind, I’m pretty sure Kyle can put one together for you. Check out the pics I took of my Survival Stick.
Every writer doubts themselves. Some of us do it more than others. We doubt our skill, we doubt our worth as writers, we doubt we have what it takes, and some days we question whether we should be writing at all. Somewhere along the way, I think we all have these moments, especially at first. Times where we don’t believe in ourselves, where everything feels like an uphill battle that we’re never going to win. We start out with skills in storytelling that fall far short of our expectations. We know we SHOULD be able to do better, but we don’t yet know how to do it better.
Sometimes, we give up. For some, it’s just for a moment, for others it’s for months or even years. And for some, sadly, it’s forever. But most of us keep going, always getting better at what we do, until one day, we receive The Gift. When we get it, most times, we don’t even know it. Other times, it’s so overwhelming that we find ourselves in tears. Sometimes, it takes us years to understand that we have it. But the change is so fundamental that you find yourself wanting to give it to other writers, too. What is The Gift? It’s simple. Not easy, but simple. The Gift is nothing more than faith in yourself. It’s when saying “I can do this” stops being an affirmation and becomes a fact, a foregone conclusion that you believe with the same certainty as gravity. When you know you can finish that novel, and when you know it’s good. Jim Butcher gave me The Gift. Somewhere around page 15 of Dead Beat, I realized that this was similar to the voice I wrote with. That if this guy was a NYT Bestseller, then I really DID have a shot at making it as a writer. The agent who queried me proactively gave it to me again. My readers give it to me every time they buy my books, leave reviews or leave me a comment or a message. So, when people ask me what one piece of advice I would give an aspiring writer, I’m a little flustered. I can tell them to believe in themselves all day long, the words are going to ring hollow until they receive the Gift. Instead, I wish I could just give them the Gift. Sometimes, though, I can. Sometimes, you’ll have those moments where you’re the right person, in the right place, at the right time. And you get to see the look in someone’s eyes when they start to believe in themselves. When you watch the video below, you’ll see when the young chef begins to get that Chef Ramsey believes in her, and where she begins to believe in herself.
So, until it happens, just keep going. Keep writing, keep learning. You’ll get there. I promise. Tomorrow’s a pretty big day for me. I thought I’d announce it now, though. Seems I told a few people something big was coming. Not a lot of people…well, okay…just everyone on my Facebook page. So, what’s the big deal? Tomorrow, I turn in my letter of resignation at my day job, and give them two weeks’ notice. On May 16th, I start my first day in my new career: author. Yep, I’m going to try to do this writing thing full time for a while. It wasn’t an easy decision, and it isn’t one I’m doing without some forethought and planning. So, if you’re a self-pubbed writer, don’t do this right after you’ve released your first book. Do it when you have a year’s worth of income ready to hand, and a few books under your name that are selling okay. So, tomorrow starts a period of transition and farewells. I’ve worked at my current day job for more than ten years, and as much as I’m looking forward to writing full time, some of those farewells won’t be easy ones. But, this is what I have always wanted to do with my life, so it’s a lot like hitting a Lifetime Achievement Goal in the Sims. I’m going to write for a living. I’ll be a full time writer. That’s some nifty stuff. Quest completed. Achievement unlocked.
|
Ben Reeder
Author of the Zompoc Survivor and The Demon's Apprentice series. Occasional wit. Constant smart ass.
Vertical Divider
Archives
January 2020
Categories
All
The Books Books By Ben Reeder: The Demon's Apprentice The Page of Swords Vision Quest Charm School In Absentia The Verge Walker:Book 1 Zombies by Ben Reeder: Zompoc Survivor: Exodus Zompoc Survivor : Inferno Zompoc Survivor: Odyssey Ash Fall The Gathering Horde |