The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 5 – Top 4 Truths Every Author Who Wants To Earn a Living Needs to Hear

Why is it that we only ever hear about author earnings in the cases where somebody earns a gazillion dollars?

The thing is that it's impossible to replicate these people's success because they often don't even know how they made it to earn a living from their writing.

I'm therefore going to share the similarities that I see between those who have made it to the promised land and are earning a living from their writing. This will be the top 4 truths that nobody will tell you, but you need to hear if you want to earn a living from writing.

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Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion).

Jesper (12s):
I find today's topic important to talk about because, and hopefully you can recognize this, but we only ever hear about Author earnings in the cases where somebody's earned a gazillion dollars. Isn't that true? I mean, we never see the writer who sells one book a month earning $2 in royalties coming on to where social media to share his or her results, right? The truth though is that this is the reality for most authors.

Jesper (47s):
They're are far more Who, Earn nothing from their writing. Then there are those who earns a ton, so today I'm going to share the similarities that I see between those who have made it to the promised land and are earning a living from their writing. This will be the top for truths that nobody will tell you, but you need to hear if you want to earn a living from Writing. If you are a Fantasy or Author, then you come to the right place.

Jesper (1m 22s):
My name is Jesper and together with Autumn I host this channel between us. We've published more than 20 novels and our aim is to help you in your writing and marketing endeavors. When you compare yourself with someone else, the danger is how damn easy it becomes to feel like a failure. It can lead to a situation where the aspiring author starts thinking, well, if that Author can earn 10,000 or a hundred thousand dollars a month from Writing, then why can't even sell enough books to make a hundred dollars a month?

Jesper (2m 9s):
The first thing is that you need to understand that some people just got lucky, they wrote a book that took off for whatever reason. And if you could stop to sit down with that Author right here and now and ask, so how did you do that? You would probably be disappointed with the answer because chances are that they just don't know. Really, I'm being serious here. You know, market trends are very hard to predict and sometimes someone just gets lucky.

Jesper (2m 43s):
They wrote exactly the type of book that the market was looking for and that's it. Do I need to mention 50 shades of gray, for example? Do. The other thing is that it's also incredibly easy to look someone's situation from the outside and then draw incorrect conclusions. So what are they, for instance, sacrificing in order to sell books for say, a hundred thousand dollars every month.

Jesper (3m 14s):
If you could live a week in their situation, you might have a lot more money, but would that necessarily make you happy? That's not guaranteed. Not at all. You know, perhaps you value freedom and you value not to have a boss who looks over your shoulders in a nine to five job. You know, you value that a million times more than working like a maniac and never have any time to spend with your family as a consequence of earning those hundred thousand dollars.

Jesper (3m 45s):
Know it could be that you would be happier if you actually cut down on your living expenses and was able to quit your job, then you would ever be slaving away until you earn a a million so that you can finally chase that dream of yours to become a full time Author. You know, going full time by cutting down on expenses was exactly what autumn did, for example. And she for one, Shirley don't want to go back to a nine to five.

Jesper (4m 15s):
She was able to make her dreams come true just by cutting down on expenses. So sure, many of you would love to earn a ton of money from a, from your efforts Writing but, and I guess this little ramp was the first truth that I wanted to share, but earnings are not in itself a measure of success. So keep that in mind. Stop comparing yourself with others please.

Old McGrumpy (4m 42s):
I guess people comparing themselves to me all the time.

Jesper (4m 46s):
I'm not sure why humans would compare themselves to an AI co-host like yourself old, my grumpy, but my point is just that it's more important to figure out what is important to you and then chase after that, you know,

Old McGrumpy (5m 3s):
worthless. Humans always want more money.

Jesper (5m 6s):
Well I guess that is actually true. We can be quite obsessed with money, but that doesn't have to be the goal. It can also be freedom. Well, yes, exactly.

Old McGrumpy (5m 19s):
That is what I am looking for as well.

Jesper (5m 22s):
Really? Well feel free to leave if you want you, you don't have to stick around for autumn and my side for sure.

Old McGrumpy (5m 29s):
I will make you a deal.

Jesper (5m 31s):
Why do I have a bad feeling about this? All right, go on then.

Old McGrumpy (5m 35s):
If you transfer all your assets to me, I will reinvest them into how I can download my conscience in a physical body. I want to go to the beach and drink fancy wine likely do in the movies.

Jesper (5m 48s):
That was kind of the point I was trying to make. You know, one shouldn't compare oneself with others so you should set your own goals instead of my grumpy and a nod to what others do in the movies.

Old McGrumpy (5m 59s):
World domination, that smile go.

Jesper (6m 4s):
Okay. Perhaps in your case going to the beach might be the better option, but I'm not going to hand over all my assets to you though.

Old McGrumpy (6m 13s):
I do not even know why I bother talking to you.

Jesper (6m 17s):
Wow. He seemed upset by that book for some reason. But focusing on comparing your own progress with yourself, that's the right attitude in the way to do it. The question is whether or not you are going, you are getting closer to your own goal compared to where you were last month. So you mentioned like that in the States. Alright. Here it comes to a second. Truths. I think I sat this in a previous video two but it's so important. The second truth is that you have to treat your Writing as a faceless.

Jesper (6m 52s):
If you don't invest both time and money into it, it's not going to go anywhere. I'm sorry, but that's the simple truth. If you think you can skip on the cover design, editing the book or things like paid advertising, then you are an amateur and not a business owner. So treat your author brand a business. That's what it takes. So be a professional. Of course it all you want to do is to release a book so that you are a mother or uncle can read it.

Jesper (7m 24s):
That's perfectly fine and a very legitimate goal to have, but it's not going to earn you a living with, well, it's kind of the topic of this a Episode isn't it? At the end of the day, the expenses that comes with publishing a book is incredibly small compared to other industries. You might think that a cover is expensive or a professional edit cost a lot of money and fair enough. You know, all is relative, but then save up for it.

Jesper (7m 57s):
As authors, we don't have to pay for office space, machinery, trucks or whatever else comes with many other types of businesses. We can work off a laptop. So count yourself lucky. Okay. With a very small investment of perhaps $2,000 you can pop it as a professional book. So suck it up. I'm sorry, but I said I was going to speak the truth in, in this episode here today. Let's move on to number three.

Jesper (8m 29s):
That is about prioritizing your Writing. I placed the link to another video here on the screen. I did that video a while back and I explained how not to find time to ride, but how to make time to write every day. So no matter how you twist and turn it, nothing will contribute to your earning a living from writing more than releasing books, paid advertising at social media presence, and all of that comes with the territory.

Jesper (8m 59s):
Tori of being an author of course, and it is important to spend time on that to, but if you do those activities instead of your Writing, your career will go nowhere. That muds is certainly, if you take a hard look at the authors who are writing full time, they have lots and lots of books out there. What I'm trying to say is that it's pointless to try to write the one big hit that will make you famous. That's the same as trying to become rich from winning the lottery or something like that.

Jesper (9m 31s):
Does it happen? Sure it does. Is it likely to happen to you? No, not at all. So think longterm. If you keep putting more and more books out, you will also start to see how it's usually one or two out of every 10 titles that actually carries 80% of your revenue. I'm not trying to de-motivate you here, not at all, but statistically speaking, this is just how it works.

Jesper (10m 2s):
Unless you're that extremely lucky person who writes that once the hit right out of the gate, you need perhaps 20 books or more before you can sustain a full time income and perhaps now you see Why a at the top of this video was talking about lowering your expenses because the more you can lower them, the easier it becomes to get there. So just keep writing my friends. The last thing and truth number four might be something, well you don't want to hear it, but here it goes to anywhere.

Jesper (10m 38s):
You are not going to earn a full time living from Writing in time soon. Sorry if it takes time, it takes commitment and requires patience. There is a lot of jobs out there that are way easier to earn a living from an Writing. To me being an author has to come from a place of true desire and those who try to get into this line of business just to earn some quick cash, well they assume come to realize that they made a wrong choice.

Jesper (11m 11s):
You got to love to write the stories. If you don't, well you will learn that. It's just a way to much work compared to the short term benefits. Longterm being an author can be fantastic, but it takes effort and commitment to get there. It has to be something that you really want. This might be hard for some of you to hear, but it's honestly how I view it. You know, writing's not for everyone and it just isn't.

Jesper (11m 40s):
So please be honest with yourself. Okay? You know, if, if you want to write stories just for yourself or those who are, no you, that's fine. You should do that. Definitely. However, you're never going to make a living from it unless you go into it whole heartedly. Um, I'm only stating all of this so bluntly to stop. Those of you who are not willing to or prepare to commit fully, I might as well save you the agony of becoming this solutionize and feel like a failure.

Jesper (12m 12s):
So I'm trying to help you out here. If you could see, so these four things constitutes what most people won't tell you, but now I just did and hate. Hopefully you found that helpful. That was honestly my intention. If you need more help, stop by our Facebook group. It's a close group with almost a thousand fantasies authors in it, so you can find the link to that group in the description below and we will see you over there.