The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 56 – Six Revenue Streams for Authors

Writing a book is fantastic!

But did you know that there are ways of leveraging your skills as a writer and the time you've put into creating a book to create more revenue streams?

In this episode, Autumn and Jesper go over the pros and stumbling blocks to six additional revenue streams that writers can utilize to expand their author careers and grow their success.

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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).

Narrator (2s): You're listening to the amwritingfantasy podcast. In today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need a literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing join to best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them. Now onto the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt. Hello, I'm Jesper and I'm Autumn.

This is episode 56 of the amwritingfantasy podcast and quite often the advice to authors is that you should be

Jesper (44s): diversifying your revenue streams and that might sound like good businesses wise, but what does it actually mean and what other revenue streams is available to you. So that's what we're going to cover today. I think this is going to be quite interesting. Autumn yeah, I think we're going to get into the nitty gritty, which I love. I love questioning these, these overarching rules that you're here and you're like, that sounds great.

Autumn (1m 8s): I want to do that. How do I do that? I then we're going to get into the what you could possibly do. Yay. Yeah. Uh, we have a few options. Should we call it prepared each of us. So we'll get into that a bit later here. That's right. So I had this thing where I came home today and I had to share with you that, um, I know you don't eat meat and so this is not going to be attractive to you, but I walked into the apartment and it smelled like maple glazed bacon as like woo.

And so other people who do eat meat are going to be like, Oh my God, this is not the way to come home to record a podcast and you're hit in the face with this warm aroma of bacon. It's just wrong. But, um, Adam likes to, my husband likes to am where are we? We're foodies, so we like to make food and he recently got into am finding out that you can make your own bacon. So, um, is, is WIC with made with local locally grown meat locally growing hogs?

Am so it was all the local produced with a maple espresso glaze. Um, yeah, that was, let me try that. Yeah, he's done it like once or twice before, but it's always been out. You know, he'll do it over a fire or a roast or a smoker or something to finish it off. But since we're an apartment now and it's now December and it snowed, we had 30 inches of snow and it's a little cold. I think the high on Thursday this week is 18 degrees Fahrenheit.

So that's really, it's below freezing. Um, you know, he decided to try it in our, our apartment, which happens to have a range. So it's, yeah, it's not quite the same, but at least it is fire. It's not electric stove. Um, and yeah, I came home to the luscious aroma of bacon and I've told you before, one of my favorite podcasts is gastropod, which is all about food. And so I was like, wow, this is my focus today is going to be on bacon.

Sorry. Nice. Well,

Jesper (3m 23s): I mean if he's, he's used to cooking outside, so I guess you can't blame him too much. He doesn't

Autumn (3m 28s): stand what, what inside inside kitchen look works, how it works. I guess I should just be happy. He didn't decide to roast coffee cause he has done that. He wrote his own coffee beans and that is one of the smokiest processes I have ever stumbled across. And that is not something you want to do in an apartment unless you want the fire alarm to go off. So just anyone else at home do that outside. So how, how's your week going?

Jesper (3m 59s): Quite good. Um, early in the week we, uh, uh, we went with my oldest son because he was gonna graduate to a yellow belt in karate, uh, this past week. Okay.

Autumn (4m 11s): So how, yeah, so we went there to, to see it and um,

Jesper (4m 17s): I'm not quite sure why, but we actually weren't allowed to. What's the actual year? I don't know if you call a test, but you know, the actual graduation or you know, they did test that. They notice stuff that they need to know and we went actually not allowed to watch that. So we just have to sit outside in the common room waiting while they are doing, I don't know why we were not allowed to watch it, but there was a bit weird, you know, we were looking forward to go down and see it and we brought his younger brothers, well we sat out there for an hour or something and the younger brother was starting to get really bored.

Autumn (4m 48s): Hi Beth.

Jesper (4m 51s): But uh, but it all went, it went well in the end. Uh, so, uh, apparently during his testing, um, they figured out that he was too skilled for the yellow billed, so they actually allowed him to skip the yellow and go straight to orange. So

Autumn (5m 7s): that was pretty much, that's actually really cool. So it went well even if it's a secret right, that you couldn't witness. Exactly.

Jesper (5m 16s): Yeah. And he was very proud of course. And uh, it was, it was really nice to see him see him that happy. So, so that was, I think that was awesome.

Autumn (5m 25s): Oh, it sounded like I said, I live vicariously through you as a parent. So I think that is just, that would be, it makes me feel warm and fuzzy. Just imagining like, Oh my gosh, this is something I produced that is doing so well. I don't know how that happened, so that's fantastic. You need to allow your doctor to start karate training or something. Um, as I'd like to joke, I have got to record him sometime to share with everyone the sound my dog makes because as the breeder had said, when had her first litter of carne terrier puppies, are they supposed to sound this way?

They sound sort of like, I call him a vampire dog and they don't grow. They don't bark. They, it's, it's just kind of seeding. I'm going to possibly eat. You in suck your blood, so I've got to get that for you someday.

Jesper (6m 13s): Oh yeah, that would be pretty cool. We can put it into an audio book one day about with a vampire Kip that in every time. Great. Oh, we go on the internet with the amwritingfantasy podcast so I was thinking it worth mentioning that the sum of our patrons are probably coming up on getting access to the what's in a name cost for free.

That's right. Yeah. Because after six months of support on Patrion, you actually get free access to this course, which is a in part about creating languages and names for your fantasy characters. So I think that will probably be some patron supporters who are getting close to, to get that access for free. So, you know, don't, don't forget the patron supporters to keep an eye on that and email us when your time is up so that we can, uh, get you into that course for free.

And it's a useful Yana. But I was just about to say that I would also think that some of them might not be too far off for getting a free amwritingfantasy t-shirt as well.

Autumn (7m 26s): I think so I've been, yeah, that's, yeah, that's the one year, isn't it? And there's a few people who have been there, so yeah, yeah, yeah, that'd be, yeah. It's, we have so many different, you know, people subscribe to different tiers and coming at different times that that's why we ask them to keep track. But they are there. So yeah, this is a great reminder to go in and check and see what day you joined and check your tier level and let us know if we owe you something because that's why that's there. We're excited to give it to you and if you happen to send a picture, if you get a tee shirt, we'd be thrilled.

That's fun to see people wearing am. Yeah, I love seeing people

Jesper (8m 4s): right before when we were recording a YouTube videos, I usually a tee shirt as well. But uh, nowadays on a podcast, I don't think quite it matters. I'm in pajamas. Really makes no difference.

Autumn (8m 21s): No. Considering how late it is for you. I mean it's only a mid-afternoon for me on the East coast of the States, but for you all the way over there in Denmark. Yeah, it's am evening. So you could be wearing our pajamas and slippers and I wouldn't know.

Jesper (8m 34s): No. Yeah, it's nine in the evening right now for me. So, uh, yeah. Um, yeah, but I also wanted to mention just that for everyone else who are not yet supporting us on Patrion, I would encourage, encourage you to at least click the link in the show notes and check out all the rewards that we are offering for supporters because you know, as for as little as a dollar a month you can get in there. And I have to say that the money we can collect from patron is what will keep this podcast going long term.

And we are certainly not there yet at this point in time actually justifies the time that we're spending on these episodes. So if you add just $1 a month to the pot will then we won't end up in a situation where at some point in the future autumn and I have to start asking ourselves if our time is better spent on writing. So I'll get off my soapbox there, but it's just that, you know, $1 might not sound like much, but it actually does make a difference if enough, if, if enough people, so yeah, that's, that's worth mentioning.

Autumn (9m 42s): Absolutely. And it's funny that you mentioned it because one of the comments I had really liked that had just come in is because I still sharing on Patrion, um, going really in depth into the seven stages of story structure and really pulling out like which one each one means and how to make it all link up to you can create a better plot. And am I know Zaid was like, you know, this is gold. Thank you. And the entire first act of my book is going to need a rewrite even though I'm like, no, wait until you're done writing before you, you do that.

But, um, you know, we got into the cause and effect and the idea of this mini story that should help serve as an introduction. So it's just, it's great to be able to help someone else out and then also to get the feedback and be able to, you know, answer questions specifically to make sure things are going for well for how he's writing and what he needs. So again, that's all on, on. So it was really, it's so great to be able to connect with, um, you know, other members and other writers that way and help each other and guide them.

So I know their stories are growing well too.

Jesper (10m 57s): All right. I feel like we raced through that. Uh, so, uh, we already have to, today's a topic now, um, with multiple streams of income. And, uh, I guess the best place to start is just defining a bit about what does it mean when we're talking about multiple streams of income and on, why are we talking about that? But do you want to kick us off with that? I'll just throw it on me. I thought that was the easiest.

Autumn (11m 29s): I don't never knew you to Slack on anything. I'm shocked. So, but I will take up the challenge. It's a multiple streams of income. I mean this is not having multiple books. Technically. Maybe if you have different genres you might want to consider it. But this is like, it's almost like having different jobs. So you have books and you also maybe have your day job and then you have maybe spouse's job, you have different areas, like big spheres of areas that provides some sort of income, some money.

So that way if suddenly all ebook sales dried up, you still have your own income or you know, you still, you're selling cross stitching or something, something totally related or unrelated, you know, you could be doing literary cross-stitch. So those are ways of providing income to your family, into your business, whatever that may be. So that's all we're going to look at today. When we say multiple streams of income, you have different pots that you're going to be getting money into. And so there are different, they might overlap in some areas, but it's not as easy as saying, you know, I writing nonfiction and fantasy it's, you know, there's still books, so we want to look at side maybe the realm, the pot of books.

Yeah. And, uh,

Jesper (12m 45s): basically the idea is sort of, um, well one thing that is not very pleasant to think about is that basically like having a day job, right? So you have one company paying you income or your salary in the case if a day job and something happens and they have light, they lay off hundreds of people and you're one of them and all of a sudden you have no income. I mean, as some author you're selling books. And of course I re very, very much doubt that Amazon is ever going to go bust.

But uh, but they could decide on, in Amazon that way, why are we paying authors a am this much royalty. Let's just say that from now on, we pay authors 50% royalty. And if you are earning all of your money from Amazon or doesn't matter, it could also be Cobra or whatever, one of the other, what is it called? Like online retailers. Um, then you're going to take it very serious hit, you know, and if you're not prepared for that, then that will hurt just as much as it hurts getting laid off from a day job.

But usually when you get laid off for a day job, and I do realize that probably here in or wind Denmark, we have a bit a bit better protection systems in place in the U S but at least over here, if you get laid off, you will, you'll get several months of pay, uh, to make sure that you have some time to find a new job. But if Amazon tomorrow and they could decide to cut your royalties in half, they will just do so when there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. So the idea would, multiple streams of income is not two, it's really not to find out, okay, so how can I earn as much as from selling books on something else?

But it's more an idea of creating a lot of small streams that together gives you a, you know, a lot of revenue flowing in from different places that in total, uh, earns you enough money. Um, but it's not that you have to come up with one thing. So that's not what we're talking about here. Trying to find one stream of income that will earn you as much money as selling books. That's not the point, but it's more like trying to what are some smaller avenues here and dad, you could potentially think about adding to your, to the things that you are doing two and a bit more money from different places.

So about the in in total between all of the things that you're doing, you get a healthy income and you are less dependent on one source. So, so that's the idea behind all of the stuff that we're going to talk about here. I hope that wasn't absolutely,

Autumn (15m 17s): no, no, that was perfect and it was a good, yeah, good intro to why you want to do this. Because you know, you, we don't control Amazon. We don't control these big sellers. You could, they could cut revenue they could kick you off if they consider that you violated something. So there are many reasons that you know, it's why you and I are both. Um, we're not just on KDP select but not just selling on Amazon. We are both wide because again, it's spreading out how you can find us and what happens if suddenly Kobo folded, you know, Barnes and Nobles has become so close to closing its doors.

It could happen. And with that happens, how's that going to affect where you sell your books if you were just selling them there? It's something to keep in mind. And this will hopefully, if you are considering becoming a career author or you're working towards that, this is something you want to do, you want to establish different income streams so that if something happens in one area, you know, hopefully the other one will be doing well enough. You also have some savings. You ha you have a safety net and you're not going to lose everything overnight. If suddenly, you know, Barnes and Nobles holds its doors, Amazon's decides to cut everybody to 50% or 30% of keeps it really small and something you're like making a third or a half of what you did the day before or

Jesper (16m 37s): it could happen. Yeah. Yeah. And I would say, I mean, we're not making up these scenarios here just to scare people because honestly it has happened several times. And I think if I look at the sort of the bus within the author community, it's starting to happen more and more because, uh, especially Amazon have put more and more like say automation and algorithms and bots in, in place to actually trigger for fraud basically. Right? So they're trying to determine automatically if certain accounts are basically cheating the customers, meaning and so decide samples, uh, people uploading am crappy book files just to earn some money or whatever, you know, all those sorts of things to, but I've heard more and more that, uh, should we call them quote unquote real authors have, are getting hit by these spots and, and basically having the account and spend it on Amazon and stuff like that.

Uh, and they have done nothing wrong in farther motor races. Of course. Uh, once a human starts in intervening and they get somebody from Amazon support to look at it, their accounts are, but again, Justin would take months. Yeah, yeah. Well usually it goes quite quickly to be honest. But but just imagine that the human being on the other end decides that. No, actually I think the is correct. And you are, I mean, you're, you're done. And if this is you and Ty income, what are you going to do then?

Yeah, I don't want to see people, but I just want to put it in perspective that we're just, we're not making up, you know, scary examples for the fun of it here. It actually does happen. No, it does. And that's what that is why it is scary. And that's why as a business you have to consider all the different income streams. So yeah, we'll stop trying to shake people into a terror. So before we make them forget to even listen to the rest of the episode, let's give them examples and you want to do what we did last time that we had some good feedback that we alternate.

Um, yeah, that's a good habit. Let's keep doing that. Okay. Do you want to start with the biggest one or shall we start with the smallest and work our way up? Uh, I don't have mine in a particular order, speak and small. I just have three different options. So for me it does not matter. Okay. Let's go ahead and just pick one. You go ahead. Okay. Um, so I think if some authors might be thinking about doing things like a, you know, professional speaking, coaching programs, stuff like that.

And that is a very good way to supplement your income because, uh, well at least after a while you might get a thought after as a am or asked for as a professional speaker. And if that's the case, then you cannot earn quite a healthy income from doing that. Um, but if that is something that you would like to do, it might very well be worth your time to write a nonfiction book on the topic that you want to teach. So basically using, using a nonfiction book as your starting point to get actually get into professional speaking or teaching or whatever it may be that you want to do because a nonfiction book cement your expertise, uh, and it goes a long way to earn you some credits about what you're talking about.

Because it's a bit funny because a while back, and now this is quite a while back, I wrote a book on how to use Twitter. And, uh, it was quite a lot of people who pick up that book really liked it and it has some really good strategies in it. And it was in part what I use to build quite a big Twitter following that, that I still have today of course. But, uh, uh, and at that point in time, I actually did a, this was many years back by the way, but I did reach out to some local, you know, local but in Denmark.

Everything is very relative. But I did reach out to some dangerous, uh, publishers and basically use the book as a starting point and then basically asked them, so if you, if you want to have some costs or do you authors that you're working with on how to use Twitter to, to build an audience, then you know, I can do a cost for you or come up to speak for you and, or whatnot. So I tried to do that, uh, as a kicking off, a bit of a additional revenue stream back then.

Uh, it was, I think it was even before autumn and I started working together. But, uh, as lo and behold, and this is probably lessons learned, don't, don't, don't do stuff on, on the basis of online because they change all the time. And I think I didn't, it didn't even take six month after I published the book before Twitter changed their terms of service, which meant that the entire strategy that was like the bedrock of that entire book went out the window.

So it was just so annoying. But, uh, yeah, I learned my lesson there and not to, don't write things about other people's platform that, that might change any day. Um, so, but anyway, that was a good lesson. And uh, the idea still holds true if, if, but try to pick something that you have maybe an expertise in already that's probably best, but also something that, um, that you can teach regardless of, uh, yeah, somebody changing the terms of service.

Autumn (22m 11s): Exactly. So more like if you're an awesome crime writer, of course, I don't know why you're listening to our podcast on fantasy writing if you're a crime writer, but say you're an awesome crime fiction writer and you're just really good at creating really fantastic dubious villains that no one would ever guess. And you wrote a book about how you do that. That would be, and then you could go, maybe there's a lot of great crime writers conventions and workshops and there's a lot you could do there that you would be invited to go speak to, or you could sign up to go and speak at and give talks on.

So that's sort of, you know, it doesn't have to be just because like how to use a platform, but if you're really good, if you created some innovative way of doing something, that's also a good starting point. It doesn't just have to be the writing style, but yeah. So it could be anything from how to write something to how to do something on a platform. Just be careful. It's a platform that doesn't completely change everything. Yeah. Every few months. Yeah,

Jesper (23m 10s): I heard on another podcast, there was this guy who, uh, he, I don't remember, I think he was actively writing thrillers or something, but, but that's beside the point. But, but he used to be a police officer, so he actually wrote some nonfiction books about how police procedures works. Uh, and then he was teaching other writers about, um, uh, how to, you know, make the whole police procedures in books. Uh, come, come across as, as realistic and not do all the mistakes, but it doesn't have to be about books either.

You know, the, the nonfiction maybe, maybe you write fantasy in your spare time and an end, the daytime time you are real estate 18 or something and maybe you can write a nonfiction book about something related to real estate. She has something and then that's what you want to teach and earn some, some extra income, uh, as a, as an extra stream of income on other site. For for doing that. I mean it does not have to be referred to writing at all. It's, but you could look at what, what are you good at and consider if that's something you could maybe make a bit of a side income on in one way or another.

Autumn (24m 16s): That's, yeah, that's very true. I like that one. And definitely something to think about it and thinking of some of the things I do and I'm like, yeah, I have some nonfiction books on, Hey, I'm coming out with one on our traveling across the United States. So that's typically a secondary stream there. You do cover the science as well, which is also like a another stream of income, right? So yeah. Yeah, absolutely right. It's so much fun. All right, so my number one is sort of funny because it's sort of takes away the problem on if Amazon decided to cut your revenue and that's doing direct ebook and signed paperback sales from your website.

So this is something that you either need to have a little bit of expertise to set up to be able to create the website. It'd be able to take money like through PayPal or Stripe and get all that interaction set up. But I will say that if you use WordPress and even Squarespace have some really easy, uh, plugins and platforms to be able to do online sales, you have to have your own domain. You can't be using wordpress.org the one that's free if you're using that, they will not allow you to sell and do stuff like that on your website.

But if you're, if you own your own domain and when you get it set up this way, it is 100% possible to go ahead and sell directly to your readers signed paperbacks, which obviously you're going to charge a little bit more than you'd buy it off of Amazon for and you can do ebook sales and the brilliant, brilliant, brilliant thing. This sounds so complicated. But book funnel, I hate to give the secret away. Book funnel has made an interaction integration with a couple of funding sources where if you happen to be already a member of book funnel to send out your art copy or to get people to join your mailing list, they're already set up to be the source file for when people buy your ebook.

And you just need to do these integrations that the first time you do it you go like, Oh my gosh, I do not know what I'm doing. But once you figure it out or you hire someone to figure it out for you, you can sell books. And that's just, not only is it exciting because you get 100% of the proceeds, a hundred percent royalties, which is just awesome. And then you can send that to your newsletter and explain why they're doing this. And most readers are savvy enough to say, Oh my gosh, this is wonderful. I will go there and buy the file and give you, you know, 100% of the, so when you're talking about a three 99 or four 99 book, that's fantastic.

That's, that's wonderful that you're getting 100% of the royalties and then you can do some really cool things. Like the last time I released a book, I released it early on my website to kind of entice people to go there and buy it off of from me. Or, you know, I can offer a sale that I'm still getting better percentage than Amazon, but it's still a slight discount. So there's lots of really cool things when you suddenly own the platform where you're selling your books from. So you might be able to tell, I'm kind of excited about this one because I've had a ton of fun and it's been very successful and it's still growing.

So it's a fantastic way of managing where you're selling your book so that you don't have to worry about what Amazon does. Obviously most people are still finding my books on Amazon or through other sources like that, but once they find me and join my mailing list, my newsletter, and some of them spontaneously see that you can buy the books right off my website. It's a fantastic way of getting a secondary income that I control a hundred percent of.

And it's not as painful as some people might imagine to start off with.

Jesper (27m 58s): No. But I think there was a key word in there that is really, really important among what you said. And that is the email list. Because selling your books direct, I would, I would say, at least from my point of view, it's more or less pointless and useless unless you have a good email is because just, just because you put your books up on your website with a purchase link on nobody's gonna, nobody's gonna find it. Especially because, no, they can Amazon.

Yeah. Because at least on Amazon, they might be searching for search terms like a, I don't know, whatever fantasy book or whatever, you know, and, and, and if you have the right keywords in your metadata or if you are buying a keyword ads on Amazon or something, you might pop up and they might find you like that, but on your own website, they will never, ever find you. I mean, did, the only way it's, it's, it's working. If you have an audience already and you have them on an email list and you can tell them, Hey, go here and buy the book.

Uh, if, if you want to support me because then, uh, I'm the, uh, you know, I don't, uh, I don't have to give a cut to Amazon. So in that way, and I think most, most readers would love to support you in that way. So they will love to do that. But it requires that you have an audience already. Otherwise it's pointless. I would say.

Autumn (29m 21s): Yeah, it's not going to be a huge seller unless you already have people finding you and signing up and people you can tell about and however that, however you've managed that, whether you have a massive Wattpad following and they'll, they're hungrily waiting for your book and they will happily buy it from you directly or you know, the mailing list and newsletter is definitely the easiest way of letting people know you can go straight to your website. But definitely you have to have some things set up. Like I said, you need a domain, you need to know how to do this. Book funnel is really one of the best ways of, of handling the ebook file.

And so yeah, there's, if you've got questions, you don't put them in the comments, but I found it really an exciting way of interacting and talking to readers and getting their support, which is fantastic.

Jesper (30m 7s): Yep. Okay. So my next one is, uh, well it's essentially like another product that you can put on the market without actually having to do any work. So that's a good starting point, isn't it? Great starting point. I want to do the one. Yeah. Uh, and it's basically putting your, the books in your series together in one file and then released a massive box set. So of course you could then say, well that's not really another stream of income. You're just putting together existing products and creating a new product out of it.

And that is correct. But actually quite often it's a different audience who reads box sets versus those who reach individual eBooks? I don't know. Do you re box sets? Autumn

Autumn (30m 51s): I tend to read individual eBooks, but I agree with you all the statistics and the research has said that this is a completely different audience than people who goes and buys the individual books. So I think that's kind of interesting. And yeah, bundles are a fantastic way of dealing with books.

Jesper (31m 10s): Yeah. Because I, and I think I'm one of these people myself because I hate reading boxes. It's, I don't, I just don't like them, you know, because, uh, there are so many pages in that file. And then when my, I look at, you know, at the bottom of the Kindle screen, you have this percentage of how much you've completed as it just like we read for two hours and removed 1%. It's like, Oh my God, I'm never going to get through it. You know? I like it when it's like a normal level and you read now and it moved two or 3%. It's like, okay, I'm making progress.

I don't know, it just, it bugs me. But then of course there are other people who will love the box sets and they buy box it. So it's just makes the point, right? It's two different audiences. Um, and, uh, and this is just another way where you can urge them, earn some extra income from products that you already created by just putting together, I'll put them together in a different way. Um, but I would say if you want to release a box set, please don't do it right after you release the final book in your series.

You know, because often, often box sets will have to be cheaper than buying the books individually. Uh, and it's, it's just not very cool if you like have people buy the last book of your series and then two weeks later you release a box set, which is 40% less than the entire series if you buy them one by one as much as the one a

Autumn (32m 32s): book. Yeah. I just, just one book or bundle of books. Yeah, no, I agree. You've got to watch your pricing there that I've, I've seen box sets for like 99 cents and yet the individual books or three 99 and that's just like really? Yeah. So normally I would say

Jesper (32m 49s): like six to 12 months before you release a box set after the final book in the series as has been gone out. And then you can then you can safely release a box, set a and not worry about the pricing because at that point your readers will have bought the books that they want to buy and enough time has passed that they won't be bucked about it. So, uh, maybe just place a reminder for yourself like six to 12 months later to, uh, to make sure to create a box set out out of your series. And then yeah, that's a good alternative income that requires

Autumn (33m 20s): absolutely nothing, almost almost method, just formatting and maybe a different covers so it stands apart. Slightly agree. Alright, well mine sort of along those lines. And another great source of income is actually turning your completed book into an audio book. So this is, the audio books are coming more and more popular, just like podcasts because you know, people have a lot more time to listen than they do to sit down and read and concentrate.

Of course, I still prefer written books because I just have a visual. I don't quite take an information the same one, I only hear it, but that doesn't mean audio books aren't fantastic for most other folks. So I think they're great. And I mean, I have most of my books in audio and it's, it can be so much. It's so exciting to actually hear your own books spoken by someone who actually knows what they're doing with their voice and create a very exciting, um, telling of what you've written.

So it's not something that isn't necessarily difficult. There are platforms, we've talked about them previously about how to do them. Um, but it can also, it's not necessarily free. That best way to do this is to have the money to invest so that you pay the narrator directly. But that can be quite a bit of money. I mean, a good narrator can be up words of $300 per finished hour. There can be other ones who are a lot cheaper, like 50% or $50.

But you know, you can be paying quite a lot to have your book narrated. And there's some good online conversions. I can tell you how many thousand words makes a finished hour of production. So you can kind of get out of budget and figure that out. And I won't say that this is going to net you, you know, a ton of money. I, from my experience and talking to a lot of other authors who are doing audio books, if your book is not selling fantastically as a written book, it's not necessarily going to pre a breakout hit and audio books.

So do consider that when you're figuring out, you know, how much to pay our narrator and there are some options where you can do royalty shares. So if you really just want to get your feet, um, that is a good way of doing it. And I would also say it really helps that if you have a series, you want to go ahead and line up like the whole series with the same narrator. Wait until you know you're getting your audio books when you have all the books in your series written. So you know they have an incentive to listen to all the books. I know I've had comments when I released my first audio book and they're like, Oh, it's great.

I love it. I just so disappointed to think that the, the other two books will never be done. Like it takes time to do this, you know, but there is that idea that a lot of authors are getting their feet wet, dabbling in it to see if they like audio books, um, and never are going to complete the series. So go and try to get it all. It's the same as producing and launching books, same idea, same technique. A series is better launching them back to back. All that stuff holds true, but it is definitely another means and it's a whole different, again, a whole just like bundles.

It's a whole different genre of people who are going to listen to your stories instead of read your stories. So yeah, consider that niche.

Jesper (36m 44s): Fully agree. It's, it's a, it's again one of those things where it's a different audience. Um, but I would also say that unless you have some sales on new eBooks already, especially if you're going for the role to share option, that part becomes a bit difficult because I think in the earlier days, it, at least from this is here, right? So I, I have not, I'm not talking from personal experience here in full transparency, but based on hearsay, I think in the earlier days, like years back, it was not that difficult to get oil narrators to do royalty shares on ACX.

But now they are getting really picky about what they want to narrate. If it's on a royalty share, most of them prefer to get paid upfront. Uh, so of course we'll have a lot of sales on your books already then they will probably agree on a royalty to share. But unless you can show to them that, Hey, this book is selling really well, uh, then most likely I think at least those who knows what they're doing, the good ones, they will turn you down. Our wanting. She, so I would honestly not spend too much time on trying to find one and hundred down.

Uh, unless you have good sales on, on the book already. Or if you can pay up front, then that's a good option and then you can go ahead and do that. But, uh, yeah, and, and even, even then, I would probably still say that unless you, unless the book is selling fairly well, you might never earn back the money you're spending on your book because it's, it's still relatively expensive. Uh, maybe in three, four, five years maybe there will be options where you can get robots to read it and in a voice where you actually cannot hear the difference from humans.

I mean, I would not be surprised if that happens in the next five years or something. But until the production cost comes down, you do need to really consider if, I mean the, the audio book market is growing like crazy, so that's a good thing. But just making the jump, just because the market grows like crazy might not be the best of ideas if you're never gonna earn, earn back the money. So maybe the next one I can pick up on that is about affiliate marketing.

Uh, and basically this means that you are taking some time out to sell someone else's product in exchange for money. So as an example, um, autumn and I only opened the doors for our premium writing course twice a year. And, uh, when we do, we are often offering an affiliate program. And I think if I remember correctly, last time we offered a affiliate marketers $100 for each seat that they sold in the course.

So there are also opportunities to sell products like this, so you know, other products from other vendors. Um, so you can get a special affiliate link from the company who created that product. So imagine that you are using am some sort of product yourself and then you, um, wanting to promote that product for whatever reason. Uh, you can then go and reach out to that company and say, Hey, I would like to promote your product.

Uh, and they will set up, if they do offer phileo phileo services, of course, they will set you up for the affiliate link that basically tracks everybody who then purchased a product through your personal affiliate link, eh, that Nick gets tracked and you get paid a commission. Just like I mentioned that am autumn and I did last time when we had our writing costs, uh, offered and we also paid affiliate commission to people who helped selling the, the cost. So affiliate marketing does take some time, I would say.

So you need to be mindful that you have to spend time promoting and get the, you know, getting the word out there about the product that you're trying to sell. But it can be a nice way to supplement your income if you want, especially as I said, if it's a product that you already using them, that that's a good option for you. So, uh, and one of my favorite uses of affiliate marketing is actually if you do have a website with your books, be an affiliate for your own books. And yeah.

Yeah. It seems so subtle, but, um, you know, if you're going to direct people to Amazon from your website, it's, you should be getting at least something back. It kind of adds up, you know, ups or royalty just a smidge. So it's definitely worth doing a signing up, even if it's just for that. Yeah. Yeah. So you can set up an affiliate account with Amazon. It's quite easy. It takes no time and then generate affiliate links for, for your own books. Uh, but the key is the, like what autumn just said that the key is that you need to place those affiliate on your own website.

So if you're a fresh sample are running Facebook ads or something. Technically, I've never, I've never heard Amazon cracking down on this, but technically you are not allowed to use an Amazon affiliate link in a Facebook ad because it has to come from your own website. So the same thing with newsletters. Um, you know, with your newsletter, it's technically not supposed to be an affiliate link though. I do know some author to do, do that. But it's supposed to only be from your own website. Not from even your newsletters.

Yeah, yeah, that's true. So yeah, so that's some, that's another option for you to earn some extra money. Uh, so it's essentially if you have products you already using a like those products, that's, that's a good option. Or if you have, you know, your, maybe you don't use the product but you know the company and you feel comfortable, you know, vouching for that company. So why not try to earn a bit of income from that? Um, you probably want to look at the, how much are they paying you to do the field sales?

Because as I said, it requires some time. So if you're earning like close to nothing, we'd sail then that's not my, that might not be where you want to spend your time. But but for example, like, like autumn and I offered $100 last time for everybody who saw this, even now cost that, you know, if you sell just 10 seats, that's, that's 1000 bucks right there. Right. So that's quite good. Of course, again, it takes a bit of effort and time to, to make those 10 sales, but it's, it's something that is possible. And uh, of course, if, if that is something you're interested in in terms of becoming an affiliate for our courses, then just join the amwritingfantasy Facebook group.

So if you search for amwritingfantasy in the group section on Facebook, you will find us and when, and if we decide to offer more affiliate bounties in the future, we'll post it in that group. So when it becomes relevant, certainly that's an option for you.

Autumn (43m 31s): That's a good one. And we love the help and we treat our affiliates well. And so I get the last one and it's sort of playing off what we've been talking about before, if what you're happened to be really, really, really good at is newsletters, getting people organized, getting a lot of readers active in your newsletter, and you start getting a newsletter that's getting into 2030, 50,000 readers. You can actually start selling spots instead of just like looking for newsletter swaps with other authors.

You can say, Hey, I have 50,000 readers that they love fantasy and for five or $10, you know, I will feature your book. It's almost like what BookBub is doing but just at a little bit of a lesser level. And there are some folks who are making some money off of their ability to organize readers and get the different genres together and be able to sell books. And if that happens to be something you're good at, you can sell that to other authors really easily. Cause we're all for that, aren't we?

Jesper (44m 34s): Yep. Absolutely. So I think in general we could say that, you know, S authors, you all as an author, you're running a business and it's just smart business move to diversify your income because it just makes you less vulnerable for any future instances where something might happen that you didn't account for. So, so that's the smart way of doing it. It is. And I mean we, there's things we didn't talk about. You and I had mentioned that, you know, we could mention, you know, selling your international rights, things like that.

I mean, there's a whole bunch of other avenues that are out there. So once you start looking around for ways of diversifying your income, you'll be surprised at maybe what you can come up with and what you had thought of and what other people are doing. Yup. So next Monday, if all goes well, at least I'll have a great guest on to talk about writing compelling heroes and villains.

Narrator (45m 31s): If you like what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support the amwritingfantasy podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join Autumn and Jesper on patreon.com/amwritingfantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep the amwritingfantasy podcast going safe out there and see you next Monday.