I'm retiring in a couple of months, and I have a lot of plans to improve both my writing speed and my marketing acumen.
At the end of December and beginning of January, people in a Facebook group called 20BooksTo50K that focuses on marketing, etc. had people posting their results. Now, looking at these, it's easy to be depressed.
I've chosen to be inspired instead.
What about you?
Cool you are retiring soon!
ReplyDeleteGod bless those authors.
Yeah. Someone's figured it out, right? lol
DeleteWow. Um, I'll be back. Gotta write and cry and think about marketing. Cheers to your retirement!!
ReplyDeleteMarketing... So difficult. Enjoy retirement!
ReplyDeleteMarketing is the worst! It's an ever-changing shadow on the wall we're trying to grasp.
DeleteHow awesome that you are retiring! Yes, this is not the time to be depressed. Just be excited for having more time to write and market the way you enjoy.
ReplyDeleteNot sure I'll ever enjoy marketing, but I'd like to get better at it.
DeleteI remember one of our blogging friends who earned half a million by publishing two dozens of her books within a year, methinks! Quantity before quality obviously :)
ReplyDeleteThat is always the worry when writing a lot of books. Of course, she might have written them in advance and then did the fast release. That's kind of a thing now, the fast releases.
DeleteI hope those folks shared their marketing secrets!
ReplyDeleteChoosing to be inspired is the way to go, though it's not always easy. I got a rejection on a manuscript that was depressing--essentially, it wasn't good enough--yet I looked at it as "if it WAS good enough, it'd get published, so GET good enough." It's all in how we look at it.
Some of the challenges with traditional publishing is that it's not always an issue of your book not being good enough but not fitting what publishers are buying at the moment--or that they've recently purchased a similar book and don't have room on their schedules. But it never, ever hurts to improve our craft--and we do that by writing, right? :D
DeleteTime, persistence, and hard work. That's what I see reflected in those numbers. Granted, they are overwhelming if you're looking to compare, but who needs that? We're all in a different place with a different set of challenges. Life isn't about comparing. It's about doing to best we can with what we have.
ReplyDeleteAnd the time to dedicate to writing and marketing. lol
DeleteI love this: "marketing is an ever-changing shadow on the wall we're trying to grasp." So true! I recently read a dozen or so books on writing, but I fear that when the day comes that I can use the info, it won't be current, and ... I'll need to read what's working at that time? More books? Sheesh.
ReplyDeleteIt would be nice to know who those writers are that you mentioned above, and what their genre is. Or is it that they've written a popular series?
That's an eye-popping amount of $$
Oops. I meant to say I'd read a dozen books on MARKETING.
ReplyDeleteGot to be inspired by those figures because if we take it negatively we'll never get there, too. This just proves it's possible. :D
ReplyDeletelol damn, that sure makes one's peasantries seem even less so. But it goes to show that it can be done and persistence pays off. Maybe I'll have to save a bunch up and release 50 in a year haha
ReplyDeleteI would say don't let what you read on FB depress you. All of what a writer says doesn't have to be true. However, it there income has increased to such highs, I would congratulate them and jump on the bandwagon and get my marketing done.
ReplyDeleteAll the best.
Shalom aleichem,
Pat G @ EverythingMustChange
I'm a cynic; glass half empty, lol.
ReplyDeleteGood luck :)
The sheer thought of marketing terrifies me. You're a brave woman, Donna. As for numbers... they don't tell everything, now do they? ;-)
ReplyDelete