Welcome back to Austen Promises and the Writer’s Journal!
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*NOTE: My patrons actually got this post two weeks ago, since I scheduled it here and never hit the publish button. ~sigh~ I apologize from the bottom of my heart!!
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This past Thursday, I borrowed my brother’s truck (Wickham’s brakes are grinding) and drove to Pittsburgh to meet some other writers and have lunch. There were around 40 of us, all of varying levels of experience and income. The guys who organized and ran it are SciFi indie authors who make six and seven figures a year. There were authors there with just one book out, or who had only been publishing a few months. There were folks in that room who still had a day job but who dream about making writing be that day job someday. They were all friendly and respectful of each other and there to network and learn.
I loved being with this group of people. They are different from my RWA group, which I also love; the focus of this particular roomful of writers is marketing. The goal of each and every one is to live the dream of being a successful, full-time indie author. We have our models in the three gentlemen I mentioned before.
We all introduced ourselves, spoke of the genre we write in and other things. When my turn came, I spoke about how one should not buy a house and move at the same time one is diving into full-time writing, and how adopting two dogs at once is another big no-no. I shared how I basically spent a year writing stuff no one wanted to read, and then the success I had with my last book and how I attribute it to the cover and blurb. It was great to get kudos from my peers for doing the hard work to bring myself out of a pit and up near the top of the mountain. 🙂
What did I learn from this? Mainly, to just keep working hard. Keep writing. When I can afford it, hire a professional editor and cover designer. Put out the best possible product I can and do it consistently. This does not mean I need to write a dozen books a year. It’s possible to make a very good living on four books a year. But, you have to be consistent. Readers will forget you if you go too long between releases.
Oh, I did learn something else, and that was, if I ever write another series, to write three or four of the books and release them every three weeks or so, one after the other. And, keep writing the next books as you go.
I came away from that event feeling very good, like I had a good grasp of what I needed to do to be very successful. It all depends on me, and how hard I work. And, now I know that I have some wonderful people, one who even lives 30 minutes or so away, who share my goal. That’s just awesome! 🙂
Come back next Wednesday for another peek into my journal! <3
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