My writing related goals and more! [READ BEFORE COMMENTING]

So, I am thinking and thinking hard about the future before it even happens. Yet I know what I would want to do and I rather share with you all.

Firstly, the thought of publishing has NEVER left my mind. I do think about it in spades, yet I have remind myself to stay focused on the present, which is super difficult thanks to my mental health.

So, I had a crazy thought based on an old thread that I made. I wanted to publish a story outside my norm to gain some cash out of it. While I do that, I will work on my other novels set in Alagossia. I don’t want to do that, but I can’t stop thinking about doing it. Of course I would write it will be under a pen name. I keep pondering on should I go for it. I only get monthly disability income that aren’t even enough to cover self-publishing, even at the cheapest.

Moving on the future goal for Project Succession and other Alagossian novels is to publish, but which route is the thing I can’t stop fixating on. I am wishy-washy on what I want.

I know that I should think about a million things, but I could never do that. My mental health makes that an absolute problem. I figure since I am getting serious about writing fiction, with thoughts of publishing in the back of my mind, I try to nake a little goal for myself.

Anyway, I am just thinking aloud. I try to stay in the present, that shit is hard, yet I try. Still, without therapy and guidance, I am truly on my own and it is extremely tough.

I am overall goal is to keep writing and dishing out more stories set in Alagossia, then later decide to publish which one I would like to see published.

Also, I am wondering if I could publish a series of small stories set in Alagossia first, if those stories do well enough that I make some money off of it, then I will publish Alagossian novels. Like a teaser of what is to come, yet is that possible these days. I barely hear about such a process.

Thoughts and feelings?

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@Akje
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Not looking for advice, unless you got plenty to give. If you don’t, I just wanted to share with you.

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Bump.

Can’t offer advice except what you already know: all the self-published authors out there generally support themselves by making writing advice videos for YouTube, so Google pays them while they focus on writing. I have no idea how much they make, but evidently it’s enough for them to quit their day jobs, since quite a few of them have made videos about quitting their jobs to make videos full time.

They also create free websites on Wix, SquareSpace, etc. for advertising their work and building an audience. Some, like Shaelin Bishop, submit a lot of short stories to online magazines to generate interest and become familiar to the readers. There’s also Wattpad, Kindle Vella, Royal Road, etc. You could post a different work on each site instead of the same stories on each site, so people will start looking for your work and get interested in the universe you’re creating.

I’m afraid it all takes a lot of time and energy–for instance, to build up a YouTube audience you’d have to upload a new video like every single day for a while so that the algorithm picks you up and starts helping you. Algorithms like frequent activity, especially when you’re unknown.

But don’t despair! You’ll get there in time. You might also consider submitting essays to places like LitHub, The Rumpus, BookRiot, Electric Lit, etc. A lot of readers like me check out those sites daily for new stuff.

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YouTube pays you based on the amount of subscribers you have. So, if you have WAY over a thousand subscribers, then you can make serious money from YouTube. Paid sponsorship always helps with that too, sponsors pay for them to use their products. The YouTube algorithm helps get them noticed faster too.

I’d rather NOT do YouTube if I can help it.

The stories I write won’t work for Wattpad, Kindle Vella it might, and I heard so many negative things about Royal Road that I don’t want to use it. It is a male-centric site, even with a few females. I can’t risk that.

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Essays? Like creative essays?

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Is going with YouTube the only way? I would use Kindle Vella, but my story isn’t in the final drafting stage. I got time before I shared that with others, but it is not polished nor to my liking
yet.

So, what am I to do now?

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I’d start by googling for information on how to build an author platform. There might be some good videos on it too. Then I’d make a list of things you could do that wouldn’t make you miserable, like if you hate Twitter, TikTok, etc. then I’d cross those off the list and only do the things that sound like fun. Growing your audience shouldn’t be painful, right? ( ˆ◡ˆ)Û¶ Ù©(˘◡˘ )

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So, they say? :sweat_smile:

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A liiiittle bit incorrect, other than specific contracts brokered by YouTube themselves. You START getting paid at 1k - you do not get paid below this (there’s a new program which I think starts at 500, but I haven’t looked into it). You get paid based on views, mostly - which is why so many people do “clickbaity” things (I know the titling methods people use gets slated a lot, but when it’s your income, do you really want to be mild and get no views, in turn no payout?). There are tools to help you out with YouTube, I use TubeBuddy and VidIQ together (premium TubeBuddy, free VidIQ)

But, this is a moot point as you mentioned not wanting to do YT anyway. That’s totally fine! YouTube (like books) is a business venture that takes a lot of time commitment. I’d argue it’s one of the easier ways to get noticed at the minute though (along with TikTok) given the nature of social media. I am restarting all of my social media accounts and I would say Instagram is gonna be the worst for me to start on in 2024.

You can build your brand however you see fit! I think a big issue that authors run into is not realising that self-publishing is a business. When you launch any business, you need to do prep work - figure out your audience and where they hang out so as you can reach them! For a lot of us, this involves a fully-involved social media presence. This might seem like a lot of work, but I promise, it isn’t. :slight_smile: You can use schedulers to make social media easy.

When it comes to Vella, you might need to rethink your strategy. Instead of finishing a project and then starting to post, finish a chapter.

I will, however, rock the boat a bit here and say that even with no marketing/business-side-of-things, you can make money. Not a ton, but you can. I have several books out still making me money even though the penname no longer exists and the first book in the series is no longer available - no marketing has been done on those titles, and yet I still get royalties every month.

I have ADHD so I struggle with things that seem like huge tasks, so I’d suggest you break it down. Firstly, figure out what you want to do. Vella? Shorter stories? Once you’ve done that, you can settle into figuring out YOUR business. You can start it as simple as “I’d like to have a website where I post a blog each week”. Figure out your audience and what they like, and how you can get them to read.

This is much, much easier with a backlog of published work - but you can do it! I believe in you. :slight_smile:

Just to add, I do some little, bite-sized posts for authors on my blog. I will link, but to mods feel free to remove the link! Here is my blog about 3 quick ways to market your book - it might help spur a few ideas?

Aaaaaaand my last bit of advice is to find a friend or two that share your goals. These can be people you already know, or someone new from a Discord server or forum. It can be helpful having someone you can talk to and bounce ideas off of :slight_smile:

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I am on the first draft of Project Succession, it is unedited and needs serious changes. Are you saying that posting it, chapter by chapter as it is is fine? I should at least edit the story, and make proper changes, even get help for the story. It feels weird doing it that way, especially since it’s not polished enough. Is it really alright to do that?

But my thing is, did you publish your story chapter by chapter, with little edits or none at all? I can do little edits and make some grammatical changes, I just want to focus on the pacing, execution, foreshadowing, character development, plot development, and more WITHIN those little edits. The story now is not ready, not even close. Yet I would love to put it on Kindle Vella. Just wondering if each chapter need serious editing and I would have to fork cash, which is hard since I have disability check coming monthly, I can’t get carried away because, a slip up will have me lose it all and the royalties might not be enough to live off of. I also see that because I am getting paid, the story needs to be good enough for people to even want to touch it.

I am willing to give Kindle Vella a shot, just wondering if that is fine.

It’s a slippery slope and I hate it, greatly!

@Akje: What are your thoughts?

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If only I could be one of them
 :stuck_out_tongue: But you can’t make money from ads until you reach 500 subs.

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Do you know of Kindle Vella or no?

Definitely possible. Why not? Especially if you’re considering self-pub, you can do anything you want. The problem is, you’ll have to do social media. This day and age, there’s no way around it.

I recently heard about Author PAs (personal assistants) which would help you with all the marketing stuff and website building and creating mailing lists and such so you can focus on your writing. Idk how much they are though. I’ve only come across two author PAs on IG and didn’t really look into the prices assuming them to be expensive.

But if they’re not so expensive and worth it, then you don’t have to worry about dealing with social media because they’ll supposedly do it for you.

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I am still wondering about Kindle Vella. I am still on the first draft of Project Succession and I would think that having the story fully polished, then completed more feasible.

I don’t even know.

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Maybe this will help
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https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G3DJY2Z5WSX5U6WL

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So, its alright to go and edit when you need to? I still feel like a little editing beforehand helps too.

I am just paranoid I suppose.

Are there scheduled deadlines? Can I set dates for myself? Do I have to set date or not at all?

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No, finish the chapter to publishable quality. You can go back and edit, but don’t just upload something that’s not finished yet. Make sure it’s edited :smiley:

No, I published full novel length works. All of which were “edited” in my method (written and then rewritten). This was just to say that you can absolutely just slap some books out there and they’ll make you some pocket change provided they have a good cover and blurb! :slight_smile:

It will need editing, but you should learn the art of self-editing. Whilst it might not always be perfect, it’s better than nothing, and can catch a lot of errors that might have popped up in the writing process.

I would hesitate to say that you probably won’t earn enough to live off of, at least not for a little while. Writing is a long-game unless you hit it big with something viral. However - big however - the sooner you start, the more progress you can make on that goal! The more content you have out, the bigger your brand, the more you can make.

A big thing I always remind myself is that there is no mistake so large it cannot be fixed. Trial and error is your friend. :slight_smile: You’ll never learn unless you put yourself out there :smiley:

Nope, no schedules from the 'Zon. You will, however, need to have your own schedule (i.e every Friday, twice a week
) in order to please readers. Like all other content-based businesses (YouTube, Twitch, anything else), this helps readers to get excited and start waiting for your releases. The quicker the better in most cases which is why rapid release schedules for longer works are so great.

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So, I would have to give each chapter heavy edits and take notes. Would doing that right now make sense?

Kindle Vella allows you to post the full story? I thought KDP does that?

I honestly prefer Kindle Vella for now.

I know, I just need to be careful in a way because my disability income is from the government and I can’t go close to or over $2000, then I lose it. Though that might happen regardless if the goal is to make money.

Thanks for this.

Me and deadlines are a worst match made in hell.

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Yep! If I were you, I would go through it chapter by chapter, as each is done, post/schedule.

Apologies for any confusion, but Vella isn’t in the UK - I’ve never published on Vella, I’m just in a lot of spaces for it because of my work (cover designer) :sweat_smile: I publish through Draft2Digital and KDP.

Do a chunk of it, schedule it, forget it. That’s probably the easiest way for you! :smiley:

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