Writing For A Living
A Look Inside Modern Publishing
by
Toby Neighbors
Writing For A Living
© 2016, Toby Neighbors
Published by Mythic Adventure Publishing, LLC
Idaho, USA
All Rights Reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any print or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Copy Editing by Alexandra Mandzak
Books By Toby Neighbors
Avondale Series
Avondale
Draggah
Balestone
Arcanius
Avondale V
Five Kingdoms Series
Wizard Rising
Magic Awakening
Hidden Fire
Fierce Loyalty
Crying Havoc
Evil Tide
Wizard Falling
Chaos Descending
Into Chaos
Lorik Trilogy
Lorik
Lorik the Defender
Lorik the Protector
Other Novels
Third Prince
Royal Destiny
The Other Side
The New World
Zompocalypse
Short Stories
Dark Origin
Dedication
To my fellow writers,
May you have the success you dream of.
And to Camille, my first dream come true,
My partner in all the dreams to come.
Introduction
There are lots of books on the market today for writers. It seems that as publishing gets easier, writers are becoming increasingly surrounded by people and businesses created solely to profit from our desire to be successful. It can be hard to know what resources we can trust and which we should avoid.
This book is for people who want to be full-time professional writers; more specifically, it’s for people who want to have a career writing books. It isn’t about getting rich quickly, or making money writing blogs or articles. It isn't for journalists or magazine writers. Those are great and wonderful ways to make a living as a writer, but this book is focused on helping people who want to write books. I've written over 22 full-length novels, and before I was able to solely write my own works, I made a living ghost writing books for other people. I've written business books, diet books, self-help books, and even financial books.
I meet people all the time who want to know how I make a living writing books. With publishing now more accessible than it ever has been, that dream of being a successful writer is closer to us than ever before. The barriers are gone, the tools are accessible, and our ability to make this dream a reality is closer than most people realize. But most of the aspiring writers I meet want someone to show them how to find an audience, to express in ways that they can understand exactly how to make a living as a writer. And while our publishing options can be easily laid out, unfortunately there is no formula that will guarantee you will sell books. There is no secret to becoming a successful writer, no one proven way that works for everybody. And writing is certainly not a get-rich-quick scheme. This book is intended to help people who are willing to work hard at their craft, whose desire to write is almost a compulsion. This book is meant to help people understand the world of writing, and publishing, so that they can find the success that they are looking for through diligent effort. My goal is to help you avoid the pitfalls along the way, the busywork and the distractions that keep you from being able to find the success you're looking for with your writing.
I'll be outlining the path that I took, and talking about what I have found to work, not only in my own career, but for the other writers that I know and spend time with. While I am a strong believer in independent publishing, I will also talk about traditional publishing. I do not believe that one way is better than the other way, because each can lead a writer toward completely different goals. It is important for writers to know and understand the difference, so they can pursue what is truly important to them.
So let's jump right in and discover what it takes to become a successful writer. I'll start with my own story, then help you define what success as a writer means to you. We'll talk about the writing process and what it takes to create a finished book. We'll talk about publishing options and how to get your books into readers’ hands. We will also explore marketing, branding, and the publishing industry, so that you have a well-rounded understanding of exactly what it means to be a writer in today's world.
Thanks so much for picking up this book; it is my earnest desire to help you grow as a writer. I believe in giving back and helping those around us. The best way I can do that is to help you find success, however you define it, with your writing. I honestly believe anyone can be a writer, so let's get started.
Chapter 1
My Story
I have always loved to read. I can remember as a child loving book fairs at my school, and my mother taking me to the library to pick out books. The mall in my hometown had two bookstores, Walden Books and B. Dalton Bookseller. No shopping trip was complete until I had a chance to browse the narrow aisles searching for a great book to buy.
I thought it was the greatest thing ever to get lost in the story, but as a child and even through my teenage years, I never imagined writing books because I didn't enjoy writing at school. Writing assignments were difficult, I was not a good speller, and certainly didn't have good penmanship. No one ever encouraged me to write, and the idea of writing a full-length book terrified me. I can remember thinking how amazing it would be to be an author, but I never believed that I could ever accomplish that goal. So, like a lot of childhood’s whimsical fantasies, I turned away from the entire idea of writing until I got to college.
At Arkansas Tech University I was allowed a wide choice of classes within my fine arts major. One of the electives I was naturally drawn to was a creative writing class, an introductory-level course taught by one of the most dreaded professors in the English department: Dr. Michael Karl Ritchie. I can remember being absolutely terrified of him, but I wanted to take the class anyway.
Our first assignment was to write a short story of fewer than 2,000 words. I remember Dr. Ritchie called it “sudden fiction,” and I found that to be exciting. Of course I was nervous, but sitting down at a computer and struggling to type my story, I discovered for the first time that writing could be fun! The words seemed to come from nowhere as I stared at the screen. They surged up and bubbled out of me almost as if I were hearing the story spoken into my head and all I had to do was write it down.
We turned in our stories, at least those of us who managed to actually complete the assignment. Dr. Ritchie made copies for everyone and we went home with a new assignment to read our classmates’ stories and come back ready to talk about them. The stories didn't have our names on them, so no one knew which story was mine, but I was still anxious. When Dr. Ritchie held mine up as the first story for us to discuss, I felt my face flush with embarrassment and fear. I was petrified that he would say it was horrible or point out all the things I had done wrong. But, to my surprise, he talked about everything that was right about my story. I couldn't believe it, and for the first time in my life I started to imagine that I could actually do something that I never dreamed was possible. In that moment a dream was born in me to become a writer. That story was of course the last time Dr. Ritchie ever praised any of my work. I was still very much a people pleaser in that stage of my life and spent most of my assignments trying to emulate the very things that my professors said they admired
in stories they loved, rather than being true to myself—a key to being successful in any endeavor.
Writing wasn't my major, and I wasn’t ready to chase my dream completely at that point. So after getting my degree I moved on to the next phase of life and joined the workforce. I was married at that point and trying to be responsible, which didn't leave much time for writing. Still, the dream of being a writer was never far from my mind.
The next major step along my path to becoming a writer was attending my first writers’ conference. I really think that the advice I got at that conference set me back at least a decade. I should have known that the keynote speaker was jaded, probably by the struggles of his own career, but with all the enthusiasm of youth I believed that only good things were in store for me. It's not unusual for published authors speaking at conferences to emphasize how difficult writing for a living can be. Getting published really is one of the most difficult things a person can aspire to. Finding a way to be traditionally published has always been difficult, but in those days the traditional route was the only one available.
The main lesson that stuck with me from that first conference was that you should never write what you want to write. Instead, if you want to be published you needed to write what is selling, or popular at the time. I hope you can hear the cynicism in my voice as I write those words. We were actually taught to hang out in book stores and study best seller lists so that we would know what type of books to write. And while it is true that some genres sell better than others, simply writing something you are not passionate about will only kill your dreams and destroy what you love about writing in the first place.
Naturally I spent the next 10 years trying to write a novel that I had absolutely no passion for. I knew what I wanted to write; I wanted stories with adventure, stories that make people feel for the hero and long to help those who are in danger. I wanted to write about characters that discover who they truly are and I wanted them to do so in a fantastic setting that would sweep people away from the real world. So for years I started and stopped, and started and stopped, trying to write novels that I did not care about. It took many years of this trial and error, but I finally decided to write something I wanted to write. I didn’t care about being published, I just wanted to see if I could actually write a novel. I wanted to write a book, a complete story from beginning to end. And that's what I did.
My first book was Third Prince, and I wrote it in a fevered, ecstatic rush. Once I started, it just came pouring out of me. It all began with a concept, a strange situation my hero found himself in. That single idea grew into a full story. I wrote the outline on a discarded envelope while my wife bought groceries for our family. The writing process wasn’t simple, and it took me a while to complete it, but I loved every single minute of it. Finishing my manuscript was the most amazing feeling in the entire world.
I knew exactly what to do once I finally completed my first book from my experience at the writers’ conference. So with my full-length manuscript saved on multiple floppy disks, I went to the bookstore and picked up a copy of Writer’s Market. I read about the process of getting published before I even left the store and was almost immediately more depressed than I have ever been.
Still, getting the book that I had written published was my dream. So I began the arduous task of finding a literary agent. Suffice it to say, that process was, in my opinion, backwards and antiquated. But who was I to have an opinion, just a man with a dream of becoming a writer. I was like the proverbial child standing outside the candy store, staring through the large front window with a little drool on my chin. At that time the Kindle had not been invented and self publishing was called vanity publishing. It was disheartening to realize that the publishing companies had all the power and I had none. So I did what I could and read as much about publishing as possible, all while trying to be present with my family and hold down a full-time job. I battled almost constant frustration, but through it all I kept writing.
In 2010 I lost my job, and with the support of my wife we decided that I should pursue my dream of writing for a living. My books had no traction at the time, so I did the next best thing: I wrote books for other people. The world of freelance writing is incredibly competitive, but in the end I found success specializing in ghost writing book-length manuscripts for busy professionals. To say I was making a living is laughable. We spent our savings, my retirement, and more just trying to make ends meet. It was an incredibly difficult time and I wanted to give up a thousand times, find a real job, and just relieve the stress a little bit, but I stuck to my guns. All the while, my dream of writing my own books full time was growing almost daily.
All along my wife and I had long conversations about what it meant to be traditionally published. Amazon’s self-publishing platform, Kindle Direct Publishing, was growing by leaps and bounds, as were other independent publishing options. I was reading blogs by successful indie published writers like J.A. Konrath and Bob Mayer. What my freelance writing had taught me was the value of owning my work. My clients were mostly busy professionals who wanted to own the rights to my work completely. They provided the idea or outline for the books they wanted me to write, then put their name on the finished manuscript with no mention of me. I was fine with that, but it certainly got me thinking about my own books.
I soon realized that I wanted complete control of my stories. Of course I needed editing and feedback, but traditional publishing is in essence selling ownership of the story to someone else. The publisher would then have the right to change whatever they wanted, including the title. They could put whatever cover they wanted onto the book, they could cut out entire sections if they chose to, and worse still, if they decided to stop marketing the book it could languish in the forgotten realm of “out of print” forever. I would have no rights to my own story and that seemed wrong to me.
My first book had garnered no interest with literary agents, so I decided to dip my toe into the waters of self publishing. In August of 2010, I split my first novel in two, had the manuscript edited, worked through the process of creating covers with my incredibly talented wife, and uploaded them both to Smashwords, which published the books in Barnes & Noble’s Nook store and Apple’s iBook store. I had to upload the books to Amazon on my own, but I was learning the ropes of a new industry and taking my dreams into my own hands. There was something magical about taking steps to make my dreams a reality, even if it meant taking a route I had never considered before. It was an empowering process, but unfortunately the books didn’t sell. I knew nothing about how to market them and essentially used the books to promote my freelance writing website.
With my second book I sought the traditional publishing route again. Wizard Rising was the first book in an epic fantasy series and started with the idea of a young wizard who accidentally discovers his powers. Once finished with the book, I submitted it to agents and began the waiting process all over again. After a few months the manuscript was set aside and I tried a different tack. Young adult books were hot, so I wrote one. The Other Side is the story of a boy who dies and is enlisted in a spiritual war which impacts the physical world. The hook that I hoped would set the book apart was a focus on strategy. My hero, even though just a young boy, was an inventive strategist who uses his passion for chess to maneuver his forces to victory. I had plans for more books like the first, but once again the book didn’t garner interest in the traditional publishing world, so I decided to give self publishing another try.
In July of 2011, I released The Other Side on Amazon. This time I tried a new strategy of my own, pricing the book more like traditionally published books in the hope that it would appear to be a professionally published book and not just something I put together on my own. Needless to say, the book was purchased by a few of my family and friends, but once again failed to find an audience.
Around this time I read the book How I Sold 1 Million eBooks In 5 Months by John Locke. The books, the blogs, even the articles on self publish
ing all stressed the point that success was directly tied to having a full catalog of books available for readers. So I decided I would go all in with self publishing.
In December of 2011 I took the principles I learned from Locke, Konrath, Mayer, and other successful indie publishers and put them to use, only this time I published my book exclusively with Amazon. I set the sale price for Wizard Rising at just .99¢, told everyone I knew about the book, and then waited to see what would happen.
I wish I could say that lightning struck and I woke up with a million copies sold, but I didn’t win the publishing lottery. Instead, my wife and I watched anxiously as a few books sold turned into a few more. Each day we checked my sales on the Amazon web page and day after day we were thrilled to see more books sold than the day before. Don’t get me wrong, Wizard Rising wasn’t a runaway hit, but rather a good book that slowly found an audience. That December it sold 77 copies, more than all my other books combined, ever. In January, it sold 2,244 copies. Even more importantly, my other books began to sell as well. That month I sold 2,918 books earning a whopping $1,576. That sum wasn’t enough to pay all the bills, but after two years of scraping by as a freelance writer, I was over the moon.
That was the beginning of my career, which led me to do something I had never done before: write a sequel. Wizard Rising continued to sell well over the next three months while I wrote Magic Awakening. Then in May we took the next step toward living our dreams and moved to North Idaho. I was finally able to write my own books full time. Over the next four years I sold over a quarter of a million ebooks and have been named a Kindle Select All Star three times for ranking in the top 100 of total monthly sales on Amazon’s Select programs. I’ve learned what works for me and how to maintain sales. I’ve learned who my readers are and what they want. But most importantly, I’ve had the time of my life doing what I always dreamed of doing. Now I have the privilege of sharing what I’ve learned with you.
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