← The Art & Business of Writing Podcast with Nicolas Cole
The Art & Business of Writing Podcast with Nicolas Cole
6 Revenue Streams To Become A 6 Figure Fiction Writer
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In my book Writer Career Paths, I talk about how the highest earning writers in the world are all fiction writers. So, J.K. rowling billionaire James Patterson 800 million. John Grisham 500 million. Stephen King 500 million. Agatha Christie 100 million. The only exception that I have found are copywriters who end up building businesses of their own, which I would say makes them more like entrepreneurs than writers. So for example, I have a friend and mentor who is a copywriter turned entrepreneur worth like hundreds of millions of dollars. But in terms of pure writer related career paths, if you want to make the most money you can over the longest time horizon, fiction wins by a mile. The problem is selling books is hard because publishing is a very challenging business model. Books are one off purchases, so there's no subscription revenue. Unlike say a substack paid newsletter. Books are price capped. You're unlikely to be able to charge more than five or ten dollars for an ebook, or more than twenty or thirty bucks for a print book. Even with a collector's edition, you'll probably max out between like $50 and $100. And books are physical goods, so ebooks are digital, which have no marginal cost. But print books have all sorts of marginal costs. You have printing costs, you have warehousing costs, you have shipping costs. So how much money does the average novel make? And is there a difference between self published novels and novels with traditional publishers? The average self published book only sells between 50 and 250 copies over its lifetime. 90% of self published books sell fewer than 100 copies total. And if you think that things get better or easier with a book deal, it is only marginally okay. The average debut author with a book deal sells between 500 and 2,000 copies. So let's be extremely generous and say 2,000 copies times $20 per book, times a 15% royalty, which is above industry standard. I'm being generous. All of that together is $6,000 pre tax. That is not a lot of money. Fiction is what I like to call a lottery game. If you want to make money fast as a writer, you should not write fiction and you should pick a different business model. You should write nonfiction and launch a paid newsletter, start a paid community or sell digital products. Because these business models paired with writing that helps a specific reader solve a specific problem in their life or business will almost always generate more revenue faster than fiction. I know because I've generated over $20 million in revenue writing nonfiction and selling these types of products. But if you want to make the most money, you can as a writer and you're willing to play the long game, you should consider writing fiction because fiction retains its value exponentially longer than nonfiction. The average nonfiction book has a shelf life of like five years or less, whereas the average novel has a shelf life of forever. Fiction also lends itself better to volume. Even the most prolific nonfiction writers can only write so many books on the same topic. But the most prolific fiction writers can write infinite mysteries or infinite fantasy stories or infinite romance thrillers. And the more fiction that you write, the longer each customer's lifetime value or ltv. So the more books in your library means more products for your target reader to buy. So the more fiction you write, every net new reader you attract is a more valuable customer because they won't just buy and read one of your books, they will binge your whole library. But I actually don't think it needs to be either or. Fiction writers would make so much more money if they paired their books with other business models that are more lucrative in the short term. So if you want to become a six figure fiction writer, there are six revenue streams you should consider building for yourself. You can. First, your library of books. And I'd actually recommend writing both fiction and nonfiction. Second, an early reader paid community unlocking subscription revenue and giving readers early access to books in progress before they're published. Third, a paid newsletter, another subscription revenue source where you can either share book excerpts or behind the scenes content or how to resources to help readers who also want to write like you. Fourth, digital products. So monetizing all of your frameworks for how you do what you do. Fifth, affiliate partnerships. This is easy passive revenue, just recommending tools you use or promoting other author's books on Amazon that you've enjoyed. And sixth, live paid workshops giving readers and fans a different level of access to you and your writing. This is how you reduce your reliance and risk on purely selling books and make your writing business more defensible and profitable. Let's walk through each one revenue stream. Number one Write lots of books. If you want to make money as a fiction writer, you have to realize you're playing a volume game. So Freda McFadden, a big name psychological thriller writer with books like the Housemaid turned into a movie starring Sydney Sweeney, has written over 30 novels with over 250 titles on Amazon including different formats. So ebook, audiobook and print books also translated into dozens of languages. Seth Ring, a hugely successful indie LITRPG writer, has written over 50 novels across more than eight major series. And maybe the greatest example of all, James Patterson has written over 100 novels and on Amazon has over 1600 titles listed across different formats and different translations. The point is, volume wins. Very rarely do you see a fiction writer consistently earning six figures or above year after year without volume. J.K. rowling is a complete outlier, the equivalent of like winning the powerball of fiction. But everyone, if you want to have a long lasting career, is expected to write and write a lot. The reason is because fiction readers tend to be super consumers, meaning the average serial fiction reader doesn't just read one one novel per year. Most read a novel per week. Just look at Booktok if you don't believe me. So as an author, you need to be publishing books often enough to keep readers coming back again and again, servicing that demand, but also extending the lifetime value of each reader you attract. Revenue stream number two launch an early reader community early 2026 I went to a fiction writing mastermind held by seven figure indie fiction author Seth Ring and my biggest takeaway for how he consistently drives book sales and reviews at launch is by building an early reader community. So this is a paid subscription. His is 50 bucks per month. That gives readers early access to your book in progress, the ability to make suggestions and be part of the writing experience, and a private community usually hosted on Discord or Slack, where readers can interact with you, the author, as well as other super fans of your fiction. And this early reader community actually does three really valuable things all at once. First, it creates a stream of subscription revenue so beta readers have to stay subscribed in order to receive the ongoing benefits. Second, it creates a private, incentivized group of readers who are 10 times more likely to leave reviews on the day or week of your book's launch. And third, these readers double as editors so they read your story before it gets published and not only leave suggestions and feedback, but help you catch spelling, grammar and consistency mistakes as well. All of these benefits are costs for the average author, but by treating each of these as benefits inside a subscription service you provide your most avid readers, you can actually flip all of these costs into revenue. Revenue Stream Number three Launch a Paid Newsletter Every writer should have a newsletter. The reason is because your newsletter is your engine. When you try and get a book deal, for example, the size of the advance you get is directly correlated to how big your email list is. If you have no email list or a small email list, you should expect a small advance. If you have a big email list, you should expect a larger advance. This is because your email list is the most reliable metric publishers use to anticipate book sales even more than followers. Because social platforms have changed over the years, followers are no longer an accurate metric. You could have a million followers but make a post and only have a thousand people see it. Whereas if you have 1,000 email subscribers with a 70% open rate, that means 700 people will see it. Email is far more valuable than social, and if you decide to self publish, the same is also true. Your email list is the greatest predictor for how many copies you will sell and how many reviews you will attract in the first week of your book's publication. But every writer should also consider building a paid newsletter as well. Paid newsletters are one of the simplest but most lucrative business models for writers. First, it's subscription revenue. You charge 10 or 20 bucks per month for readers to get access to content that they can't get anywhere else. Second, it's a very simple business to run. You don't need to learn any advanced entrepreneurial skills like phone sales or automations or how to hold in person events. All you have to do is write exclusive content and put it behind a paywall. And third, it's a forcing function for you to get paid to build an audience of superfans because readers who subscribe to your paid newsletter are essentially raising their hand saying I love what you do and I'm happy to give you more money in exchange for more content. So if you want to start a paid newsletter, the platforms I'd recommend considering are Substack. This is the easiest one, very simple and free to use. There's no monthly fee, but they do take 10% of your revenue. However, Substack is also a platform in and of itself. So yes, you give up 10%, but substack also brings you readers. So for example, I have a huge paid newsletter on Substack called write with AI does over $300,000 per year in annual recurring revenue. I have no problem paying substack $30,000 per year. So 10% of that because over 55% of all of our subscribers have inside of Substack's network. That's free growth. Second is Patreon. In the fiction world, a lot of writers launch paid memberships on Patreon. For example, this is where my buddy Michael Chatfield, who is a seven figure fiction writer, hosts his membership site. Patreon is like Substack, just with more functionality, but ultimately they achieve the same end goal, which is creating a paid tier of access to exclusive content that unlocks subscription revenue from your most loyal readers. The Third option is school. A paid newsletter is pretty much the same thing as a Patreon membership, which is pretty much the same thing as a school community. They're just different platforms with slightly different functionality, but the end game is the same. It's exclusive content and subscription revenue. In the world of fiction, a good example to look at is Story Hacker AI by my friend Jason Hamilton. Revenue Stream Number four Upsell Readers on Digital Products as a Fiction Writer As a fiction writer, some percentage of readers want to know how you do do what you do and they will happily pay you in exchange for giving them that secret sauce. For example, imagine if James Patterson had a thriller writing course. Actually he does. It's just on masterclass and it's more edutainment than purely actionable education. But imagine if he had a $350 digital product on his website where he showed you 10 outlines from his 10 bestselling novels, a step by step walkthrough of how he goes from idea to outline to written chapter templates you can use to quickly create high qual quality thriller plots yourself and a behind the scenes screen recording of him writing five chapters right in front of you. If you love James Patterson and you wanted to write thriller novels too, what are the chances that you're going to spend 350 bucks to learn directly from him? The answer is very very high. And to put that in context, if the average James Patterson novel is say $10, that means that one digital product sale is worth 350 copies sold. Which is why I tell all writers, both nonfiction and fiction writers, to consider having at least one digital product as an upsell to your readers where you teach them how you do what you do. Because I promise some percentage of people who read your fiction will also want to write fiction too. I have been doing this for years. I have generated over $5 million selling standalone digital products. These are $350 text and video courses. Each focus on different writing related skills. So for example, ship 30 for 30 a 30 day writing program for anyone who wants to start writing online, build an audience and personal brand and dominate a niche of their own including daily assignments, templates and even AI prompts. Self Publishing Studio how to write, publish and market a Nonfiction book in 14 days substack starter Kit how to start a free or paid newsletter on substack Category Newsletter Creator how to build a category defining newsletter and use kit to run your entire digital product business as a writer Low Ticket Launchpad how to create and sell a $350 digital product online LinkedIn AI how to build an audience on LinkedIn and use AI to scale your content and engagement Decision Journaling how to build a daily writing habit and use journaling as a mechanism to make hard decisions in your Life and ghostwriter GPT the 10 AI prompts you need to run your ghostwriting business and I plan to continue building more and more of these cutting edge digital products in the writing world, including fiction Revenue Stream Number five Make Extra Money as an Affiliate One of the easiest revenue streams to add to your monetization stack as a writer is to just be an affiliate for other products and platforms you use and regularly recommend yourself. For example, we host all of our digital products and communities on Skool, so when we talk about Skool we might as well give readers our affiliate code. We run our entire business and all of our email automations using kit. So when we talk about KIT or train writers on how to set up different sequences inside of kit, we might as well give them our affiliate code. Or Our primary company websites are all built and hosted on webflow. So yeah, we educate people on how to set up a website and our primary company websites are all built and hosted on webflow. So when we educate writers on how to set up a website and we recommend they use webflow, we might as well give them our affiliate code. The important thing to note here is that you often talk about the platforms that and products you use without even realizing it. You aren't really promoting them, you're just genuinely telling people what you use and why you like it. And so this work that you're already doing can very easily be turned into a passive revenue stream just by signing up as an affiliate for each product or platform that you regularly talk about. Especially as an author. You should also sign up to be an Amazon affiliate because authors tend to read and talk about books a lot. So every time you talk about or recommend a book in your content and link to it on Amazon, you should use your Amazon affiliate code. It's a very, very easy way to collect some incremental revenue in exchange for doing the work of creating the content and marketing other people's products. By the way, I hear often from writers how they don't want to sign up and become an affiliate because they don't want to be salesy, or they think being an affiliate is deceptive, or they just want to promote other people's stuff for the sake of it. That's fine. I'm just letting you know that you are leaving money on the table and there's Nothing wrong with being an affiliate. There is a reason affiliate marketing is one of the largest marketing industries on the planet. It's very effective because incentives are aligned and revenue stream Number six Monetize your writing with paid workshops the single easiest way to charge more and make more money as a writer is to provide customers with more access to you. And the simplest, easiest way to sell increased access without signing yourself up for hours and hours of obligation is to hold a 1 to many paid workshop on Zoom. So you pick a topic, something you want to show, and teach other people how to do. Take a time constraint. Most paid workshops are between one and three hours. You charge money. I would recommend not less than $20, probably not more than $150. You include bonuses and give away tangible assets like mini digital products, templates, worksheets, et cetera to sweeten the deal of someone signing up. And then you upsell something at the of the end, like another relevant digital product or your paid newsletter or your Patreon or a community or maybe even a book you just published. Paid workshops are amazing because they are paid events that provide one time live access to you. But more importantly, they tell you who on your email list is willing to pay you more money in exchange for more information and or access. Pro TIP this list of people almost always ends up becoming your list of super consumers who buy nearly everything you create. You want to know who those people are? For example, back in 2023 when ChatGPT first came out and we started incorporating AI into our daily writing workflows, we double monetized that skill that we were building by also teaching other people how to do what we were doing. We did it on a live workshop and we made an extra $63,000 in revenue in 72 hours just pitching our email list on a two hour live workshop with us. If you want some insight into how we did this, I recommend watching this video. And something advanced that you can do after holding a paid workshop by the way, is you can unlock other revenue streams like you can sell the recording for a cheaper price. So if the paid workshop live is $99, maybe you sell the recording for $49 afterwards. So you're monetizing the content again. As you run more paid workshops, you can also compile a vault of recordings and that vault can be sold as a bundle. So after you have, you know, five or ten workshops, you could sell that for 300 bucks or you could take that vault and you could add it in as a bonus or an incentive for another thing that you're selling another digital product or another paid workshop. And most importantly, if you have a paid newsletter or run some sort of membership or school community, what you can do is you can give members free access to these paid workshops and then store the recordings behind the paywall. So what's happening is your paid workshops are acting as retention mechanisms for your monthly recurring subscribers. So it doesn't really matter if you sell a new customer or retain an existing customer. Revenue is revenue. There's levels to this strategy, but it's very effective. Most writers struggle because they only have one revenue stream. Your big takeaways here should be as a fiction writer. Your primary business model will always be writing and selling books. That is because the whole point of writing fiction is to participate in the lottery game. Most of what you write won't make very much money, but once a book breaks out, you can achieve an outlier event, but you don't want to be solely reliant upon one revenue stream. Book sales are very volatile and a volatile financial life does not make for a great state of mind, certainly not conducive to creativity. By only writing books, you end up leaving a ton of money on the table. Your readers would love to pay you for more information, more access and or exclusive content, so you should let them. And by building other revenue streams, you don't just make more money, you make yourself more defensible. You become less reliant upon any one individual revenue stream and instead you can build a more well rounded writing business. So stay focused on writing books, but also monetize the attention your books attract with some of these other business models.