Transcript
Joanna Penn (0:00)
Welcome to the Creative Pen Podcast. I'm Joanna Penn, thriller author and creative entrepreneur, bringing you interviews, inspiration and information on writing, craft and creative business. You can find the episode show notes, your free author blueprint and lots more@thecreativepenn.com and that's Pen with a double N. And here's the show. Hello creatives, I'm Johanna Penn and this is episode number 778 of the podcast and it is Friday 25th October 2024. As I record this in today's show, appropriate for spooky season, I'm talking to Serbian author Boris Bacic about writing horror as well as how his success came about in Kindle Unlimited. So that's coming up in the interview section in Writing and Publishing Things New authors often have lots of questions about ISBNs, and the self Publishing Advice blog from the alliance of Independent Authors has just put out a new guide, ISBNs Made Easy. It covers what ISBNS are and why they are important reasons to own your own ISBNs, even if you have to pay, which you do in some countries and not in others, what formats to use them on, where to find them, common pitfalls, as well as a Q and A. So go and read that if you are still unsure of what to do with ISBNs. I seriously get questions every single week on this and I always send people over to self publishingadvice.org written Word Media's 2024 comprehensive author survey is out and definitely have a look at it as it's got so much in and they had quite a lot of authors, over a thousand authors who responded. So I think it's actually very interesting. It's huge. So I can only give you a few insight that I found interesting. When asked about their primary motivation for publishing a book for over 42% of respondents said I want to make money from my book. So let's say that's 43%, essentially rounding it up. 19% indicated I want my story to be told. 16% stated writing is a hobby I enjoy. This is really important. So let's say 43% of respondents said they wanted to make money. And this is about your definition of success. And so many indie author discussions are around running a business and making money. But more than half of these people said that was not their primary motivation. So it's good to know what your motivation is and what your definition of success is, because if you're not aiming to make money, then it's very unlikely that you will make money. And this is reflected in the income breakdown which says 46% of authors earn $100 or less per month from their books, that is not a surprise given that I guess 57% of respondents were not necessarily interested in making money. So I think some people will take this and they'll exit and say, oh, you can't make money self publishing. But the fact is a lot of people don't aim to do that. And I think this is so important. Your mindset around money makes a big difference because it, it helps with the choices you're going to make around your books, around your business. The higher income brackets from $2,500 to over $20,000 a month, accounts for 17% of respondents. And I think that's actually quite high. And I guess the people who would do a written word media survey, people like me, and I'm in that bracket, are people who spend money on marketing. It does say there's a strong correlation between the number of books published and author income. Authors in the highest income brackets are prolific, with those earning over 20,000amonth publishing an average of 61 books. Now this is not like 61 books a year. This is if you have 61 books. So I'm coming up to 50 by 50 has been my goal for years and I am coming up to 50. And so I've been doing this really since 2007, 8. So that's quite a few years. And if you think about, well, if you do two or three a year over years, many years, you're going to get to this number. I mean, I've been doing this for 16 years, I guess. And if you say two or three or three a year for that long, you're going to be over 45 books. So not a surprise if you've got more books. You've been doing this for years, you've spent more time writing, your craft is better and you spent time building your audience, learning more about business. So time in the market and consistency in production is important. And I know it's hard to be patient, but believe me, the years fly by. And what else would you rather be doing? Marketing remains the most challenging aspect of the indie author journey. Not a surprise there. With 78.5% of responders respondents citing it as the hardest part of self publishing. I totally agree. The data shows a clear correlation between low marketing spend and lower income. Again, not a surprise. We are mostly in a pay to play world online on pretty much every platform. And while paid ads are not everything, they do play a part in most authors businesses these days. There's lots more data on genres, spend on cover design and editing, revenue channels, email list, building direct sales, finding communities to support you, and some really good quotes from various authors from the survey. Check it out on written wordmedia.com or links in the show Notes as ever. Also this week, lots of interesting discussion about Taylor Swift's decision to self publish. The Morning Brew says Swift will become the highest profile self published author in the world. The book, which is a commemorative book about the era's tour experience with lots of pictures, will be sold exclusively at Target, which is her partner for many of these things in vinyl releases and things. The part memoir, part coffee table book will cost nearly $40 and include over 500 photos and the superstar's personal reflections from the tour. Swift's venturing into the publishing realm alone exemplifies her business strategy of keeping creative control and maximizing her cut. Which of course those two things are many of the reasons we self publish. So while I love all the discussion on this and people getting very excited, I do think it's awesome. But Taylor Swift is a business powerhouse with a huge number of staff and using the word self publishing in her situation to me is kind of ridiculous. Her very professional company is making and releasing a limited edition book in partnership with Target. So I do love Taylor Swift. I'm not a swifty, but I think she is a phenomenal businesswoman. I don't think this is at all related to being an indie author. So take that, celebrate. But yeah, not really our situation. I'm also reading Seth Godin's new book this is Strategy at the moment. Seth Godin is one of those authors and bloggers I guess I've been following since I started out 20062007 I started reading his stuff and I continue to think that he's a great thinker, not just in marketing but in lots of different areas. And this week he had a blog post and he's been blogging every day for for like I don't know, two decades or something. But he had an article Thoughts on Audiobooks given that he narrated the audiobook of this is Strategy himself and you can find that on your audiobook player, he said in the article. I'm listening more than reading these days and I find that a good audiobook can make a real impact on the way I absorb and learn from a book. It's a once in a century sort of shift in this medium now. I completely agree with that. I often listen to non fiction, particularly on audio and I love jumping into different chapters on Spotify. I think that it is such a good thing with non fiction and particularly this book. Actually this is strategy. It's very much each chapter is quite separate rather than a sort of beginning to end read through. He also says my new book is available in audio. It is not on Audible, at least not now. Audible has exploited their dominant position and the offer they make to authors is unfair and almost untenable. That is a strong statement and Seth Godin said that. That's a direct quote.