4 ways that Authors earn good income

When it comes to book writing, many people have asked me: How can I become a full time professional author? How can I invest all my time into book writing and know that this will bring me a decent income? Most people believe that they can’t and that they will never make money with their books, and unfortunately they set up for failure. Well, let me change your mind on this subject.

 

You can make money as an Author, and you can turn your “hobby” into a prosperous full time job. But here is the catch. I said “full time”. You got it? You can’t make money by just investing only 20 minutes or one hour now and then. You need to get serious, and follow strategies so that your book writing will indeed bring you a good steady income, month after month.

I have found that there are 4 most common ways to make money as an author which are:

  1. Sell plenty of books by collecting emailing list from your readers, and informing them about your new publications.
  2. Promote affiliate products and programs through your book, and collect emailing list from your readers so that you keep on promoting them things that they will want to buy.
  3. Collect emailing list, organize webinars, and promote your own Group coaching courses, 1:1 coaching or healing or mentoring, or automated e-courses that you will have created yourself.
  4. For Novelists (and not only), you may turn your book into a script for the movies or theatre, you may create physical items such as mugs & t-shirts, you may create board games, video games, oracle card decks and card deck games and the list goes on. Keep on reading cause in the last section I give you a lot of online resources!

Yes, I know. It needs a lot of work to make it happen, to start and to keep on rolling with it. It does. But what I am suggesting you to do is something that works. It is not a get quick money scam, right?

One more thing: you must have noticed that in all three ways of making money through your own books, there is one common ingredient. You need to set up a system to collect emails from your readers. If you want to find out more about How to set up an auto-responder, which services I recommend, how to create an optin form and where to promote it, check out this other blog post to get step by step instructions. For now, let’s stick to the basics: how you make money through your books.

 #1 -  Sell plenty of books:

When we say sell plenty of books, we mean thousands, if not millions. You can do that, not by just writing one book and expecting it to be viral for the next ten years, but by writing a lot of books and promoting all of them equally, with consistency and determination.

I’ve read a brilliant book by John Locke who has sold more than 1 million books (fiction books) and I strongly recommend it. You can get it from Amazon at http://amzn.to/2jV5n1H

His strategy has been;

  • to create a big following by providing quality blog posts that are promoted through Twitter
  • To collect emails so that he informs his readers for new books
  • To have many books available so that his fans will be able to purchase the one book after the other.
  • To keep the price of the books low so that it will be no brainer for his readers to buy more than one book instantly.

Ok, I get what you think; I know. It is not that easy to sell plenty of books. But as long as you manage to become an Amazon best seller and you rank highly on their lists, then people will find you easily and it won’t be that hard anymore to sell and sell and sell. You only need a boost of your sales, and then things keep on working themselves –almost - alone. (But you need to keep on writing more books, and keep on promoting your new ones so that you push all your books together).

 

 #2 - Promote Affiliate products or programs through Affiliate links:

There are many programs, books, e-courses, as well as online tools that are available and your readers would love to know about and use. And you know about them. You have used them, you have read them, and you have progressed in your business through all those. So, how about you do recommend them and get an affiliate commission as well?

Most tools you are already using have an affiliate policy. Check on the footer a link that says “affiliates” and click. You will be directed to a page that will explain to you what you need to fill in, and how you can receive your commission by recommending their products. It is just that easy.

When you apply as an affiliate, you get a unique link with your own id. In this way, whenever there is a purchase through your own link, the sellers get their money, and you instantly receive the agreed commission on your bank, or PayPal account. It’s just a Piece of Cake.

Here is an online e-course I strongly recommend, which is about affiliate marketing:

Till recently the course was given away for free. I don’t know now if they have raised their fees.

To find, review, and receive affiliate links on programs, books and e-courses, you can also visit the sites below:

A blog post about affiliate marketing will be posted soon, for more information on this subject.

 

 #3 - Promote your own services

Well, you wrote a book, so it is obvious you are an authority on something. If your book is non-fiction, what is it about?

You may promote services such as:

  • Coaching,
  • Mentoring,
  • Healing,
  • Therapy,
  • Web Design,
  • Interior Design,
  • Graphics & Illustration,
  • Consulting,
  • Group Coaching,
  • E-courses,
  • Workbooks,
  • Live Events

…etc.

Of course, this strategy needs a lot more time than promoting affiliate products. It needs effort on creating your own programs, on getting familiar with several technologies, on being exposed publicly and also in creating all your promotional material. But it is worthy, and after you have created your own programs, you can add them on the affiliate sites suggested above and have other bloggers and writers to promote it for you. Cool, right?

 Now, here are some ways to promote your own programs and products:
  • Talk about them in your book. Not just once. Many times, as an additional help that you could provide to your readers.
  • Organize a webinar about 5-10 days after your book launch, invite your readers to opt in so that they get noticed on the webinar and other updates, Do the webinar (invest a little more than 1 hour on your speech, and around 30 minutes for questions and answers) and finally invite them to buy your programs; high end group coaching, 1:1 coaching, or even a free consultation that will lead to a sale.
  • Promote them in your blog, on your sidebars, within your blog posts, everywhere.

     

    #4 - Some words and ideas to the Fiction – Novelists.

    After reading this article, you, the fiction novelist, the storyteller, might think that I left you aside. You might be thinking “I have nothing to teach… I only entertain… what kind of products and programs could I promote?” Well, here are my suggestions for you:

    • Turn your story into script and promote it to local TV, Animation studios, Short film Directors and producers, Film Industry of your country… or even… the Hollywood. – Stay tuned in this blog, because soon there will be an entire article on how to turn your own book into a cinema movie.
    • Do you like theatre? Maybe your story could turn into a brilliant theatre play. Well, theatres do not bring enough money I must admit, and many times, authors, directors and actors pay from their own money to keep on appearing on the stage, but if you want to take a chance, why not? It could at least bring a lot of publicity and it could directly sell a lot more of your books, right?
    • Create items based on your plot and characters. If you are into fantasy, you may illustrate your characters and create an additional album based on your book. You may add your characters on mugs https://www.theprintful.com , t-shirts (https://viralstyle.com) , Any kinds of items. Sell them on etsi.com or www.ebay.com or even on Amazon. You may find affiliates to promote entire packs of your physical products.
    • Do you know RPG (around the table) games? It is a huge industry. You may turn your book into series of RPG games with additional books, DM style books, spreadsheets, etc.
    • Video gamers love interesting plots. You might find video game production companies that would be interested on your book, especially if it is Action, Mystery, Horror or fantasy genre.
    • Create Games, board games are very popular for people who read fantasy, so you could give a try here: https://www.thegamecrafter.com or http://www.printninja.com/printing-products/board-game-printing
    • Create Card Decks, for games, or for oracle readings with your characters, or with quotes from your book. Again, you can pay on demand by using those sites: http://www.makeplayingcards.com - vervante.com (vervante also takes care of shipping the items directly to your customers, a service which is amazingly important)
    • And of course, write more books. More books of the same niche, in such a way that the readers who have loved you will keep on buying your books for more of the same kind and style.

    As a conclusion, I would like to give you some hope: Yes, you can earn a good living as an author. But you need clarity, you need a structure and a strategy to follow, you need to be determined and consistent, and most importantly, you need to set up a proper auto-responder and an effective plan on how to collect emails and how to keep your list active and responsive.

     

    Please, share your ideas on the subject. I really want to hear from you and I will defiantly reply.

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