In Our Romantasy Era

Join me next Saturday, Feb 10th, 4:00 - 5:30 PM ET/2:00 - 3:30 PM MT for a super fun panel: "In Our Romantasy Era" - how and why romantasy stories are resonating with readers and authors today. The event will take place in person at Beastly Books in Santa Fe, NM and online on Instagram live @farofeb and @beastlybooks418. Should be a great conversation!

 

Where's the Money - Alternative Author Income

Girl cat in a sunny spot for tax because this will be a short blog post. 

In order to diversify one's money-making schemes as an author, one must first be making money as an author. 

Making money as an author. Haha. Who told you I make money as an author? Perhaps I did at one time. Currently, the cash comes in the door because I picked up a gig as a technical writer. Boring af but it pays the bills. Other than that, all of my effort goes toward trying to get a book written, edited, and out the door in the fragments of time outside of the day job and the demands of family. 

Plenty of people in the writing world have made fantastic alternate income streams for themselves. I pay for some of the services offered via those streams. But honestly. I'd like to get back in the swing of being an author and maybe being paid a little bit before contemplating other business opportunities. Maybe I lack imagination, but I do feel like I might ought to nail the titular entrepreneurship effort first.

Book Adjacent Income - The Plan

Back in October the Authors Guild released survey results on author income. No survey is perfect, the numbers will always be skewed one way or another, but the main take away I got from this article was that successful authors seem to be tapping into incomes other than only writing books. 

A SFF Seven alumnus, Charissa Weaks, has a lovely Etsy store filled with her bookish merchandise. She does well with these sales and it’s a non-writing creative outlet for her. It’s book adjacent, but it’s not writing income. 

Jeffe shared her various income streams on Sunday. Check out her post. It’s informative. She’s at a place I aspire to be: hybrid with outside writing opportunities. Jeffe has a wonderful podcast you can watch on YouTube, First Cup of Coffee. She shares the realities of being an author and what it really looks like beyond the bonbons. I appreciate her candor as she shares the ups and downs, because as writers we all have the ups and downs, but no body quite gets it like another writer does. And as she has enough subscribers to warrant adding it to her non-writing income list! 

And one thing that both Charissa and Jeffe have: Patreon. If you go back in history, say the middle ages, artists were paid a living wage by the nobles, kings, or the church. Patreon uses this idea and provides a platform for creators to run a subscription service to their subscribers. Think in terms of the cost of a cup of coffee per month. If you have enough patrons chipping in on Patreon in exchange for excerpts, bonus material, newsletters etc. you have another revenue stream. A brilliant option if you have a fan base. 

Etsy, YouTube, and Patreon. Three income options that aren’t book writing and don’t require you to do any public speaking. If standing before a crowd doesn’t make your knees shake then you can add a fourth option to your list. 

For me, I’m keeping tabs on the options and paying attention to what successful authors enjoy and say works. I'm not driving blindly into the dark, there's light at the horizon. Once I have a fan base I’ll try my hand at some writing-adjacent income streams. Do you have plans for future side gigs? 

Book-Related Income: Having a Platform of Monetary Value

 This Week's Topic: How Do I Make Book-Related Income Not from Book Sales?

Uhm.

{sucks on upper lip}

I don't.

As Jeffe mentioned on Sunday, this week's topic is prompted by the 2023 Author's Guild Author Income Survey. The survey defines "other author-related income" as being earned from work that includes: "editing, blogging, teaching, speaking, book coaching, copy writing and journalism."

No one on the SFF Seven gets paid for blogging here nor does the blog generate revenue. Yes, that's the reason you're not inundated by ads and newsletter subscription pop-ups. We freely share our experiences with other authors who might be feeling a little lost or a lot of frustrated--and every emotion in between--because we value our community and can commiserate with the assorted challenges of publishing. Since there is no one way of being an author, our dear readers get up to seven different perspectives on how/why each of us has approached a particular aspect of the craft or business.

Why am I not pursuing the alternate-income avenue? Do I not like money? Pfft. I'm not yet at the stage of having the bona fides to establish a platform of monetary value. For the time being, my attention is focused on writing the books to build a backlist that produces the sales that would allow me to feel as though I have sufficient success and insights of value to prospective students from which I could craft a for-fee class/workshop. I look forward to the day I can do that. No, really. Although I'm an introvert, I love public speaking and have led many workshops in my non-writer lives since I was a yewt.  (Long-time readers of this blog may recall I wanted to be an actor when I grew up. To me, public speaking is acting while educating through engagement.)

One day. Yep. One day a KAKler workshop will be a thing. {evil laugh}

Beyond Book Sales: Other Ways to Earn Income as an Author

 This week at the SFF Seven, we're asking about book-related income that is specifically not from book sales.

There was an asterisk to that, specifying that the question was in relation to the Authors Guild 2023 Income Survey, which I didn't read. (I have Opinions about that survey, which I won't go into.) But I assume the question comes from the survey dividing author income into book-related and not, and the person asking is wondering what the "not" might be. It's a good question because I'm a firm believer that long-term success in this fickle business relies on diversifying income streams. 

I actually have a line on my income spreadsheets that says "Other Writing Income," as opposed to the "Book Sales" line. What kind of income is that?

1. My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/JeffesCloset. This is how I offer mentoring and coaching to other writers. Plus, it's a great little community that's truly supportive and positive in a non-toxic way.
2. Other kinds of coaching. I also offer various kinds of one-on-one mentoring and coaching.
3. Workshops, presentations, and master classes. I love giving talks and I especially love it when they pay me!
4. Articles and similar nonfiction writing. Love getting paid for those, too!
5. YouTube. I have a podcast, First Cup of Coffee with Jeffe Kennedy, with enough subscribers that I earn income from the views. 

Finding Your Voice: How Your Writing Can Change

 

Photo by Jelena Kostic on Unsplash

When I sat down to write this post, I realized I had a lot to say. So hold on to your bootstraps! I am blessed to watch young writers develop their craft because I teach a senior creative writing seminar at my university. This experience has led me to think extensively about what young writers need to learn.

Some of the students have been writing for years: they've shared their work since high school, published poems and stories, and won awards. Others are brand new to sharing their writing with others and honing their craft. It's a lively environment, bubbling with talent and new ideas. And I am grateful to be a part of their journey. As we all evolve as writers, I have learned a few things about the process.

Hone Your Craft

If you haven't seen Pablo Picasso's early work, you need to do this right now: https://mymodernmet.com/picasso-early-work/. You can't skip working on your craft and understanding the fundamentals and technical aspects. 

In my seminar, there are common technical elements the newer writers are still learning: paragraphing, punctuation for quotations, deleting filter words, and moving from telling to showing, for example. Info-dumping, effective first chapters, and deeper pov are elements all of them are still developing. There are any number of craft books to help you work on these skills. Sharing your work with your peers is also a great way to learn from others.

After that essential piece of advice (which includes the important reminder to read, read, read), the biggest piece of wisdom I share with my students is to find your voice.

Easier said than done.

We are all influenced by the many books and stories we're read - and reading a lot is crucial to becoming a great writer. But it's more than imitating or synthesizing the stories we've imbibed. We have to embrace our individual perspective of the world. And we have to let go of the negative voices in our heads and listen to ourselves. 

Embrace your Unique Perspective

Embracing our quirky individuality is a courageous act. Social media and consumer capitalism work on us every day feeding us messages to conform to society's values: watch this tv show, buy this product, do this thing everyone else is doing on TikTok, you are never enough. How do we resist these forces if we can't hide in a hole by ourselves with on wifi?

Turn off your phone and tv. Think about your unique experiences and interests. Consider your learning style and how you interact with the world. Lean into that.

• Are you a cinematic writer who sees landscapes and colours first?
• Are you more of a director who can visualize dialogue and character movements?
• Do you feel everything intensely and write emotion-driven scenes?
• Do you value the pov of the underdog, or the villain, or the racialized characters?
• Do you see some injustices in the world that you'd like to change?
• What are the common themes in your writing?

One of my students was worried that her stories were too violent. But an underlying theme of her writing was telling stories about gender-based oppression from the survivor's point of view (and sometimes the survivors got justice or revenge). We know (cue the MeToo hashtag) that these stories are too often covered up or ignored. By bringing the subject to light, this writer showed us violence for a reason: to affirm the fictional experiences of her heroines. Social media or naysayers might say it's too violent. But tell that to the many, many survivors of gender-based violence and oppression who've been told they're wrong or they need to keep silent. 

This writer's courage to delve into difficult topics helps to challenge social norms and strives to make the world a better place. We need that.

Let Go and Listen

Your inner voice--your connection to the universe--is somewhere inside you. Maybe it's hiding or getting drowned out by all those social media and consumer capitalist messages, things your teachers and family told you, peer criticisms and bullies' words and actions, and all the other stuff that can hold us back and tell us our voice--our craft, our gift, our unique pov, the stuff that makes you an original--isn't good enough. My writer friend calls these the brain gremlins and they can be fierce! They are noisy. They can overpower the little voice inside you and make you doubt it's even there.

So how do we find it and listen to it? We need sensitive artist types to tell their stories and share their values. Empathy and humanity are key beliefs we share and transmit in our work. But we can often feel like they are being targeted and we're living in Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower (oof, I just looked it up and the novel is set in 2024! Please, for the love of the goddess, will someone make it into a tv show! It's the Handmaid's Tale of the moment!)

There are not shortcuts to finding your voice. For me, it's a combination of lots of writing practice, a heap of therapy, and a good helping of my writers' group's support and encouragement. It boils down, in my mind, to believing in yourself and tuning into the experiences, values, and unique perspective you have, then channeling that into your writing. 

The medieval Christian mystics had a practice of self-annihilation, where they tried to rid themselves of all the external noise and devote themselves solely to the will of God. I see writing as a secular or agnostic form of this practice: you need to have faith in yourself and in the creative process, and to do this, you need to let go of all the noise and doubts and gremlins that try and separate you from this faith. Write from your heart, from your soul, and you will never go wrong.

Some of you might be wondering where the writing to market argument fits into this philosophy. I think you still can write to market while being true to yourself. But that is another story from the riverbank...

Change

None of us lives in stasis. We change moment to moment, day to day. Writing does, too. Sometimes for the better. Sometimes not. When my first novel was published, I imagined I'd found the magic and that I'd just freeze in place and keep doing what had worked that first time. As if it were possible. Which, of course, it wasn't. Even if I hadn't changed from one book to the next, the story I was telling did change and demanded something different of me. I struggled with that. Still do some days. 

The first book was action-packed. It had a lot of white space. Description and narrative were spare. Subsequent books have swung too far the other direction for my taste. So I'm working on that. While at the same time working on showing and inviting the reader into the emotional hits and . . . 

Yes, my writing has changed. I'd like to think that what I write and how I write it is an ongoing journey of transformation. I don't know if or when my writing will emerge from its cocoon or what the wing pattern will look like. But in the meantime, I'm going to keep working on change and on painting those wings.

Writing is Like Riding a Bike

The first time you rode a bike you would’ve been a bit wobbly, unsure, and tentative. Or maybe you cruised for a brief second and then crashed. But if you stuck with it and after hours and hours of riding, you could go with the wind in your face and your hands out at your sides. 

Writing is like riding a bike. 

Do one thing over and over, and you’re going to become more efficient at it. You’ll innately find ways that make it easier for you. In short, the more you write, the better you’ll get. 

It may not feel like your writing is changing in the beginning, but give it a few years, look back, and be amazed at how far you’ve come. Sorry this is short this week, but my time is consumed with prepping for a non-profit gala I volunteer with. Like writing, I discovered after a few years of putting together flower center pieces, I’m faster at flower arranging! 

Happy Writing!