Can you make a living writing books? Here’s how.

Question: Can you make a living writing books?

Answer: Yes. Many people do this. But not all authors make a living writing books. And in this article, I will show you how many authors make a living writing books.

Let me clarify something before we get into the meat of this article. Making a living with your writing has different meanings to different authors because we all have different costs of living. So you need to calculate your costs of living and consider whether you can make enough money from your author business to cover your living expenses.

Not many people make a lot of money writing books, yes. But for people who can significantly reduce their cost of living, it is possible to make a living writing books.

How to make a living writing books

1. Write more books

I’m a huge supporter of the ‘write more books and make more money’ business model.

The theory of this model is that by writing and publishing more books strategically and publishing consistently, you will make more money.

The truth is that when you have more books in the market, especially books in series, you can build a valuable fanbase and there are more books for new readers/fans to buy from you and discover you.

When I say publishing books strategically, I mean writing books to market. This means that you need to understand what sells in your genre and why it sells. For example, for a genre like paranormal romance, many readers like to read books in series. Writing multiple single books in such a genre may not be very effective.

I explained writing to market better in this article about ways you can make money writing books on Amazon.

2. Create and sell multiple formats of your books

You can sell one book as an ebook, paperback, hardcover, audiobook, etc. You can also translate your books to other languages and tap into foreign markets or sell licenses or rights to small publishers for the translation of your book. For series, you can create box sets. You can also sell your books in story bundles.

There’s a lot you can do with just one book or a set of books which is why you need to be very careful when signing contracts either with publishers or other companies so you don’t sell profitable book rights for chump change.

3. Try wide distribution

Amazon comprises 60-80% of some authors’ incomes and 100% of some authors’ incomes.

If you understand the very important principle of not putting all your eggs in one basket, you may want to try hard not to be one of those authors whose incomes depend solely on Amazon KDP. Especially if you have more than one or two books published.

Don’t get me wrong, there are many people making a living writing books and publishing only on Amazon, specifically, Kindle Unlimited.

But the truth is that there are risks to not diversifying your income and putting all your eggs in one basket belonging to a big corporation that will do just fine whether you’re on their platform or not.

Here are a few reasons why you might want to consider wide distribution:

1. Amazon can change its algorithms anytime and these changes could affect your income negatively.
2. Your account could suddenly get suspended or banned for whatever reason. (It happens! These videos are proof).

4. Build multiple streams of income

Many authors making a living writing books don’t just rely on book sales, they build multiple streams of income.

There are many other streams of income or side hustles you can build as an author. For example, you can:

1. Create and sell courses
2. Provide consultation and coaching services.
3. Become a freelance writer on Fiverr or Upwork and other freelancing sites.
4. Make money sharing your knowledge by building a profitable blog, podcast, or Youtube channel.
5. Become an author’s assistant or virtual assistant and learn more about the business by working for more established authors.
6. Work as an editor if you have the skills and experience.
7. Become an influencer, creating content for the internet and earning with endorsements and affiliate revenue.
8. Try Paid Speaking gigs.

5. Market your books

Marketing your books opens you up to new audiences and new people who are interested in reading your books.

Before marketing, you can create a marketing plan for your author business. In your marketing plan or strategy, you need to determine whether you have the funds for paid marketing or you have the time for organic marketing.

With organic marketing, you’ll focus heavily on building your author platforms and posting content consistently to get people to make purchases.

With paid marketing, all you have to do is set up ads the right way and then, make money on the excess of the price of each book sold minus the ad cost of each book sale. Paid marketing can be very expensive especially if you don’t know what you’re doing so please tread carefully or just hire someone to set up and manage those ads.

Platforms you can consider for paid advertising include Amazon ads, Facebook ads, Bookbub Features, Bookbub ads, Goodreads ads, etc.

Here’s my advice though, if you want to make a living writing books, you should probably learn how to create ads on your own except you’re already making a lot of money writing books.

6. Build your author platform

Your author platform consists of your website, your email subscriber list, your social media account, and other platforms with which you can connect to other readers.

Building your author platform is part of marketing but you can’t just take it as marketing. It is really your best way to connect with new and existing readers and effectively connect with them.

I will also advise that you focus on building author platforms that are not controlled by anyone other than yourself such as your website or email subscriber list. Anything can happen to external platforms and your social media accounts, for example, my Facebook account was recently disabled so my author page is gone. If I had focused on building on Facebook, that would have utterly devastated me.

7. Hire an agent (if you want to be a traditionally published author)

If you want to write under a traditional publisher or even a reputable small press (not a vanity publisher), you might want to find a trustworthy agent as they can make finding a traditional publisher easier and faster.

Many authors don’t want to hire agents because of the 15% cut into their income but having an agent makes querying easier for you. And agents can also help you in other ways.

And if your book is getting rejected over and over again, just self-publish.

Final Thoughts

Let me give you a tactic that I think will work for you as a writer who wants to make a living writing books. Think of your writing as a business. Does a business start making money as soon as it is launched? No. In fact, many businesses take months or years before they start making a profit.

When you think about making a living writing books this way, it should take off the pressure of ‘should I quit my day job and focus on my writing?’

Now you can either stay in your day job and write part-time until the income from writing a book is enough to cover your living expenses or make a decision to quit your job and do something else part-time while writing a book. Depends on you and your cost of living.

Just make sure that whatever choice you make is not one that will put you out on the streets.