A Money Making Idea Gone….

I swear I get it.  I really do understand this.  We writers want to make money, especially a lot of money.  It is very hard when you write a lot of– what you believe to be– great quality writing, and then… you get a money making idea and…

Nothing.  ZERO.

It doesn’t sound very pretty that way.  I am certain that we all think our writing is great, we all think our work is good.  Of course, there are days when we pay lip service to the whole concept of editing, or marketing, or anything else.

What I found interesting was the comments made by a friend of mine.  Now, she is not a writer, in fact she loves reading, but would never– in a million years– (to use that cliche) consider herself a writer.  It is in her mind hard enough to send the Christmas cards let alone write for money.

Her view was that deep down writers want to beat the average.  You know, make money where others do not.  They want to make money, and they want to do it on a far more regular basis than most people would like, or care, to admit.  it is like writing a blog post, a good one is good, but a great one can last a long time.

So, a good money making idea gone bad… her thoughts were this, someone decides to self-publish but, use a vanity press, so this way they can “lay low.”   After all, you should be able to make money with this book, and say you decide to spend for the highest package.

So for this example I went to AuthorHouse, and the highest package is 2,000 dollars.  There is one key thing which you need to be prepared for: There is no editing.  You spend zero dollars on editing with this package.  No matter which way you go, that is a lot of money.

Now, I checked and the most basic editing is .029 cents per word with a 5,000 word minimum.  That is on top of the package.  I’ve not even added content editing, which I think is a must.  So, would this be a money making idea?  Going with AuthorHouse, and sending that sort of money.

Probably not, as many have said, you are not going to make that money back– and if you do, it’s not going to happen fast.  We writers have a bit of an ego and we hate to “lose.”  My friend is correct, this is a bad money making idea.  You will often not recoup those losses.