Writing

Money, Publishing and Writers

May 13, 2015

What does money, publishing and writers have anything to do with the process of writing?

blogs cloud
Blog cloud

The truth on the Internet is that each writer out there wants to earn income with their blogs and their websites.  They want to make a ‘name’ for themselves but have no idea how to go about this.  As much as people like to say that there is an wonderful and easy way to do this, there is not. To create a great websites a person has to write and publish a book to eventually earn some income, and that part of life will not change.

Personally, I write a blog post, and publish it in hopes that someone will find what I wrote interesting enough that they will go out and buy my book. Or one of my books. I lead a team and create something better by publishing more books and adding to the websites I have.  In short, I’m starting to maintain a more professional blog.

Don’t even start on the whole branding idea.

Branding?

A lot of people talk about branding, and at its most basic, it’s just making yourself known to other writers, and readers without having to work with as hard as you would otherwise.  For example, my name, Rebecca A Emrich is a brand. It is who I am as a writer, people will search for this name to find this website or one of my books.  The same holds true with Living a Life of Writing and other websites I help run.

The point of a brand, is to help a company or a business in the long term, a brand can make a impact to a larger number of people, and create an effect of having more people know about the website.  To make an impact people have to be familiar with you and your company or website, and and then they need to spread the information by word of mouth.  The challenge is being a writer and also a business, along with having a personal life. Becoming an Internet millionaire is not in the cards for everyone, especially those who do not want to brand themselves.  This is not saying everyone should take this path, but the ideas are all the same.  Money, publishing and writers go hand in hand with branding.

What about social media and money that way?

It’s great to have a Twitter account, a Facebook author page, a LinkedIn account, and every other types or social networking accounts you can think of, but if you are focused on these, there won’t be any time to write.  Focus is important, and while you can brand yourself as a social media expert (many do) or a bestselling author, it’s equally as important to go back and update your main platform as much as your can.
blogging success
Keys to success

As much as I might want to be on all of the social networking sites, my writing, and my websites need to come first. These sites bring my websites traffic and there is no doubt that I might be able to do a lot more with these accounts, except for the fact I have a lot of writing to do, on my books and on my blogs.

I added up the numbers, the key financials, and found that should I go and do a book signing or two in a month,and sell X number of books, I can nearly cover all my income from a part-time job. I can’t make it clear enough that at the moment, my websites and my books have the potential to create a job for me. That is not a brand, and it isn’t a brand.
The key is learning how to make a bigger name for myself (what in more technical terms is branding) but for now, I am okay with simply being known as “Rebecca A Emrich, Writer.” This doesn’t mean I am happy with this, because as with any other writer I want my name to be found by a larger audience.
Social media is very important, and it does help a lot with earning money, but it’s the traffic and the people on there who are important. I have learned a lot from reading articles people have posted on Twitter or found some great authors who have some fantastic writing out there. The power of social media is its potential if I am working hard at increasing my followers.
stop talking, start writing
Writing now.

However, this being said, money doesn’t come directly from what I do on social media, it comes via the traffic I get when people I have as followers share my websites.  Most the the money which a writer earns is not through their blogs but the products they sell: webinars, books, and other products.

It’s not a good idea to leave a branding to someone else, you know your business the best. Living a Life of Writing is at the heart of it all a writing website.  This is why people come and read it.  It is also a business, and readers know they are “at Living a Life of Writing” and not at another website.  The process is a slow one.  Without constant care, the brand will fail.  At this point it would only take days before people would stop coming to the websites under the banner of “Living a Life.”  The brand is too new, too exotic for the search engines, and making money depends not on you, but on your brand and your ability to have people see your brand.

Can writers earn more income by publishing more books?

 

By using the power of blogging, I can continue to publish on topics I am interested in.  By writing and publishing more books, I am still doing what I love and can continue on this journey as a writer. I know I can earn more income by publishing more books, but by also expanding on what I have to offer on my websites.
However, writers won’t earn more income by publishing more books if they don’t have a brand to build on.

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