Murray - Im a Writer! (so wheres the money?)

Im a Writer!

(so wheres the money?)

by

Graham Murray

Copyright 2011, Graham Murray

Published by Living Books USA

Cover design by author

Smashwords Edition

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author or publisher.

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Im a Writer!

(so wheres the money?)

One day you had an idea for a story, right? So you got out your laptop, opened your favourite word-processor and started typing. Oh, how vividly you recall that halcyon thrill as the words appeared on the screen and your story began to reveal itself right before your eyes! This is easy, you thought; I can do this all day long! So, after a few thousands words, you ran the spell-check across it, made a few corrections, and then uploaded your masterpiece to a website somewhere. Then you sat back and waited for the cash and glowing reviews to come rolling in. After all, youd heard that anyone can be a successful writer these days. All you had to do was write something and post it online, right?

Except that never happened, did it?

In fact, it didnt happen at all in the way you were expecting.

Now youre thinking, Im a writer, so wheres the money? How come my book is not flying off the digital shelves and the money isnt coming in? Why has JK Rowling not called to ask me for sales advice? And now, as you sit on your bed in your underwear, the laptop open, a half-eaten pizza beside you and several candy wrappers strewn about, you stare at the blinking cursor and wonder what else you can do to be recognized as a writer.

Where did I go wrong ! I hear you wailing.

Exactly! Where did you go wrong? Why is your name not in lights? Why have you still not earned a single penny? Why has your book (air quotes) not been made into a movie? And why was the one review you did receive absolutely scathing and submitted by someone called anonymous that made you want to just throw it all away and stay with your day job at Walmart?

The reality is that you still have not sold a single copy of your book and nobody even knows youre alive. Worse still is that nobody even cares. Plus, theres been a few thousand other titles uploaded since yours which has pushed your book so far down the line only an archaeologist will ever find it now.

Does any of this sound familiar?

As a new independent publisher an indie you may be asking yourself these and other questions. So lets take a little stroll down Reality Road and put things into perspective. But before we start, take a deep breath and relax! What youre experiencing is in fact the reality of self-publishing. It is the world of the indie writer. Paper publishing is a hundred times worse, believe me. I do both, and have done for years. For the Pros and Cons of this, see How to Join the eBook Revolution .

First off, who said youre a writer? What have you done to suddenly proclaim yourself a writer? Scribbled down a few words and posted them on the Web? Really? In reality, we call that blogging. Any monkey can write a story and post it online somewhere (to be swallowed up by the other six TRILLION or so online pages), and think that they have suddenly become a published author. This is the first part of your horrible dream.

You are NOT a writer; not by a long shot or by any stretch of the imagination. And certainly not until the public tells you so. What you actually are is a legend in your own lunch-time. Writing down a story does not equate to your being a writer. You must get this straight in your head first or youll get nowhere, and fast.

And by the way, if you made the price of your little masterpiece FREE, then you just shot yourself in the foot and made everything ten times worse! Good luck digging yourself out of that mess. (see the book, FREE for reasons why this is such a seriously bad idea)

Im also not going to wax lyrical about the ins and outs of becoming a recognized writer because the WWW is awash with professionals who can do that for you. Remember, everyone on the Web is an expert and a professional, if you havent already noticed.

No, what I am going to do is give you a quick reality check and impart some words of wisdom - based on forty years of writing experience - so that you at least stand a slim chance of one day becoming a writer. The rest is up to you.

Im not pulling punches either, so if youre offended by any of this, youre probably not good author material anyway, as your skin is obviously too thin and tender to bear the brutal reality of publishing. You can either heed some advice and at least give yourself a fighting chance or, you can carry on as you are, labouring under the delusion that youre a writer, even though nobody else on the planet thinks so.

If you write books and issue them for free , then you have a hobby ; you are not an author. If you write for money , youre an author. An author is a person who writes for a living . And in this sense living, by definition, involves money . Giving away free stories is not authoring its blogging. Real authors hate bloggers because theyre screwing up the writing community as a whole. Do not give away your work ! (see the book, FREE for reasons).

A far better approach is to make a sample of your title available and, if you really think so little of your work, price it at the lowest possible amount so that you dont screw it all up for anyone else who is a writer. One day you too may be earning money from writing and will despise those freebies that have flooded the market because nobody will buy your books they will expect to get them for free! The lowest ebook price is usually ninety-nine cents.

Now that you know what a writer is, lets examine how you go about becoming one. Did you really think it was as simple as uploading a few thousands words on the Web somewhere? Seriously?

There are THREE major tenets to becoming a writer. These are:

1. Literary ability

2. Technical ability

3. Marketing skills

Let us look at each tenet in turn.

1. LITERARY ABILITY.

As already stated, any monkey can write a story, but how many can write a good story? What constitutes a good story, anyway? Says who? Did Charles Dickens write good stories? As an exercise, pick out the top 3 ebooks from any supplier you wish. Now snatch the 20% free sample (if there isnt one, scratch those wannabe writers off as clueless) and read it.

Well? What did you think? Was the writing good? Did you enjoy it? Did it feel professional? Now pick any Dickens novel and read just the first two pages. Which did you prefer? Why? See where this is going? Charles Dickens is the most successful author in the history of writing. But why? In a nutshell, Dickens had the ability to write astonishing stories about everything and anything and is just as popular now as he was 170 years ago.

In order to be a successful writer (author), you must have an inherent ability to tell compelling stories. Not just any old guff (blogging), but good, gripping, riveting narrative that your readers simply cannot put down. How do you do this? Well, thats what being a writer is all about. Most contemporary stories are variations on a theme, so the more original your story, the better the chances of it selling.

2011 saw a tedious plethora of vampire, werewolf and zombie stories. Although the market was already taken by the Twilight series, many new writers insisted on writing stories along these themes. Thats like trying to write an original Harry Potter story. Not only is it a waste of everybodys time, few people are interested in yet another boy wizard or vampire/werewolf/zombie story because its already been done to death by some very proficient authors. Sure, you may sell a handful of copies to die-hard aficionados, but thats all. The rule is to keep your work fresh, innovative and interesting. Dont be a copycat.