How A Writer Can Make Money In Fiction Writing

“Money makes the world go around,”-Ecc. 10:19
Mastering the tricks of writing bestsellers and writing a quintessential novel, is not in itself the magic wand you need for your title to reach the bestseller lists. This is because the commercial publishers look beyond quality before acquiring your manuscript. They look for other extraneous factors such as originality, genre requirement, marketability, and the author’s credentials.
Most readers bought The Audacity of Hope, not because they enjoyed reading the book, but because it was written by Barack Obama! He has a platform-his name sells books-and that is what royalty publishers want. The acquisition editors sitting on their desks are shopping for authors who have money-spinning titles!
But the writer needs money too after all the hard work, don’t they? After all, a worker, if an author could be called one, deserves his wages. So how can the writer make money in the published world? They would have to explore the following means:
Write and publish many books
A poultry farmer cannot have only one chicken in his farm and complain that his is not making a living in his poultry business. No, he would have to have perhaps hundreds or thousands of chickens and eggs in his farm to make it rich in that occupation. That is how it is in every trade or profession.
In the same way, you cannot write a single book, call yourself a writer, and curse that you have not found a pot of gold.
It is rare to find an author who became rich with only one tile. You have to write many books on different subjects to get a kaleidoscope of readership and create multiple stream of income. Some authors have written dozens or hundreds of titles. So sit down and write several books to rake in money.
They might be e-books or a combination of e-books and paperbacks-never mind the volume. When you have a couple of selling tiles, invest in those and you will make the bestseller list.
Adapt your books into audios/movies
Yes, that is essentially what we have said above. The readers want to see the audio and perhaps the movie version of your work. All the great books have those versions-join them and make your money.
Publish your books in several formats
It pays to publish your many titles n different formats. One reader might like an e-book; the other would prefer a paperback, while another would die for a hard copy. Others could go for the audio version while some other readers would want the movie version. In fact, some readers like to have an e-book, a paperback, and an audio or the movie version. It’s all good for you-you make tons of cash!
Translate your book
Make your popular works available in several languages. Yes, other language speakers other than the original language of your work want to read your book. Why not then have it translated in preferably the major languages and watch your bank account grow.
Share your book’s publishing rights
This is one sweet part of the business if you understand copyright-share the various rights of your book. Just a sample: English, paperback, North America rights. Repeat same for Europe, Asia, South America, Australia. Now, do that for hardcover. OK, try another language, another version, another part of the world. If you do that for six languages, three formats, and five parts of the world, how much money would you make?
Again, do that for audio and movie rights and see what I mean. So you have to be smart not to let the publisher deceive you in a contract and steal all the rights! Make sure that the particular right is specified in the agreement. And you will share all the rights of your different books and keep smiling to the bank.
You must be ready to promote your book
This cannot be overemphasized. You MUST promote your books to make you money. The world’s population is growing by the day and hundreds of books are published daily. Do not blame poor sales-the readers have not found your book. Help them locate it by guerrilla marketing.
Publish with a commercial publisher and get advance royalty fee
Of course that is one sure way to make money. But it is perhaps one of the hardest as we have discussed earlier. If you persevere however you could get a representation and ultimately a commercial publisher for your book.
Even if the sum may not be enough, it could help you to advance your writing, and your next book royalty will be heavier. Because you have arrived as an established author.
Give professional talks
As an authority, you will be giving talks and getting paid for it-sometimes huge sums of money. People like to listen to authors for the reason that they are experts. Yes, they are, and so you will be!
Write articles and essays for the media
Articles and essays written by established authors for the media pay a lot of money. This is the written form of speech making. Readers would like to read such articles/essays to find out the writer’s opinion on the subject; this increases the sales/readership of the print media making the editor come back for another article/essay.
Write a follow up to a successful story
If your first story was successful, do a follow-up. It is called making hay while the sun shines. Or to put it differently, making money quickly. That is what Dan Brown and J.K. Rowling did. Follow their footsteps and join the writers’ billionaire club.
Sell your story to a publisher
A number of sites and publishers are looking for stories to buy and pay you. So you could equally sell off a short story, article, essay, a poetry collection-any writing of yours. You get the money and they keep the copyright.