Climbing the Long Tail: Stage 1
Editorial Note: What worked for me, what I've observed working in the wild, may not work in your specific context. Everything I write may be pure bullshit. I am, by nature, risk averse. I try to find the best odds of success and find the paths that give me better odds. As with anything on the internet, your mileage may vary.
Like any climbing adventure, having a solid basecamp to work from can mean the difference between hitting the summit or foundering on the trail.
Let's start with some basics.
Planning
If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there. — Lewis Carroll
Carroll makes a good point, but only if you don't care where you end up. Having a destination in mind can cut down on the number of roads you'll need to follow to get where you want to be.
For writers, planning seems to be the thing you do after you realize you've written something. So, take a step back now that you have written The Story.
Everybody starts at zero. It's true in most careers. It's especially true for writers. Even if you've written The Story, there's still a mountain ahead of you.
The big question you need to answer is how far you want to climb? You don't need to have a final answer. Take it one step at a time.
Stage 0 – Before You Begin
Don't assume you're going to fail. What happens if you succeed beyond your wildest imaginings? Or maybe just a little bit and you have to file taxes?
Start thinking about these things:
A business name. Think of it as your imprint or publishing house. It might be the name you use for your website's URL. Once you've picked one, follow through and register it with your state. My bank helped me set it up, but they just went to the state registry website and filled in the form with my name. Registry costs something. It varies by state. I also have to pay a small fee once a year to keep my record active. Again, it varies by state.
A bank account for that business. In the beginning it seems like a waste of time and resources but come tax time, you'll be glad you have everything business related in one account. Being able to prove to the taxman that you only made $2.18 from your business is much better than having to find that $2.18 buried in your personal accounts. Trust me on that. Besides, you might need to pay for something for the business. The tax deductions help, especially in the beginning.
A website. Ideally one that you control with a URL that represents you – not The Story. They're relatively inexpensive and fairly easy to set up. The sooner you build it the sooner you'll be able to take advantage of it. Budget $120 a year. You probably won't need that much money but you will – eventually – want that much web presence.
An email list service. This is your direct link to your fans. You probably don't have any now but start collecting them as soon as possible. Addresses are better than money in the bank. They earn interest. There are free levels for most of the major providers. Ex: MailerLite has a full function tier for up to 1000 addresses.
You don't have to do all this right now. You should be thinking about it and making plans for how to do it ASAP. The sooner you get these moving, the sooner you can take advantage of them – and fewer things you need to find time and focus for later.
Stage 1 – Side Hustle
Stage 1 takes us up to the first plateau – side hustle. Ideally, profitable side hustle but at least affordable hobby. A lot of writers get to hobby, but can't make that final push to affordable.
Key resources: – Time – Focus – Attention
You will never have enough of these. You need to husband them. Writing is neither a sprint or a marathon. It's a way of life. Pace yourself for the long haul.
Common pitfalls: – Writing in a form that earns very little – Writing in a genre with a small following – Spending too much on the first one, counting on it to finance the second
Writers need to write what they need to write, regardless of what kind of market exists for their work. That doesn't negate the need to be realistic about their expectations. If you're writing a memoir, don't expect to earn novel money.
Certain forms earn more than others.
Poetry, I think you have to it for the love of the art. I don't know anybody who's making any money at it. It may be the cheapest to produce, but it's difficult to find an audience for it.
The short story market appeals to a lot of writers but it's a very hard market to get traction in. Expenses are low, particularly if you don't need to pay for your own editing or any cover art. Themed anthologies appear every so often that can offer opportunities but the market for those is limited. If this is your jam, be prepared to write a lot of stories. I always remember Ray Bradbury's advice. “Write a short story every week. It's not possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row.” He's not talking about “for a year.” He means keep doing it year in and year out. It's good advice.
Novellas – fiction in the 20-40,000 word range – are easier to sell than short stories. If nothing else, you can self-publish them easily and relatively cheaply. In the early days of ebooks, several authors made names by publishing novellas in a series, then bundling them into virtual boxed sets when the series completed. The practice fell out of favor when readers stopped buying the individual books, waiting for the less expensive boxed set instead. Some readers seem to be intimidated by longer forms, or just prefer the smaller works. From a market standpoint, they're hard to sell to agents and editors and self-publishers get locked down to the $2.99 price point. If you can produce them fast enough, this form can work. As a benchmark, I figure four novellas probably works as well as a novel for self-publishers, but only if you can keep cover prices down with premades.
Novels are the workhorses. They can sell for the most in the stores and they give self-publishers options for price promotions. They earn the most royalties from publishers although advances can work for you or against you, depending. Novels in a series pay the best, although many writers don't like writing them and many publishers don't like licensing them. Self-publishers like them for the funnel effect. If a reader likes the first one, they're more likely to read the second without much prompting.
Certain genres have larger audiences than others.
Romance is the queen. In the US, about half of all novels sold fall into one category or another of romance. If you write romance, you'll be sharing the largest fiction audience in the US with all the other romance writers. That's not a bad thing. It's a massive audience, but the number of writers in this genre is, likewise, large. As a self-publisher, getting established may take some work, but once established your biggest challenge will be keeping up with the demand for new work. Those seeking the traditional deal face the same challenges every other genre does. The opportunities for publication there scale with the size of the market but they're still limited by production capacity.
Action/Thriller and Speculative Fiction genres trade places periodically. Together they represent something like 35% of the US fiction market. It may not sound like much but if you're trying to climb the long tail, you don't need very much to move you toward the summit. Self-published authors often find eager readers tucked into the many categories and sub-categories under these two large umbrellas.
Everything else shares the last 15%. Westerns, literary fiction, you name it. If you write something that hasn't got a home in those first three, you'll have to work a little harder to find your audience.
Write what you need to, just be aware that the form and genre you write in has a bearing on how far up the long tail you can climb.
Two more complication to consider here at basecamp.
Children's books and YA titles have some specific issues tied to distribution. For self-publishers, these books can be a killer. They're generally purchased in physical stores by people who are not the primary audience. Most kids and early teens don't have the wherewithal to purchase them. Parents and other relatives buy them as gifts. For those writers pursuing traditional publishing, these probably aren't any more difficult than the rest to get published. Children's books are a huge market but largely limited to physical book making a traditional path easier than self-publishing for these titles. On the other hand some adults like to read YA, which opens that niche up a bit for self-publishing. Something to consider as you plan your climb.
What about non-fiction? Yeah. Good question. Non-fiction requires more than just an idea and someplace to write it down. Non-fiction requires some level of recognized expertise. It's usually very specific in terms of subject matter so the size of the individual audiences tend to be smaller. Just logic. People from all kinds of backgrounds and experiences read mysteries compared to the number of people likely interested in a book about tarot cards or model railroads.
Same holds true for creative non-fiction like memoirs and biographies. Writers write them, publishers license them, and bookstores stock them, so readers read them. It's a limitation tail-climbers need to consider while choosing a path up the tail.
Goals – For self-publishers, a catalog of at least five titles in a single niche – For traditionally published, at least two titles for sale in the same niche – A couple of writer friends in that niche – Completed all Stage 0 objectives
Those pursuing the traditional path have a much more difficult task. With very little control of the process beyond writing it, getting those two titles out in the world will likely take longer than it might take self-publishers to publish five. Both have to pay production expenses. Self-publishers pay up front. For traditionally published, the upfront expense gets deferred because the publisher pays for production costs from the revenue collected before paying the author's royalties. The publisher may also make demands on the author regarding reader-facing activities, mistakenly called “marketing.” Perhaps the biggest hurdle for traditional publishing involves the price windowing publishers impose, suppressing sales of one format to favor another. It's most obvious with ebooks compared to paper goods. Publishers tend to price ebooks too high to encourage readers to buy the physical copies. When they're satisfied that they've sold as much paper as they can, they bring the prices of ebooks down. It's good for the publisher, but I'm less convinced that it's good for the writer.
Tactics and Operations
Most of these apply only to self-publishing authors. Those on the traditional path have fewer options for enhancing their presence in the marketplace because their market consists of agents and publishers, not readers. Those paths are well traveled and clearly marked. Once you have a couple of books out, even traditionally published authors can enhance their sales by networking with other authors in your niche – including self-publishers – and participating in local conventions, even if it's on your own dime.
Avoid sales and promotion activities until you have established a foothold. Your first goal is to get your catalog built. Early sales matter, but spend your time, focus, attention, and money on building your base catalog. A dollar spent on an ad is a dollar you can't spend on cover art or editing. Ads can only be effective when they run. Good covers and good editing keeps paying for itself as long as the book is for sale. I know it's a difficult ask, but investing in your catalog now makes Stage 2 much easier.
Self-publishers need to budget carefully for editing and cover art. Buy premade covers. Take your time to find a line/copy editor you can work with long term. Early on, justifying the expense of a developmental editor and/or proof reader is difficult. You need a plan to foot the production bills for five novels over two to three years. Once you have some reliable income flowing, you can do what seems best for your work and you'll have better ideas of how to accomplish it. As your catalog grows, your revenue should as well but will likely take more time than you can afford unless you plan for it.
Network with your peers. Cultivate contacts in your niche as well. Read books in your niche and promote those books to your audience – no matter how small that audience is. The authors will notice and readers will remember you better. As your catalog develops your peers can help you find and build your early audience.
If you're writing in a recognized genre, investigate local fan conventions – those that you can get to without flying or driving more than a few hours. Inquire about becoming a panelist. If you attend, talk to people in the lobby. Attend sessions and talk to the people around you. Be seen by the general attendees. Have fun. Do not rent a table in the dealer room. You won't sell enough books there to pay for the table. Your money is better spent buying somebody a beverage at the restaurant. The trip will cost you money but your goal is to be seen at the table with bigger named authors. People who come to see them will see you. Early on, that's more important than selling a dozen books. Pro-tip: At the panels watch what the Big Names do for behavioral cues. Key point: They almost never bring books to the table. They don't need to. Neither do you.
Do not under any circumstances pay anybody who tells you that you can self-publish easily without all the muss and fuss if you just pay them $X,000 and let them take the worry out of uploading your files for you. If you're not uploading your files and collecting the revenues, you're not self-publishing. Anybody who tells you differently is working a scam. I have equally caustic things to say about “hybrid publishers” who want to “share the risk and reward” with you. (Don't confuse them with “hybrid authors” who self publish some works but work with a publisher for others. Different animal.)
Basecamp Established
By this point, you've been producing work for a couple of years and should have a little revenue coming in. It may not fully cover your production and overhead, but you're not funding everything from your day job. You know how much each title needs to break even. You've got a base line catalog to attract readers. You have a couple of allied authors in your niche you can work with.
If you can't honestly say “writing is an affordable hobby,” press pause and re-evaluate your goals.
Are you writing what you want, but not seeing much uptake? Is the niche too small? Are you producing the right format? Have you got enough work out there to be noticed? Five novels is only a starting number. More won't hurt you.
Is there a new niche you can explore to see if a different audience might be more responsive? A more lucrative form? It means backtracking a bit to find a better path but sometimes it's necessary, even in mountain climbing.
Do you have friends who also write in that niche who might help you? It's much easier to borrow an audience than it is to build one from scratch. If not, are you doing your part to boost other authors in your niche? You don't need permission to help your peers. Reading and promoting their work helps you by keeping you involved in the community that forms around those niches. The more involved you are, the more presence you have and the more likely readers will find you.
If you're happy with the progress you've made, you're probably ready to move on to Stage 2.