Your core message is the main theme, the golden thread, that dominates most of your content. Some examples:

Adventure author Jon Krakauer writes about human drama in life-or-death outdoor situations such as hiking or mountain climbing.

Novelist J. K. Rowling writes about what it means to be a hero in the context of a fantasy world.

Novelist Stephen King writes about the dark side of humanity in the context of horror stories.

Personal development guru John Maxwell writes about leadership.

Historian David McCullough wrote about the humanity behind American historical figures.

For most authors, it’s many books, but one core message. You might say, “What about the books that aren’t tied to an author’s core message?” Most of the time, those books are tied into their core message in one way or another.

What about you? What’s your core message?

If you can’t articulate it yet, that’s okay. It takes time and writing a lot of words before you figure it out. Your core message gets clearer and more authentic the more you write.

Today’s Challenge: As best as you can articulate it, write down your core message as an author. Then ask three people who know you well to see if they agree.

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I’m talking about getting rid of books that no longer serve you.

In the course of my ministry, teaching, and writing career, I’ve moved offices several times. Every time I do, I realize that print books are a huge pain to move!

As a voracious reader, and now as a full-time writer, I love books. Hardly a week goes by that I don’t get a book or two in the mail. Over time, these have added up and I’ve run out of shelf space more than once.

Every year or two, I do a “book purge.” It works like this: I take a couple of hours to go through all my books and set aside the ones I no longer need. I try to use the “moving next month” principle, in which I ask myself, “If I were moving next month, would I want to pack this book and take it with me?”

It’s OK to have overflowing shelves of books right now. However, the fact is that those books will need to be moved at some point in the future. Whether it’s you or perhaps your spouse or kids after you die, somebody will need to figure out what to do with the books.

The older I get, the less sentimental I feel toward books. If you have moved anytime recently, you know the lack of sentimentality you have when actually lugging all that stuff around.

That’s why I believe in an aggressive approach to book purging. Unless you have a particular sentimental attachment to a book, or you’re going to need it in the next few years, you should question whether to keep it.

Using this principle, I have downsized my library by a couple of thousand books over the last few years. I’ve either sold the books on Amazon, or more recently, donated them to Goodwill.

Every time I go through this process, I come across books that were once important to me, but no longer need to be part of my journey going forward. A book should earn its place on your bookshelf.

But if it’s not relevant to you right now, it might be helpful to someone else. That’s why I advocate for liberal generosity when giving books away. Plus, you can always buy another copy or get the ebook or audiobook version, if you need it again.

Please note: A book is just a collection of ideas and stories that represent a particular author’s viewpoint or experience at that point in their life. It might have been important to you at one point, but it isn’t anymore.

But if it is, then keep that book and re-read it! Give it a prized place on your shelf. A great book that helps you is a wonderful lifelong companion.

Today’s Challenge: To get started, take one minute and look at a single shelf of books in your home or office. Select at least one book you no longer need. Gift it to a friend or donate it to Goodwill.

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One of the most important jobs we have as authors is marketing our books. I know most of us would rather hide out in our offices and avoid the challenge of putting ourselves out there, but marketing is a core part of serving your audience well and building your author business.

My guest today is Susan Neal, and she’s going to share a strategy that can help you sell one thousand books in three months.

Susan has a master’s in health science and an MBA. She lives her life with a passion to help others improve their health. After suffering a health crisis, she became an author and health coach to provide others with the tools they needed to heal their bodies and reclaim their ideal weight.

Her award-winning #1 Amazon bestseller is 7 Steps to Get Off Sugar and Carbohydrates. The third book in her Healthy Living Series, Healthy Living Journal, won the Golden Scrolls award “2019 Best Inspirational Gift Book.” Her newest release, Solving the Gluten Puzzle, helps many determine if they have a gluten-related disorder and how to treat it.

Susan has been featured in many media outlets including The Bridges TV show, Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), Charisma magazine, and numerous podcasts and radio shows. You can learn more about Susan and find all her books at SusanUNeal.com.

In this interview, Susan shares specific strategies she’s used to sell books. Best of all, she talks about the importance of having a marketing plan in place. You will want to take notes because Susan will give you tons of clear, actionable advice for marketing and selling your books.

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These are related but not the same thing. Let’s begin with editing first.

The essence of editing is that you are getting someone’s writing or book manuscript ready for publication. But there are different types of editing.

If you are great with content organization or story structure, you might consider developmental editing. That means thinking through the structure and flow of the book on the front end. Or, it could mean re-working a book that has not been properly organized or written. Maybe the author is stuck and needs expert help.

You could also consider line editing, copyediting, or proofreading. Line editing is more of an art than a science. It mainly concerns making sure sentences flow as well as possible. Copyediting mainly focuses on the mechanics of language, ensuring that the writing adheres to correct English usage, grammar, punctuation, citations, and so forth. Proofreading literally refers to reading the proof, which is the final version just before or after it goes to print as a last measure of defense against errors.

Another form of editing is working for a magazine or publication. A few years ago, I worked for The Good Men Project as a lead editor. This means people sent me articles, and I decided which ones to run in my sections, which are also called “verticals” in the publications world. Then, I would give the authors feedback if I needed changes. I almost always made changes in spelling, grammar, punctuation, and so forth. It did not pay very well but the experience was absolutely priceless because I learned to think, write, and edit quickly.

If you enjoy the self-publishing process, you can also help others navigate their way through getting their book published. If you are detail-oriented and like to manage complex projects, you can help people get their book cover and interior formatting designed, manage editors, get their book uploaded to Amazon and other online vendors, and market their book.

The bottom line is that if you can write and publish your own books, you can also help other people do the same thing. Most of the writers I know, no matter their level of success, do some type of client work in addition to writing for themselves.

I really like doing client work as one of my income streams because I learn something from every project. Whether you are editing or helping other people publish their books, it’s a great way to serve authors and make money at the same time.

Question: Have you ever considered helping other writers with editing or publishing services? What specific services could you offer?

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My guest today is Professor Anne Sheridan, and she’s going to help take the intimidation factor out of reading classic literature. Anne is an educator, a pastor’s wife, and a mother of three girls living in Davenport, Iowa. She has undergraduate degrees in Piano Performance and English, a graduate certificate in Biblical Studies, and an MA in English.

Anne has several years of experience teaching at the college level, with courses on Speech, English Composition, English Literature, and Christian Fantasy Literature. She enjoys reading in community and helping students to discover and appreciate the joys of reading.

Anne and I talk about what makes a classic a “classic,” why you shouldn’t feel intimidated by literature, how to distinguish between different genres, why Shakespeare was so great, how to make time to read, and of course… Star Wars, a topic that seems to make an appearance on my podcast every few interviews or so.

You can connect with Anne on Twitter @A_L_Sheridan.

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Book sales is probably the first thing you think of when it comes to making money. But let’s dig into this a little bit.

First of all, it presumes that you have books to sell. So, if you haven’t yet written a book, or haven’t even thought about it, get started on that.

Second, a book can lead to a lot of other things. A book basically proves that you can write a sustained piece and that you have the discipline and vision to complete a big project. One of the big reasons why having a book is such a special thing is not just because it demonstrates your writing skills. It also proves that you can tackle a big, complex project.

Most people are not willing to go to the trouble of doing that, which is what makes that skill rare and valuable. It’s also why authors who have written books can command much higher speaking fees.

In other words, by virtue of the fact that you have written and published at least one book, you are showing to the world that you have done the work and completed something difficult that most people want to do, but aren’t willing to actually put the work in to do.

Let’s talk about making money with books.

In order to make money with books, you have to embrace marketing. Good marketing is a way to serve people. A lot of writers don’t want to mess with the marketing side of things because they think they’re above that. They’re the “creative” type, not the business type. You need to embrace the business side because that is where the action happens.

Your books are not just going to sell themselves. The sooner you embrace that idea—that you have to be a business person as an author—the sooner you can get busy doing the marketing activities that will help your books sell.

What’s more, this income stream can be greatly expanded when you have many books on multiple platforms, and you create ancillary products related to those books. We’ll get to making products in a later episode.

But for now, I want you to get comfortable with the idea of not only WRITING and PUBLISHING books… but also doing the marketing work to MAKE MONEY with them.

Question: Have you embraced the idea that you are not only an author, but a business person as well?

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I worked as a college professor for 17 years. During all these years, the faculty at our school were all contracted on an annual basis. We never knew from year to year if we were going to get a contract for the next year.

I hated being in this position, not knowing if I would be employed over the long term. Some years, we wouldn’t get our contracts until mid-May, and the fiscal year started in June!

I hated the feeling of uncertainty that would start to creep around mid-April and wouldn’t be resolved until late May.

If you have a day job and are working on writing as a side hustle, you can relate to this. Even though you might like your day job and feel secure, the reality is that your job could be taken away at any moment. There is never any true security when that security lies in someone else’s decisions.

Or maybe you already are working as a part-time or even a full-time writer. If that’s the case, my guess is that you’d like to make more money as well!

No matter your situation, this series will give you some options for increasing your income—and your different income STREAMS—as a writer.

Writing is the hub of what you do, but it’s just that—a hub. Just like the hub on a bike wheel, writing is the center of what you do, and income streams are the spokes that support you financially. The more spokes, the more security, and the more stability you have.

In this series, we will dive into ten different income streams you can develop as a writer. I won’t be able to go into much detail with each one, but I want you to get a feel for how many different options there are to use your writing skills to create income.

To give you a little sneak peek, here are the ten ways to make money we will talk about:

• Book sales
• Editing & Publishing Services
• Coaching
• Membership & Masterminds
• Freelance Writing
• Speaking
• Courses
• Products
• Ghostwriting
• Affiliates

These are only the tip of the iceberg, but they are many of the most common ways that writers make money with their skills. I hope you’re looking forward to this series and considering how you can begin putting some of these income streams in place in your own business.

Question: How motivated are you to explore new possibilities for creating income as a writer?

The post Making Money as a Writer: Series Introduction appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

Today we have amazing opportunities to create, publish, and distribute our self-published books. One of the greatest tools created for self-publishers in recent years is the Vellum app, which is software that helps you create ebooks and print books that look amazing.

I’ve been a heavy Vellum user for years, so I was excited to chat with one of the co-creators, Brad West. Brad has been in the world of indie publishing for over ten years. Before that, he was a senior software developer at Pixar Animation Studios.

In this conversation, Brad shares the fascinating story of how and why he and his co-creators developed Vellum. He also shares his thoughts on the future of self-publishing.

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Jesus said, “The truth will set you free.” That’s not only true in a spiritual sense, but in a creative sense as well. No matter what type of writing we do, whether fiction or non-fiction, our objective as writers should always be the pursuit of truth.

The novelist Wally Lamb said, “If the book is true, it will find an audience that is meant to read it.” But what does that mean, exactly? Let’s break it down in practical terms. There are three types of truth we must keep in mind when writing.

First is the objective truth. If we’re writing non-fiction, this means we should check our facts and strive for accuracy. If we’re writing fiction, our stories should be true in the sense that they reflect the human experience.

Second is your truth. This just means that we are true to ourselves. We are not trying to portray ourselves as someone we are not. It also means we are trying to be true to our creative calling and natural giftedness.

Third is the reader’s truth. Whenever someone reads your writing, they come with their own agenda. They have a perspective. They have needs, desires, and pain points. There is something they want from your writing. It might be education, it might be entertainment, it might be inspiration, or a combination of all three.

It’s hard to keep these in balance, but it’s essential that we try. That is part of the challenge, the calling, and the privilege of being a writer.

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