23 Dirty Truths for Authors
Saying the quiet part out loud 🤫
You don’t have to agree with everything here, but these lessons have completely changed my author life.
I hope they change yours too 💙.
Don’t chase best-seller rankings. The ego boost you get from your orange best-seller tag doesn’t mean much to anyone who truly matters in your life.
Readers First, then your heart. Too often we think about marketing AFTER we write our story. Before you even start your story, you should analyze whether your story has a market, which stories are similar to it, and how you can sell it.
Take care of your body. Stretch regularly. Sleep well. Drink water. And make sure your back and hands are in good health. Dictating for some is a great way to ensure you move around and get words in. Either way, your story will only be as good as the storyteller is feeling!
90% of people who say they are doing well are actually lying. Half the time they are not making the kind of money they are. The other half of the time they are stressed out and miserable. You don’t want their life.
Fundamentals never go away. Most advertising platforms (no matter how new and shiny) work in similar ways. Although every genre has its nuances, what makes a great story is remarkably similar across time and culture. Focus on the fundamentals. Tune out the noise.
You almost certainly don’t market your book enough. It’s shocking how many times people have to see your story to really want to read it. You need to get your book in front of thousands of reader eyeballs each week to make a living. How many eyeballs have seen your book recently?
70% of book success is your read-through rate. 30% is driving traffic to book 1. It’s very hard to make a living writing if people don’t buy more books from you. If you have a high read-through rate from book 1 to book 2, you have a lot more ways you can market your series profitably.
We are past peak Amazon. The tools of selling directly through sites like Shopify are just too powerful to not invest seriously into. Between the direct relationship, you get with your customers, the ability to immediately make cash and pay back your marketing costs before they are due (unlike Amazon holding it for 60 days), and the ability to upsell and cross-sell other products to your readers – the potential is limitless. I’ll cover this in-depth in a future essay 😉.
Author social media is mostly a waste. I love the various Facebook Groups out there and have been involved in running author Facebook Groups for years. However, most of it’s noise, negativity, and bullshit that distract you from writing and doing the real work to grow your business.
95%+ of authors aren’t making money. And it’s okay if you aren’t making money too. Your income is not your self-worth as an author. Just because you aren’t making an income now, doesn’t mean you won’t in the future. Likewise, it’s putting in the hard work, falling in love with the process, and not being afraid to build your future that can help you go from zero to one. You got this!
Fellow writer friends are everything. My best friends are my author friends. Connect with fellow storytellers and help each other grow. You don’t need a million friends. Just a few close ones that make you feel like you can be yourself.
Talk about money. Money is a taboo topic in this industry, and it shouldn’t be. Best sellers shouldn’t be the only ones sharing their incomes. We all should. The expenses, the ups and downs, and more. You don’t have to share this on social media. Instead, do it in trusted communities with trusted friends.
This is a long game. Optimize for learning through experience and keeping your business and life sustainable. Trying to get rich from books is a fun idea, but less fun in reality when you mortgage everything on your dream. Keep your day job. And invest the small amounts of time and money you have wisely. Your scrappiness is your advantage.
Don’t emulate most authors, because most authors are not where you want to be. Either they don’t have the business you want, don’t serve the readers you want to serve, or aren’t making the kind of money you want. Be careful, and run everything through a filter. There are thousands of ways to make six figures a year in publishing. What is YOUR way?
Optimizations are so underrated. The best way to get ads that convert higher is to create more ad images and more ad copy. The best way to have a winning TikTok is to create more TikToks that build on data and lessons from the past. The best way to get readers hooked on your story is to have a gripping first few pages. Optimizing key points in the reader journey is the difference between an average book that loses money and a great book that makes you more money than you could dream of.
Technology is a tool, not a solution. A hammer doesn’t make you a house. You have to use a hammer to build it. Every software, platform, or tool promised as a silver bullet is likely not. However, why build a home with sticks and stones if you can do it using the best nails and hammers in the world? Use your tools wisely. You are the master.
Publishing is a bad business. But it’s great for marketing. Most big traditional publishers have horrible margins and many lose money in a given year. Publishing is best when you use it as marketing for other products and revenue streams. How can you further immerse readers into your worlds and make more money through products and other experiences?
You are likely trying to be good at 5+ different jobs in a publishing house when you should be an expert at one. Doing it all is often a recipe for failure. Copywriting, ads, email marketing, design, editing, formatting, plotting, and drafting. The list of tasks to master is endless. Don’t try to master them all at once. Focus on becoming world-class at something and gain momentum from there. Odds are you need to become incredible at writing addictive openings to stories and hooking readers into them using your packaging. How often do you really practice this?
You need to aim bigger. It’s not that much harder to run a publishing business that makes $1 million a year compared to a publishing business that makes $10,000 a year. The major difference is someone who scaled their audience. This should be the #1 question you tackle every day.
You only need one marketing channel to make a living as an author. You don’t need to master every ad platform or social app. Pick one and go all in. Results won’t come immediately, but once they come, you will be working just as hard to bring in $10 in sales a day as you are to bring in $1,000 a day.
Good design and branding matter so much. Between your covers and ads, the wrong visuals could be killing your brand. You don’t need to spend an arm and a leg on great branding. But you should invest in making your branding stand out and resonate with your target readers.
The algorithm is your friend. Algorithms on eBook retailers and social platforms were built to model viewer and reader behavior. They are imperfect, but trying to hack algorithms isn’t the answer. Put your Readers First, create amazing content for them, and the algorithm will follow.
Iterate and experiment faster. You likely aren’t urgent enough. How can you find out whether your book is a good enough product to scale with 10x less time and 10x less money? Try testing the first few chapters and your cover before writing the rest of the book. More shots on goal is a good thing. Just make sure your shots are quick, cheap, and easy so you can keep going and learning.
And that’s it for this one 😊.
If you’d like me to create another edition of dirty truths for authors, let me know!
Next Monday, I’ll be back with another Author Sidekick essay, and this Wednesday I’ll release a new episode of the Beyond the Book Podcast.
See you all then!
But in the meantime don’t forget…
Together we are boundless,
Michael Evans
The Author Sidekick
P.S. You can follow my upcoming Kickstarter here to get your physical deck of cards for the 50 Author Marketing Superpowers when it launches in a few weeks. You can even RSVP for the author costume party we are hosting here. It’s going to be awesome!
Great list! I have a couple to add if/when you do more of these:
Define what success means to you. Don't let others define it for you. We all start from different places and different financial situations. Do you have to make $10k a month to earn a nice living? Probably not.
Start as you mean to go on. If you know you're eventually going to sell direct, set up your Shopify store now, even if you only have one title. If you plan to earn subscription income, build your Patreon and paid Substack publication now.
Don't wait for permission. You won't get it. Nobody cares. Just do the thing!
Great list. Thanks!