For The Love of Writing

FOR THE LOVE OF WRITING SERIES

The writing industry can be an inviting field of work or a competitive world or both. Vocal has a diverse range of genres, writing styles, and writers. Some are fledgling, others have more experience while others have degrees in their field or journalism even. All of us share a love of the craft or art form, as you will. Let's look at the other values of the writing world. To break it down simply: writer, readers, and markets.

The Writers

Perhaps you are new and just want to get your work out there, great! Maybe you don't consider yourself a writer or not as a career but you have something to say about your field of expertise, favorite topic or you want to branch out a bit from your blog and get new followers. Maybe you live for freelance work with the freedom it offers or your goal is to have a paid 9-5 writing. Or it could be like a sport to you, the more in the online forum to "compete" with the better. Perhaps you have a novel or a series that is your life's work and that is your main focus. Either way, you are here, reading and writing, and a valued member of Vocal.

There are online venues or printed works. Online can be anything from blogs to online media groups, newsletters, and social media which is not really a venue for writing itself. Print is either books, magazines, or newspapers, period. As a writer, if you are looking for a 9-5 writing job then the latter two are where you are going to concentrate. An onsite workplace or more often nowadays the remote workplace, your home. Most freelance work can be found online and the work is where your computer is. There are writers out there who do everything from their phones. Much like indie book publishing, this means you are marketing your work night and day.

Let's talk publishing. Once upon a time, it was all traditional publishing for books. Life was simpler then. You sent your manuscript to a literary agent who sent it to a publisher. If it got past the "slush pile," the discarded submissions, then fantastic, you had a book deal. Traditional publishers bring advertising campaigns and promotions along with your agent. Every book sells to some extent or more. For a novel author, this is the main road to travel. It also keeps book prices reasonable or at least there is a range in prices. Wouldn't it be nice if traditional publishing would take back the market and bookstores filled again with all the social graces of browsing and actually smelling the paper. That may just be happening with a dramatic increase of book sales of almost 30% in the first quarter of 2021 with numbers increasing.

The other road to travel is Indie book publishing or Self-publishing. Once frowned upon, in the past 15 years is now firmly established in the industry. This arose from the rebellious period of writers who simply didn't want to wait for the length of time a Literary Agent took to read manuscripts. At one time not uncommon to hold a piece of work for six months to a year and you could not have multiple submissions. Writers were waiting sometimes up to 5 years to get their books published. I knew of one writer back in the early 2000's who actually rented a printing press and printed his own work to get his book out there to the public. Unacceptable (!), was the lament of the writers, and self-publishing businesses popped up everywhere. This burgeoning advancement was parallel to the boom of Amazon which of course left an indelible mark through Createspace, which led to KDP which offered and still does, absolutely free publishing and you know what? They did and do a great job, polished book covers, print editions and ebook editions, affordable prices, and a marketplace. Let's look at what happened to that.

Despite the avalanche of criticism of the quality of writing being self-published sales still boom. Once you get out of the cookie-cutter editing mindset there is a wide variety of writing styles to enjoy and a multitude to choose from. Therein lies the rub. Currently, there are 2 million books available globally by KDP! There are approximately 30,000 book sales in Canada and 100,000 in India. That makes one massive marketplace for your work to stand out in. I don't think anyone has discovered the mystery of actually how to make a piece of work stand out. Type in "mystery books" in the search field for example. You will get pages upon pages of books to choose from. Writers are told that reviews and sales will boost ranks in the selection. Unless you are selling in the thousands your book is going to move very little and reviewers nowadays are not looking at story content, oh no, even the top mystery amazon recommended book has reviews with critics and hyper-examining content. How does that help? Did you like the book or not, was the story good to read is what the average reader wants to know. For most Indie and self-publishers this is your main selling venue. Some bookstores still won't take books that are indie or self-published.

For self-publishing, you are looking at investment dollars. There are a number of excellent self-publishers that all want your money to start the process. In my research, there are book plans starting at $5,000 and you get an ISBN and your book for sale on various online sites. A $15,000 plan will get you a certain number of print copies in addition to that and a few perks. A $30,000 plan can get you an advertising campaign, press releases, or maybe even a television interview. The book Fifty Shades of Grey for example had never seen an editor, was self-published and because of one television interview sold 15 million copies the first year. That was in 2011. Nothing much has changed with self-publishing on that end. Surprisingly 60% of online sales are Indie or self-published. That too is changing.

Self-publishing or Indie publishing is a great way to get your work out there. Just keep in mind you are the sole writer, editor, marketer, promoter, and business planner. You also get 100% of the sales income if you go Indie and close to 50% self-publishing after a certain amount of sales with self-publishing. You are either happy with the market within your reach or you become a better marketer. For example, I had one writer on my Facebook who proudly announced that he sold 2000 books in 2 weeks and was shocked as heck, he used only Facebook. He had a good supportive Facebook community. Two years later, he had exhausted his market with no sales but was quite happy with the accomplishment he had already made and was working on his next novel.

In my experience, I had a traditional publisher that offered hybrid marketing and there are still a few like that out there. My books got published for free, were promoted, and in the first year were available in 13 countries. There was advanced marketing available for special promotions at the time for minimal cost and was optional. The large hybrid publishers simply couldn't compete with the self-publishers at the time and sadly, went out of business. So I took that opportunity to revise my novels, which I am doing so they can be re-released.

Best Sellers

There may be several types of bestseller lists but the one source that has been the mainstay and defines best sellers is the New York Times. Did you know that traditional and long-standing bestseller list comes from bookstore sales, weekly and has nothing to do with online sales? If you are a novelist this is important to know. Maybe that doesn't matter to you. I like to know what is selling and why or the demographics but am the first to say also that should have nothing to do with the reason or content of what you write. Write what you know, or what you love.

The Top 10 Best Seller books of 2021 are:

1) Dog Man: Mothering Heights

2) American Marxism

3) The Boy, The Mole, The Fox, and The Horse

4) Oh, The Places You Will Go

5) The Four Winds

6) Atomic Habits

7) The Four Agreements

8) They Both Die At The End

9) The Very Hungry Caterpillar

10) The Midnight Library

Mainly fiction books in this list. The best-selling genres differ for the type of book offered.

Bestselling Audiobook Genres:

Literature & Fiction

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Science Fiction

Fantasy

Romance

Business & Money

Best Selling Self-Published Books Over Time

Milk and Honey

50 Shades of Grey

The Martian

Swans Way

For a list of bestsellers for Indie books check out: indiebooks.org or Publisher Weekly, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Globe and Mail also put out their own bestseller lists.

Social Networking as a way to meet people and introduce your work is also a huge popularity contest when it comes to marketing but did you know that regardless of the number of people you have on your personal page, your fan page, or your business page, only 2% of the public is going to see your posts and that research number is recent. 2 million likes do not equate to sales. I personally have 10k+ on social media with 5k likes on an author page. Slightly less than daunting, are teenageers on TikTok with over a million supporters and they aren't selling anything, just posting lifestyle pictures.

Groups are key to getting your work out there and appreciated and the main reason Vocal thrives. Vocal does not make money from advertisers and the fact this blog has grown to 20k+ people and been online as long as it has, speaks for itself. Now, I know that poetry is not a big seller online or in book stores but my book of poems for sale online has been on there for three years. On Vocal in little more than 3 months, I have 700+ readers with almost 500 of those in the past month and over 100 subscribers so lots of room to grow but a good start. The other main platforms are: Instagram, YouTube, Goodreads, Tumbler, Twitter, Linked In, Medium, and most everyone is selling something but not everyone is buying.

The Readers

I tried to get an accurate number through research of readers besides bestsellers lists. The most I could find was a reference to surveys where the 30 something population were the biggest market reading at least one book in the past year. The survey also mentioned that older than 30 were probably too busy to read books which is doubtful. One book per year is hardly a market however most surveys would be completed online by people in their 30's. I know avid readers who read one book a week or at least one a month. Online media like Vocal seems to grasp people who are online already or enjoy short stories and articles specifically. It is a great option for coffee-breakers or evening relaxers!

The bottom line is if you want your work to be read right away and engage readers then online media is the way to go or at least start. It is also a great way to present a portfolio of your work. There will always be two main preferences for readers, online or print, and two types of publishing, Traditional or Indie/Self-publishing.

If you have a writing bug you can do no better for yourself than to nurture it. Be a blind supporter of yourself. Whether you get 200 at a book launch or 2 your reason for being there is that you have left your mark. Your words are there to read and be carried into the future and that matters for the next generation and the next and for whomever you inspire.

By Lisa Lachapelle, Writer, Author. More of her work here and here.

Poems I, by Lisa A Lachapelle, Indie Published:

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