Climbing the Long Tail: Stage 2

2022-12-26

By now, you've accomplished more than most other writers. You've established a foundation, refined your processes, and taken your first steps up the long tail. You have some allies, you have the start of a catalog, and a small audience. If you're pursuing the traditional path, you've got a couple of books out in the world, or perhaps a handful of short stories.

What comes next depends on what you want. You started thinking about that early but might have lost track of your goal. Perhaps you've changed your mind.

I recommend taking a few days to just ponder what you want from your writing. This will be part of your marketing, an internal scan to figure out how well you've assessed what you can bring to the task and an external scan to see if you've identified a product and a market.

Some key questions you might ask:

1. Are you happy with your path?
   If you chose self-publishing, maybe you want to re-think that decision. There's nothing wrong with putting your next book out on submission to see how the other half lives. If it doesn't get picked up you can always publish it yourself later. Likewise, if you chose traditional publication, it's time to check in with your expectations. Maybe you're just curious and want to take a flyer on publishing a few yourself.
   
   
2. Do you want to go from affordable hobby to professional writer?
   Taking your destiny in your own hands isn't for everybody. Being self-employed means never having to worry about being laid off or fired, but you also have to keep producing. The larger your catalog grows, the easier it is to maintain a standard of living, but you're still only one catastrophic life event from disaster. One might argue that it's not much different from people who work for someone else, but it's something you should consider.
   
   
3. Do you want the brass ring?
   Some writers want the big splash. They're willing to invest the time and energy into trying for the biggest rewards. They're the climbers who want to summit Everest or Aconcagua. They're willing to improve their skills on lesser peaks but won't be satisfied until they've climbed the tallest.

Do you even want to keep writing?

Regardless of how far you've climbed, you can always put it down. You can choose to stop anywhere along the road. It's easier for those who haven't committed to full-time writing, but even they can take a new day job, transition to a different career.

If you want to continue, there's good news and bad news.

The good news: You've got all the pieces in place to take your next steps up the mountain, regardless of which mountain you decide to climb.

The bad news: You have to keep putting one foot ahead of the other and you still might not make it.

Generally speaking, I've found that those who are happy making a living from writing do better by self-publishing. Removing the uncertainty around publication matters when your finances depend on having your books for sale. Those who hunger for the brass ring, need to take the riskier path of the traditional publisher.

Tactics and Operations

Self-publishers:

1. Continue attending local conventions, but invest in a larger, national convention maybe once a year.
   Depending on your current revenue, this might take a while to grow into.
   
   
2. Consider sales and promotions.
   With an established catalog, you've got some leeway to play with price promotions and sales. Try making a book free for a short period. Consider virtual "box sets" where you bundle three or more back list titles into an omnibus edition and price it less than if the books had been purchased together.
   
   
3. Ads are difficult.
   Remember that ads are mass media tools with marginal effectiveness in social media channels. If your sales dry up when you're not running ads, make sure you know how much less you earn without them. Too many people start running ads too early, spend too much of their revenue propping up sales with advertising, and failing to consider that they'd earn more profit without that added expense, especially if it slows down or delays that crucial next book.
   
   
4. Continue to publish new works.
   Nothing sells your last book as well as your next. That holds true regardless of how many books you have in your catalog.

Traditional publishing:

1. Work with your agent and editors, being responsive to their suggestions.
   You need to avoid the "difficult client" label. The more goodwill you can develop, the faster your star can rise.
   
   
2. Consider a second identity.
   Start a parallel career in a different niche. The glacial pace of traditional publishing works against your ability to get new works out. One might be all you can manage and maintain your day-job. If you can swing it, it might offer you more income and give you another chance at the brass ring in a new genre.
   
   
3. If you're writing short stories, consider trying a novel.
   If you write novels, try some shorts. They're two different skillsets, but trying to branch out into new markets might open new doors.
   
   
4. Take some lessons from self-publishers.
   Your publisher will likely have some contract requirements that you need to satisfy, but you can do a lot to reach readers using some of the same tactics as self-publishers. Find allies - particularly in self-publishing circles. Promote books that aren't your own. Attend local conventions and sit on panels. Focus on making friends, not sales.

In all cases, remember your marketing.

1. At least once a year, step back and look around. Are there market opportunities that didn't exist last year? Have some opportunities faded, or even disappeared?

2. Don't forget to look inward, too. Do you have new resources that you can use? Is your process as efficient as it might be? Are you hitting your goals? You might need to re-calibrate your expectations.

3. Examine your work with a critical eye. Is it sufficiently differentiated in your niche? Is it performing as well as might be expected or do you need to explore a different product or a different niche? One that more closely aligns with you, personally?

That's it.

Stage 2 becomes the never-ending climb. Every day you take another few steps. Every new story is another chance to succeed. Whether you're looking for the brass ring or just want to run your own business, the goal becomes "keep going" until you reach "I'm done." Many writers will be happy with the "affordable hobby" while others might want "make a living" level. Some will go for the brass ring. I suspect many will change their minds over time.

We need to go back to the median earnings, the whole reason for writing these posts about the long tail.

The median does not represent a systemic issue that can be corrected. It's simply a data point along the path.

Traditional publishers can't shift it upwards by paying successful authors more. It only gives more to those earning the most already.

They might be able to shift part of the curve upward by promoting their mid-list titles more. That would raise more revenue for the publisher and generate more royalties for those authors earning the least in their catalog, but would do little for those earning little to nothing with a small presence. Publishers already spend more on backlist titles than they used to, but their habit seems more aimed at keeping a book "in print," so the intellectual property doesn't have a chance to revert to the author. The numbers involved don't appear to be significant enough to change the median earnings.

Self-publishers have the best opportunity to shift the median. By paying attention to marketing fundamentals, individuals can improve their earnings. As with any effort involving art, some will succeed, others won't. So many writers self-publish and earn almost nothing, shifting even a fraction of them upwards has a better chance of raising the median for all writers than relying on the traditional publishers to consider something other than their stockholders.

It all starts with the writer. It all revolves around actual marketing - not sales and promotion. It relies on writers to do their internal and external scans. It relies on them to pick the paths that matter to them as individuals.

And it might just be that the median earnings number doesn't matter.

Writing is art.

While what matters in art is how it makes you feel, not how much you make, the truth is that you can't make art if you can't afford the paint.

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