Mixing Genres and Mediums To Make More Money (Partnerships)

What do you think of when you think of comic books? Do you think of it as good writing, or good artwork? The truth of the matter is that (depending on the comic of course!) it's both. On rare occasions a comic creator is both the artist and the writer but in most cases you have different people doing the writing and the artwork--they are pooling their talents together to make something better than either one could make on their own. Some people have called this the 1 plus 1 equals 3 concept--I call it good teamwork, smart business and an overall good idea.

It's true that the creative process and the business process are very different things, but I never understood why people can't be creative when it comes to business--so long as it proves fruitful and delivers something of value. Some people appreciate writing, others appreciate art. Others appreciate poetry, others music. I've worked with a lot of poets in my line of work and one in particular comes to mind. I'll call him Mike. Sally was a musician who never wrote lyrics. She was very instrumental and could make some very catchy tunes. What happens when you mix poetry with instrumentals? You get songs. And that's what these two did. They put up a website that both of their already established fan bases could go to and the partnership did very well as both sides of the coin gained momentum from a fan base that they otherwise wouldn't have had exposure to.

Of course this isn't the only example that comes to mind. I knew a young lady who wrote science fiction stories who had a brother who was a very good science fiction artist. They toyed with the idea of creating a graphic novel series but found that they couldn't work together properly on a joint creative effort--but they did find a great middle ground--her brother started to illustrate her short stories. A few science fiction pictures inside the text can make a world of difference for the more visually inclined--and how many times do you hear that people would like to know the story behind a piece of art? The combination did very well.

In marketing it is very important to be specific in what you are offering--like we've talked about previously--if your market is everyone, your market is no one. You have to have what you are doing very clearly defined. But it is also a very good strategy to mix fan bases of different kinds by creating a product that several different groups could appreciate.

There is always something to be gained with a good partnership. People are finding out now perhaps more than ever that we can all go much farther forward together than separately. And good team work means that everyone brings something valuable to the table. When trying to add value to the lives of your readers by putting out a good product--exploring different means of giving them content is very important. And mixing genres of delivery has the potential to yield rewards that might be impossible to achieve through a single medium.

In the early 1900's the ice cream man and the waffle man at a fair mixed their products together to create the ice cream cone--think of how working together benefited all of us in that situation.

In the world of the 21st century, the equilibrium is much easier to attain. With the right combination everyone benefits--the audience, and the creators. And when done properly, there is no downside at all.

The Writer's Reputation: More Valuable Than Money

Unless you have lived under a rock, you probably have known some people who have said some things that they were intending to do that they didn't do. Some people might have promised things they never delivered, and some might have made committments that they never upheld. I'm sure that if you knew those people over a long period of time, after awhile, you stopped listening to what they said they were going to do and eventually their words or promises became meaningless.

At the same time, there are probably people in your life that who say they are going to do things...and then actually do them. People who keep their promises, people whose words are often or always backed up with actions to go with them. Odds are, these are the people in your life that you depend on, rely on, keep going back to and trust.

The simple word for both of these concepts is reputation. Reputation is probably the single most important thing when it comes to someone making their way through the world--and a writer's reputation is VERY essential to his or her success and it is a point that is far too often overlooked.

There is an old beleif that creative types and business don't coexist very well. There is a reason for that--a large number of creative types have proven to hold erratic schedules, show up late for appointments and back out of things last minute. Couple this in a world of the instant gratification culture and it becomes epidemic. I'm sure all of you have seen writers who were talking about a book they were going to write for 5 years that never got written. Writers who started blogs they only posted on once, websites they never updated, went to only one open-mic reading and never went back, started untold numbers of projects that never got finished...but then wondered why it was so hard to "make" it as a writer.

                                                           
                 

In the fast paced world it makes a great deal of sense that people do not want to spend a lot of time on what they consider to be a project that is dead in the water. Afterall, most people have very busy schedules with the average work-week being well over 40 hours plus family committments, and more. But an unfortunate side effect of starting things that are given up on quickly is that the writer does the exact opposite of what they should be doing while cultivating a reputation. Instead of making a reputatoin for being consistent and reliable with their writing--they inadvertantly give themselves a reptuation for being flakey, inconsistent and all talk with no walk. This can be DEVESTATING to a potential writer's career.

Rule number 1 that all writers should follow: (truthfully everyone should follow this) never announce or say you are going to do something you don't actually do. Actions should always back up your words. It's that simple--words are our greatest resource--our greatest tool. And those tools become rusty when we don't take care with them.

Rule number 2 that all writers should follow: be patient. Nothing yeilds results immediatly (or almost nothing does) and anything worth having is worth fighting for. If things came easy we wouldn't celebrate the hard earned success.

Rule number 3 that all writers should follow: be consistent. Write a lot about your topic, write a lot of poetry, write a lot of essays or stories. Whatever it is you do, do it consitently, and let your audience get used to seeing and expecting a lot from you. (That is what keeps them coming back.

Thousands and thousands of new publicatins, magazines, anthologies open up for submissions ever year. Close to 90% of the announced projects never see publication. So it's no wonder that it takes people a little bit of time to start to trust new blogs, websites, authors to be reliable and as something worth their time to keep coming back to. But once you have broken through the trust barrier and proven to be something they can keep coming back to--then you have build up a good reputation in the eyes of your readers. And once the reputation is established, selling products, books, eBooks, CD's and more becomes much, much easier. People will book you for interviews, performances, readings and more if they know they can depend on you. No one wants to shell out money to what they can't depend on--but they will give money for something they can trust.

A reputation is more valuable than money--because a good reputation can LEAD to money. Sometimes, a great deal of it.

The $7500 Dollar-A-Month Poetry Blog

              You are probably wondering if you read this right. 7500 dollars in one month for poetry? Poetry? The art that no one pays for? Well, I've seen it happen personally. It's real, it works, it just takes a little bit of creativity. The prime example that comes to mind is someone we shall call Julie.

                Julie was a poet--she mostly wrote love poetry. True it might be sappy, love poetry certainly isn't original, and maybe people won't go out to the book store to buy volumes of it. But on the Internet? You wouldn't BELIEVE how many people search for them when they are in this mood or that mood--same reason why so many love songs on the radio become greatest hits. At first, Julie just started a simple free blog to post her poetry. She tagged it properly so it would show up in search engines and after only a month or two she had thousands of people viewing her work.

                That's not even remotely close to where it ends though. People started writing to her in response to her poetry--some people started showing her poetry of their own. So she decided to open submissions for some poetry that she would post on her blog--the submissions came pouring in. It was around this time that she signed up for google adsense--in case you haven't heard of it yet, it's a program that bloggers and website owners can use to place advertisements on the sidebars of their websites--for every click a reader gives on one of the ads, the owner of the blog/website makes a few cents. And google adsense is just one of many that can do this. For the first couple months, the adsense only came out to be a little bit--but it was still some extra money.

                It was around this time that Julie noticed Feb was only a short period away--we all know whats in Feb--Valentine's day--the time when love poetry is most desired. Julie went to a free printing service called lulu--put together a collection of her own poetry that she poised to set up for sale during valentines day. Beyond that--she set up a contest offering a modest prize in the form of a gift card to the winner for those who would send poems for her blog and she used a free polling service to post the finalist poems she selected and have her readers vote on it--the voting would only be open the week before valentines day and the winner would be announced on Feb 14th itself. She also assembled an anthology of love poetry based on the poetry she had published on her blog from other writers (with their permission of course) and posted dozens of her own poems and their poems on the blog as free samples.

                It gets even better. Flowers are very popular during valentines day--arrangements, stuffed bears, etc are all the rave and people want to send them to their loved ones. Julie found out that some websites that offer delivery service also offer affiliate marketing--that is, she signs up for their program and posts direct links to specific packages on her blog in the sidebars--and if anyone who orders the products through her site she gets a portion of the proceeds. Knowing just how many people would be coming to her blog, and knowing that the poetry would put people into lovey dovey moods, she set it up so that it would only take one or two clicks for them to purchase her book, the anthology and any of a number of arrangements.

                The bottom line? Her website had over 35,000 hits in the two weeks before Valentine's day and the combination of sales from the two books and the affiliate marketing from the flowering websites brought her in over 7500 dollars. Not bad for one month's work. Now I know one could argue that it took her at least 6 months to set up the blog in a position in which it could drive this home--but the key to remember here is that it was only the month leading up to Valentine's day that Julie even put all that much work into what she was doing. The rest of the time she was just doing what she always did best--writing her poetry and sharing it via a well positioned blog with the rest of the world.

                And here is the point to remember--lots and lots of people have similar set-ups like this. It's far more common than one would think. There’s no giant hidden mystery for the formula—in fact it’s very straight forward. I’m not going to say that anyone can do it—because we all have different levels of dedication, time, ability, etc etc. But anyone SHOULD be able to do it—if they are motivated enough, write enough and are dedicated enough to getting their work out there—then there are literally no walls up that should prevent them from doing so—and making a profit from it at the same time.

Mousetrapped: The Story of A Successful Self-Published Book

I keep on saying that one of the greatest things about the internet age is the fact that no one needs a publisher--or at least a big publisher that is impossible to get to notice you, anymore. If one has a good idea--the boundaries to putting out there have been stripped down and replaced with opportunities. The bad part about this--is literally everyone thinks they have a good idea and everyone who has a good idea thinks they know how to market it. This has led to an oversaturation of new self-published books and most of them sell an average of 2--you heard right, 2-10 copies.

Of course, the dream is still possible and even probable when certain measures are taken. Take a look at the story of mousetrapped--a successful self published travel book.

http://mousetrappedbook.com/

And in her own words:

http://selfpublishingteam.com/guest-post-why-i-self-published-my-novel-after-saying-i-never-would/

The success of Mousetrapped is a typical rags to riches story thanks to the success of the popularity of her topic. She also made her writing available in multiple online outlets and had a physical book tour to accompany it--the combination cannot be beat. Too many authors focus on one or the other but not enough of the other. Her online base made it easy for people to locate and to buy.

Since the success of her first book, the author has gone on to have several more succesful titles--even offering some packaged deals. And the funny part is--if she had gone with a traditional publisher, she wouldn't have made nearly as much profit as she did.

How The Publishing World Has Changed (For The Better?)

It certainly can't be denied that the publishing world has changed in the last 15 years. The internet brought with it instant communication on a level we never could have dreamed of just a few years earlier. As with all new technologies, traditions that existed before them changed. The publishing world is no different—everywhere you look you see reports of failing book store chains, struggling authors, and even the largest publishing companies are feeling the financial squeeze. Does this mean the publishing world is in trouble? Of course not.

Popular belief would love to say that the world of books and the world of writing is in trouble thanks to the major changes—but since when is popular belief right? Mark Twain once famously said “Any time I find myself agreeing with the public, it is time for me to reevaluate my position.” And he had a very good point. People love doomsday theories, and people have been predicting the end of many forms of popular entertainment and technology for a long, long time. The radio was supposed to go out when television came about, television was supposed to go out when the internet came around. Theater, poetry, radio, television, the internet and even (to a lesser extent) old fashioned records are all still out there. Some of these things aren't as popular as they used to be—but there is still a place for them. And writing? Writing is something that is never going to go away so long as people keep on reading. And studies show that people read far MORE today than they did 15 years ago. The difference is only in the mediums.

Not to mention, the doomsday publishing theorists overlook the fact that any time a traditional system is in upheaval it's only because the playing field had changed. As a result—they don't look at the major changes that have occurred right before our eyes and they blind themselves to the numerous new opportunities that have presented themselves. Despite what some will say, this revolution is actually a good thing for writers—in fact it's a GREAT thing.

Are publishers going through a rough time? Sure they are—at least the ones who aren't being smart and savvy about the changes in the field. But for individual authors—the time to be born couldn't be better—for one major reason. Authors are no longer dependent on anyone to put their writing out there. The options they now have are literally unlimited. They can still choose to go with a traditional publisher if they are more comfortable—but for the overly ambitious poet/fiction writer/essayist, the world is theirs for the taking. Self publishing, or small press work has never been easier. And more importantly, marketing for the individual author or small press has never been easier either. It is true that more than a few of the great books were originally self published. (Leaves of Grass and Ulysses to name a couple.) But for a long time, especially with the development of giant publishing companies, the way to success for authors was almost monopolized. They required permission from editors or owners before they could get their work to the general public. It was harder for the average person to have access to printers, artists, promotion, radio interviews, and do all the things that authors took quite a big fat royalty out of the author's pay for many years for. Now, all those barriers haven't only been lowered—they have been OBLITERATED.

Authors are freer than ever to put their work in books and have them printed ON DEMMAND with no extra copies stored and no major financial hole they have to go into to take a risk on it. Blogs can promote poetry to thousands of people around the world—and the poets can take a nice chunk of advertising money from adsense and other programs in the process. These authors can put up their own websites—hand out business cards with the web address to attract people and use videos on Youtube to show interviews and back story extras. And the best part about it? They don't have to share their profits with anyone.

On top of that, a new wave of small presses have come about who share most of the burdens of production with the author while taking much less of a chunk of the royalties from them. Some traditional publishing houses would give the author royalties as little as 8% of the profits from a book. These new small presses go somewhere closer to 70/30, 60/40 and sometimes (although rarer) even 50/50. More importantly, there is no limit of the mainstream markets as thanks to the internet there is now a niche market for literally ANYTHING one can think of. Mixed media outlets allow authors to reach more people than ever before. Books on tape? A simple as the audio recording program on their computer. The options are literally endless for those who are willing to go out there and take them. So stop listening to the gloom and doom theories—start to believe the (true) fact that in the world of new and thriving technologies comes new and thriving ways for authors to make a living. And that's what we are going to explore together.