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.

Make A Bundle With A Bundle

This practice admittedly works far better for authors who have produced quite a bit of writing, maybe a few products and have a decent fan base already built up. It won't work so well if you don't have much content. But if you have a good amount of content--even if you do not have a major fan base already built in, this can still earn you more than you would expect--and increase your fan base by making your old readers and a few (maybe more) new ones happy. 

Everyone loves a bargain--especially in these tough economic times. And you can score some serious points with existing and new fans by giving them what they want--a good deal. Say that you have a new book coming out for example (I use book because it is the most common form of product with writing but it could be a single story, a booklet, ebook, just about anything.) If you're been doing the right thing with it, you would have a blog or a website up where your fans would know well in advance of its near approach. Assuming you have any sort of already existing merchandise (and if you don't you can plan on this for the future) a good way to drive up some sales would be to throw a few books, ebooks, booklets, stories, audio books, etc together into a limited time bargain bundle. It works for Stephen King Novels online, it's worked in brick and mortar book stores (buy 2 get the 3rd free!) it can work for you as well. The advantage we all have today is that in the digital age--nothing spreads faster than the news of a bargain. 

There is also the possibility here of working with other authors in your field. There is a common saying that when it comes to partnerships, 1 plus 1 equals 3. The idea simply meaning that together you can be worth more than either of you can separately. If you have author friends in your field--(or even across field, genre, medium lines) what is to stop you from combining your books, audio books, comics, or whatever it is you have into bundles together? Especially digitally--you can reach both your audiences and sell maybe double what you would sell normally. But the greatest things about bundles is that word of them spread like wildfire--word of mouth, link sharing etc. This admittedly works better if both of you (or heck all of you--you could have a bundle of 5-10 authors--the sky is the limit) have your own audiences and therefore can spread it to more people inherently. But even if your audiences are only a few each--it's still extra exposure. And the few in your existing audiences are far more to spread word of mouth about a deal--especially a limited time deal . (I have found that bundles that last 2-3 weeks tend to work the best--remember, customers are lazy, there has to be a call to action without looking like you are overly trying to sell something. The most successful bundle producers I have seen are those who offer each specific bundle option only once for a period of 2 weeks--sure they will have other bundles in the future, but never exactly THIS bundle again--the urgency shakes the apathy out of most potential buyers.) 

Now before you start to worry that all this would be nearly impossible to set up--it is actually quite easy. Assuming you or any one of your partners in this bundle has a website that is up and running--you can easily put together a digital release using a quick, cheap and easy resource like e-junkie.com along with a shopping cart button from Paypal.com to receive payment. And the great advantage of a digital bundle is the fact that you can give serious discounts on your prices without feeling the burn yourself--other than paying transaction and hosting fees, the only thing a digital bundle costs you is the labor you put forth to create it. 

The bundle idea, like so many other options we can consider in the age we currently live is represents something more--both sides of the equation are winning. Equilibrium: the customer gets something of extended value and the author gets to sell more. And in the case of partnerships, more people benefit. This is just one example of the way in which the creative world of writing has changed quite a bit. One product one sale might not do nearly as well anymore--especially with the overwhelming amount of competition out there. But with the infinite amount of tools available to all of us today--there is no shortage of creative solutions to reaching more people, and creativity is something that authors, when they put their mind to it, do very, very well.