Do You Want to Start a Creative Business?

When I began selling my e-books online, it was with the assumption that I absolutely had to rely on Amazon and other e-book distributors to make money. That was before I thought in terms of starting a creative business. Not only are there other ways to sell one’s books, but there are all sorts of … Read more

Sustainable Self-Publishing: Three Essential Tips

To be honest, I didn’t plan to be a self-published author. It’s something I stumbled into after several years of writing novels, seeking a publisher or agent, and being rejected. This was after my first novel was published by a small press that went out of business nine months later. And after I had a stroke that caused me to develop dystonia, a movement disorder that can drain my energy and motivation considerably.

My point is that if you’re going to self-publish, you should go into it fully informed. Self-publishing success doesn’t come from simply putting a book out there and waiting for readers to notice. You have to do some kind of marketing and promotion, if you wish to make a career out of self-publishing your work.

To have a sustainable career as a self-published author, you not only have to put in the time and effort to write your books, but you need to use every available resource to maximum advantage. This means creating a marketing plan. One that squeezes the maximum benefit out of each effort you engage in.

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Owning Your Content Means Having Control Over Your Income Streams

When you create your own content, that material has intellectual property (IP) rights attached to it. You, as the creator and owner of these rights, can exploit them or license them as you see fit and earn income from that.

Therefore, if you’re an indie author or indie creator of any sort, you should become familiar with your IP rights and explore the various ways to generate income streams from them.

In the case of books, this can include creating various formats, such as print (hardcover, paperback, large print, etc.), digital (i.e., Kindle .mobi, everyone else .epub, PDF), audiobook, and different adaptations (film, podcast, radio, graphic novel, etc.).

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How Not to be Successful

 

We live now in times of incredible distraction. Everywhere we look there are success stories. Along with that are stories of people who overcame incredible odds to succeed at something or other, despite an infirmity or life-changing event of some sort or other. And we want to be successful, too.

We see these stories and think, “Oh, I wish I could be them” or “Thank God I’m not them.”

Either way, we’re doing a form of comparison that’s unhealthy for us.

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