Earning a Living With Your Series

[SleepingPoppy]

a pit stop to make some extra $$ while fine-tuning their novels, since serials aren't going to take off.

Why wouldn't it take off? What a weird opinion! I read a bunch of stuff that updates in chapter installments. I do like searching for things that have finished updating, too, because I'm a binge reader, but I don't mind that they've been written as chapter installments, verses the formatting of a fulling fleshed out and edited novel. I like this style of writing, as long as the quality is there and the story engaging.

I'd imagine as with comics, not everyone will be able to support themselves full time this way, but there's nothing illegitimate about it. And I don't think writing a novel is necessarily a better path to money making. XD

if you were given the opportunity to make a decent living at your current series, would you?

Not interested in any deals that mean sacrificing creative freedom, but I'd be delighted to make a living from the comic via patreon and other creator controlled tools. I do not care at all about publishing any standard book or comic books.

[Kuma]

I already earn a living by writing, only that on a different medium. I would really love to get more income by writing novels, but right now I'm just happy to get people commenting on my chapters and reading.

[cherrystark]

Why wouldn't it take off? What a weird opinion! I read a bunch of stuff that updates in chapter installments. I do like searching for things that have finished updating, too, because I'm a binge reader, but I don't mind that they've been written as chapter installments, verses the formatting of a fulling fleshed out and edited novel. I like this style of writing, as long as the quality is there and the story engaging.

I don't understand the logic of that opinion either. Serialized fiction has taken off, Vella is just another platform. I've found tons of amazing writers through serialized fiction that I never would have discovered through traditional publishing.

[therosesword]

One of the things I was lamenting about tonight to @cherrystark is that on the vella FB pages that we frequent or pass information on the discussions are NOT about writing. They're all about gaming the system to make money.

Now, I like money and would like to make a decent bit of income off of my writing, of course I would we all would. I've been there, done it and want to do it again. but....

There are very few of the writings on the vella pages that I feel are "writers" They're people who can string words together into a story, I have no doubt some of them are good, but... their posts lack the passion that I'm used to with a lot of writers. Whether good or awful.

Now, it could be that this is a new venue for them so that's what they're looking at but discussions about writing serials, the ins and out, the subplot weaving the character development, none of that happens.

It's: What genre do you think will bring in the $$$.
or: Should I do erotica, I prefer clean romance but if it brings in $$$ I can give it a try?
or: I'll put up the three freebees and then another few and if I don't get many readers I'll just pull it.

Only once have I seen someone mention that they had a story bouncing around in their brain but it didn't fit anywhere and now that there's a chance at serializing it, it might be here.

Only once.

Otherwise, that's all it is: If I do this twist will it bring in more $$$. If I write author's notes will it bring in more $$$. If I do 3,000 words the first 3 free chapters then cut back to 1,200 for subsequent paying chapters do you think people will get angry.

It's actually rather disheartening.

[darthmongoose]

Yes. I would love to make my income from an original IP comic I create, and Errant is very close to my heart as concepts go, so if that was the one making money, I'd be really happy.
Most of my adult life I've made my income working on other people's IP doing stuff like illustration, comics, games art, supplementary copywriting and games/activity design, so it'd be nice to make an income with my own IP. The absolute holy grail for me is "making money from an IP that's a personal passion project" like Errant, but realistically it's more likely to succeed as "making money from an IP I created specifically to be sellable", and the best I can do is to make sure that sellable IP is at least decently fun to write and draw, even if it isn't as self-indulgent as Errant.
Gotta say it's hard not to feel envious of people whose self-indulgent tastes, preferred style and favourite tropes also fortunately happen to be things that are fashionable, easy to sell, or popular. Life would be a lot easier! But... them's the breaks!

[SagaHolmgaard]

Yeah I'd LOVE to just keep doing my comic and have that be my income. Though what I want even more than that would be to grow an audience that likes my work over all, because Reclaim isn't actually that long. In a few years I'll reach the end, and I hope that my readers will like to read whatever I create after that.
So... make a living out of having a community? Building fans not for one series, but for my overall style and ideas?

[Llyrel]

the only way to make a living as a writer is to publish your work as a book.

Yeah, well... good luck with that :'D note: what I'm gonna talk about strictly refers to Italy and how traditional publishing works here, so it may not really be applicable to people living in the US, but...

I'm a traditionally published author and illustrator. I won a bunch of writing competitions and got a few of my short horror stories published in different anthologies by a bunch of small-ish publishers. I also wrote and published five non-fiction books, two of which were written together with another author. My co-author is far more popular than I am, won several national prizes and published books with all of the BIG names of Italian publishing.

Wanna know how much money I make with my books? Zero Absolutely NOTHING.
My co-author (whose most famous book has been around for nearly two decades at this point and had more than 20 reprints) used to make, at best, five-ish months worth of salary out of published books.
Nowadays... we joke about the fact that, if I were to even get one (1) Patron for my comic, I'd actually end up being the "rich" one.

None of the "traditionally published" authors over here can make a living with the books they write. All of the big names usually have at least another job (the great majority of them being journalists) and the few ones who -do- manage to only focus on "writing" were already rich on their own. Royalties are utterly ridiculous (6%) and publishers do literally nothing to promote your works: basically, the only difference between traditional publishing and self-publishing, unless you're an already "big author" whose name alone sells a million copies on its own, is that with the former you get to have the name of a fancy publisher printed on the cover of your book.

It's even worse with comics, since the great majority of publishing houses only seem to focus on already existing IPs (the youngest one of which has to be at least 30 years old) and the ones who take original works either don't want long series or want series that are basically already famous on their own (BUT you can't publish a work that's already been published elsewhere, not even online, so again, if you have a long form comic you're pretty much screwed, since you'd have to write a whole new story from scratch anyway). There ARE a few teeny-tiny publishers who seem more open about what they take in, but then again, forget about making a living with them XD

Long story short: I'd LOVE to get my comic traditionally published one day, but I'm perfectly aware that I wouldn't be making any money out of it. It'd be just for the joy of seeing it printed and sold in book stores/cons, really. As far as earning a living goes, I think serialized fiction, online platforms, Patreon, Ko-Fi, Amazon Books and perhaps Kindle Vella are truly where the money is. Which doesn't mean that making a living out of it is "easy" or that it's all sunshine and rainbows, mind you: for example, I would never be able to accept one of Webtoon's contracts for an Original (not that I think they'd offer me one, but still :'D). From what I heard, their salary would be just a little bit higher compared to what I currently make with my day job... except that I'd have to work for A LOT more hours and that I'd probably have to use that money to hire assistants to help me with the job, leaving me with LESS money than I had before. So... no, thanks XD

That said, I think that with the right advertising and some luck, platforms definitely offer you better chances for visibility and even earning money than (some) traditional publishers do.

[doublemelon]

I wouldnt mind being an Original if I have created more content for my comic, because I hate deadlines

[Zugaikotsu]

Dude, those people need to land in 2021 and come with the facts that closed book volumes aren't this hot anymore... serialized fiction, webnovels, specially are becoming the NEXT BIG THING, after the boom of korean style webomics. Do people think Naver bought Wattpad and Kakao bought Radish just to burn money around? Chinese webnovel sites are appearing in bucks, they have a captive audience who swallow-reads series with more than 2k chapters and the aforementioned don't want to be left behind.

But well, if these people want to be stuck in a mindset of 2010... guess it can't be helped

This said, I make a decent living from my series. Also I have to work a lot, and fell ill more than once, but it's part of the package, at least for now. There is no such a thing for me as a "temporary stopping ground" to publish another work. I give my best in all I do so I deserve to be (well) paid.

[cherrystark]

@Llyrel Thank you for your insight. I'm not super familiar with the traditional publishing scene in the US but I'm curious if things aren't that much different. When we were looking into how much a Kindle writer made, we found out that too make any sort of income, the writers have to constantly be writing. They make a small fee per reader/book. The more I've looked into it, the more it sounds like I'd have to sacrifice art for $$.

@Zugaikotsu Exactly!!! TBH I can't think of the last time that I've purchased a Kindle book. The only books I have purchased are either copies of books I've read before or "new" books from authors I've already read. Rarely, have I browsed the library buying books from authors I've never heard of. I still buy physical books but I'm paring down my collection. On the other hand, I frequently check out serialized work and read new authors stuff. To me, it makes more sense to read this way.

[Caro]

I can’t really speak to novels but in comics I have always been perfectly in the middle of both webcomics and print comics and its all been integral to my livelihood. More and more comic publishers are starting to understand and be okay with previously published online works because that’s a built in audience they can pull from and right now comics need as much new audience members as they can get. I also only work with publisher’s who are creator owned and have pretty substantial royalty split that makes it possible for me to earn a modest living with my print comics alone. I just signed my biggest contract with the biggest advance I’ve ever gotten for a non-YA creator owned collection of comics where I was told by the publisher that they had recently started being fine with folks still posting their comics online as long as there was a certain number of pages of exclusive content.

Also so far none of my publishers own any media rights which is the real way into making lots of money. I own all of my IP so far because I’ve never signed a bad contract and have been in talks with production companies so fingers crossed but honestly I’m not interested in animation as much as I am in comics.

But as far as traditional publishing vs. webcomics go well I make a substantial amount more from book advances and my proud lil pile of quarterly royalty checks currently than I did with my Original Webtoon and I have a lot more flexibility. Also any and all freelance work I’ve gotten in animation tended to be from someone seeing my physical books or owning them and I can count on uhhh zero fingers how many good gig offers I got from Webtoon (tho I do get offers based on comics I post outside of WT on social media).

I also do have a Patreon for supplemental income and those have been very important for me this year but if I do the math still don’t earn me quite as much as all of my print endeavors combined.

[surenlicious]

I am also already earning a living with mine, and I have big goals I am working towards to get there. But because I have these goals, I am very alert on opportunity and I have a pretty good working bullshit radar. Sadly too many things that come across me currently are setting off said bullshit radar, but I know I will hit the mark eventually. XD

[therosesword]

absolutely ADORE your response.

[jamontoast98]

I would love to be like Mieri Hiranishi (https://www.patreon.com/mierihiranishi) who has a full-time job while earning a decent amount without the need for a publisher. (Well, if I could I'd probably quit my job too lol)

I have a whole ONE person on my Patreon, so I must be doing something right!

[Zugaikotsu]

yes, me too! Ive been reading soo much more web novels... you can follow the story gradually and comment, and fanboy/girl in real time with other readers... so much more fun!

[Lady_T_Musings]

AALLLLL of this for me too, Though I make pretty niche looking stuff so though I don't see myself being featured with my current series, I'd love to get to a point where enough people dig what I do that I can get steady side income for sure

[cherrystark]

I think online fiction makes it tons easier to support newer writers. One of the things I love most about online fiction is seeing how writers are actively trying to create the best work they can: Whether it be feedback sessions or even discussing ways to fix/improve upon toxic tropes. From what I've seen in the other groups, that kind of thing doesn't happen

[therosesword]

From what I've seen in the other groups, that kind of thing doesn't happen

yeah, like the a bunch of the vella people, it's all about marketing and gaming the system, and promoting and being experts in stuff you know nothing about. No discussions on other things.

[yumeryuu]

Actually my novel I release now on TAPAS is a BREAK from conventional publishing.

I have two novels written from an unfinished three novel series. Available on Amazon here:

I did all the editing, layout and cover myself. But its worth for exposure was little considering I didn't know how to advertise. I find I am starting to sell only now (10 years after I wrote them) as I am finally getting the hang of advertising myself.

I wanted to do a graphic novel. THE SOUL COLLECTORS was something I started working on about 5 years ago. And I struggled and struggled to find a platform I like. I love releasing chapter by chapter. It is way more fun.

THE SOUL COLLECTORS | Tapas

[sushy00]

If I could earn a living from my current series I would do that immediately. It would be the dream to be honest _