If You Write as a Hobby, You Might Want to Keep It That Way

If you only want part of the story when it comes to how to build yourself into an author who actually makes a little money, by all means, read the tons of blogs out there.

These blogs paint a rosy picture of hope and provide "a few simple steps" to launch you on your way to selling thousands of dollars worth of books, with almost no effort or money out of your pocket. The advice provided is often sound, but they tend to leave out the parts which would send most people packing before ever getting started: It takes a ton of commitment, you're probably going to fail repeatedly and you probably have to spend money to have any chance at making any (and you don't have much of a chance, frankly).

In simple terms, there is almost no path whatsoever for turning your hobby of writing into something which will provide a small, but steady, flow of income. This is not meant to discourage you from writing. To the contrary, it's a piece of advice I offer as a means to maintain your love of writing. Hobbies are fun. Trying to make money from a hobby is a good way to ruin said hobby for yourself.

Luckily, there are a few places you can go to "publish" your work and get feedback from total strangers. Most writers at least feel a desire to have validation of their writing talent, and using a tool such as Wattpad or Smashwords to get you that validation is perfectly acceptable. It might be a good first step if you are indeed exploring the idea of monetizing your hobby. If you are a terrible writer and just don't know you are, someone at one of those sites will probably inform you of such.

If you seek more than the simple adulation of total strangers regarding your writing, prepare to roll up your sleeves and open your wallet. Nothing but tons of hard work, failure, rejection and spending your own money to accomplish even modest goals will convince people to buy what you write.

You have left the world where publishing a first draft full of typos, plot holes and crazy formatting is acceptable. Those things can happen (but probably shouldn't) when you're giving your writing away. You wouldn't expect to get raw bacon at a restaurant when you order breakfast, this is the same principle. You need to institute quality controls, such as an editor. There is a distinct difference between relying on your best friend's niece to help you (a proofreader) and paying someone to find typos, provide critical feedback and suggest changes that sharpen your story (an editor). Know the difference.

Once you've managed to get a manuscript or draft that's reasonable, now you have to find ways to put it up for sale. Amazon makes it pretty easy for anyone to publish anything. The caveat is that it also makes it incredibly difficult for anyone to find your work unless you pay Amazon money to advertise it. You'll get the thrill of being on Amazon, which will wear off incredibly quickly when you sell zero copies of your work. (Don't count on your friends and family to buy your work, they'll want you to simply give it away to them, since you know them.)

You will invest tons of hours in self-promotion, researching keywords and other fruitless activities in the world of self-publishing. In return, you might earn a shiny check from Amazon every month for $3.18. From my own personal experience, based on the time I have invested, I literally would have earned more money relocating to a third-world country and taking a minimum wage job there. I'm not exaggerating. The hourly pay rate for the time I have invested is less than a penny an hour.

Add in the cost of your own website to build an author platform and submission fees for publications (what a gig that is, where people pay you to completely ignore them or refuse to acknowledge their existence) and you're really starting to dig a financial hole, just to try to earn money doing something you enjoy. The website will help you sell exactly nothing, the publications will indeed ignore you, or at best reject you in favor of a two-word poem called "Toilet Paper".

I really am not cynical about the whole process, I still do have hope to someday achieve a small measure of success in writing. You may defy the odds somehow. You probably won't, and you ought to be a little better prepared for the failure and frustration than I was.