Orna Ross
[Summary of February 11 BAIPA meeting by John Byrne Barry and Tamara Shiloh]
Author Orna Ross started her workshop for the February 11 BAIPA meeting by asking for a show of hands. “Who here is happy with the money they’re making as a writer?”
One person raised his hand. Another hesitated, then raised it halfway
I did not raise my hand. Nor did most of the 70 or so people at the meeting.
Later, during her afternoon workshop, she asked us to do a free-write — quick and dirty — to “write a letter to money.”
Here’s mine (John):
Dear money, I think about you often, and I wish I had more of you, but there’s part of me that is uncomfortable with you and would not want to have too much of you.
Where my books are concerned, however, I don’t think that’s the case. I’d be thrilled to make thousands of dollars from my books. I would not be uncomfortable with that. I deserve that.
As for what came in between, I can’t possibly do it justice here in a brief blog, but suffice to say that she challenged some of our assumptions about making money, talked about how one of the best parts of self-publishing is the relationship between the author and reader, and that we can’t expect to make money unless we pursue multiple channels. Not just selling to readers, but also by advertising, teaching, consulting, and/or affiliate sales.
Here’s Tamara’s take on the workshop:
I’ve always wanted to make money selling my books. However, I’ve never given much thought to it until I heard Orna. I’ve always heard folks say, if you’re an author, don’t give up your day job. While that may be true, I think now, we can give some thought to maybe working part-time.
Orna really made me really think about my relationship with money. One of the exercises was to write a letter to money. In my letter I advised money that it would be the stepping stone to me getting my books into as many hands as I could. And that I enjoy traveling, but can’t afford to travel like I want, so money would provide me with a means to travel and introduce my books to children all over the country.
It is okay to want to make money selling books, Orna said. And it’s also okay not to put a lot of emphasis on it. That’s a personal choice. So much depends on how much work you put into the process. She also emphasized that understanding our passion and mission for writing is key to understanding our relationship to money.
Here’s more from Orna:
- I like the term author/publisher. More DIWO (do it with others) as opposed to DIY (do it yourself). It takes a village to raise a child. It takes a village to write a book.
- Hundreds of thousands of authors are making a living, many in romance. (The model there is you write a lot of books. Many books a year.)
- Authors are giving employment to other creatives. We employ editors, designer, social media folks.
- For distribution, look for non-exclusively. We recommend going directly to Amazon, Kobo, Itunes, etc. Or an aggregator, like Draft to Digital or Smashwords.
- Get outside of the U.S. It takes very little extra effort to go global — especially English-speaking countries, like UK, Australia, India.
- Understand what you’re offering with your book. — Be of service to your reader. Entertain. Inform. Inspire. (The best books do all three.)
- Distribute widely in multiple formats — be available wherever there are readers. Or listeners.
- At the center of your marketing is email. Build your email list. It’s almost impossible to make money without having a strong list. (The number of people on list not as important as how engaged they are.)
- Money is nothing, but a symbol. The exchange of our energy. It’s a relationship. A mirror that shines back at us what we think and feel about ourselves.
