You guys know I’m in a lot of groups on Facebook and most groups have the motto: “The first rule about Fight Club is we don’t talk about Fight Club.” That’s fine…everyone needs a “private” place to vent or to share information. In one of the groups they were talking about being a full-time author and apparently there were a few ruffled feathers when this group started to, I don’t know, break into smaller groups. I think that’s normal really…authors tend to gather by genre or subgenre, fiction or nonfiction, and that’s just the way it is. Lots can depend on the genre you write and what works for a sci-fi author in terms of marketing may not necessarily work for a romance author. Hang around any group long enough and you’ll find that out for yourself.

But the argument here was a group that supports authors shouldn’t be breaking into smaller groups based on earnings. Full-time authors shouldn’t have their own clique. But, guess what? All authors who are making it full-time and don’t have to work a day job do belong to a secret club, and the real reason people get mad about it is that there’s no secret handshake or password for admittance into this group.

Full-time authors get special privileges that authors who still work a day job don’t have–time to hang out on Clubhouse all day, money to go to cons like the 20booksto50k, and I don’t even mean their big meetup in Las Vegas. Craig hosts smaller meetings in luxurious locations like Bali for mastermind talks. Invitations to full-time earning author cons only like NINC (which is held in Florida so not only do you need the royalties to get invited you need the time and money to pay to go down there) will never be available to authors making three or four figures a year. Full-time authors will always have advantages over authors who still have to work, and grousing about it in a group that’s supposed to support all authors (and it really does, whether the members split off or not) isn’t going to help you move up to the next level.

I think another problem is authors are afraid if they’re excluded they’ll miss information on how to do that–level up, I mean. The thing with that though is the information is out there, you just have to be ready and willing to listen and accept it. Twitter is especially bad for authors who only want validation for their poor choices. Just the other day there was a thread about how this author thought FB ads were a waste of money and everyone chimed in to agree. I said they worked for me, and I got crickets for my effort. I just dislike blanket statements like that because it’s always going to be the operator and not the machine. You can go to any author’s profile or Amazon author page to see just what they’re trying to sell, and most of the time just from the cover alone you’ll know why their ads aren’t working. That’s why I like hanging out on Facebook more, at least authors there are willing to listen to feedback and advice. Whether you can take it and make it work for you is another matter.

I consider myself a full-time author…I put in at least 30 hours a week on my books. It might not always be writing (revamping my trilogy took A LOT of time with editing and looking through stock photos to redo their covers) but authors who are truly full-time earning authors aren’t writing ten hour days either. They’re marketing or networking, or writing nonfiction books like Sacha Black and Elana Johnson. They admin their own indie Facebook groups or host writing and publishing rooms on Clubhouse. While they are doing those things, they’re earning a full-time income on the books they’ve published. Unfortunately, I might put in a full-time author’s hours, but I’m nowhere near earning a full-time author’s income. Last month I made enough money to pay my rent–before I subtracted what I spent on ads.

I may never be able to earn enough to be invited to NINC, I may never have the time or spending money to go to a 20booksto50k conference. Writing may always be considered “just” a hobby to my friends, family, and the IRS when really, it’s my passion, what gets me out of bed in the morning, what got me through my divorce and the pandemic, my health issues and my broken engagement. Writing and publishing is part of me and words run through my veins just as much as blood ever will, but what bleeds me dry and what bleeds others dry who do this with me is the fact that we may never, ever, have the income to show for it.

If a large group is going to split off and have their own stickers and secret cocktail, I’m not going to care. I could get bitter because I’ve worked just as hard as most who have “made it” but what’s the point of that? They networked with the right people when I stayed in “indie territory” for too long, or they paid for their covers when I insisted (and still do) on doing my own. They hired editors and I still edit my own books. For every right thing they did and do, I probably did twenty wrong ones because I was still feeling around in the dark and didn’t know any better. Some people are just naturally lucky or have the money to do things the “right way” from the start. They start at the top and can keep climbing. I’ve learned a lot in the past six years. A LOT. Whether or not it will help me in the months and years to come is something else.

I do know that for every hour I put into my books, that one hour brings me closer to where I want to be. Without that time, I wouldn’t be where I am today. Even if my backlist doesn’t sell quickly or a lot, I have good books out there–books I took the time to write. You can’t get anywhere in this line of work without product, and if there’s one thing I can say about the last few years is at least I’ve been doing that one thing–writing.

Lindsay Buroker, Andrea Pearson, and Jo Lallo recently posted a new podcast episode (I’ll link it at the bottom of this paragraph) and Andrea was talking about financial planning and levels of success. She said something like, a rich person can afford to think years in advance, a middle-income person can think months in advance, but a low-income person who’s barely scraping by thinks week to week, or day to day because that’s all they can afford. You can twist that into any kind of currency you want, not just dollars–spoons, time, energy pennies in Becca Syme speak. Someone who has more resources will always be able to think ahead while those barely making ends meet can’t plan past writing their next chapter. The trick, really, is to understand and use what resources you have and figure out a way to think ahead, plan, and implement those plans so future you is really excited about what past you set up for yourself. Maybe that means sticking with a blog so five years down the road you have a steady and engaged audience, or putting all your spare time into TikTok so by this time next year you have a platform that offers some ROI on all that energy spent. Maybe that means planning six months ahead toward a book promo and using those six months to save up for the fee. Maybe you don’t have any spoons and just need your time to write, and if you can recognize that, you’re one step ahead of anyone who can’t understand why they’ve been working on their WIP for the past five years with nothing to show for it. I love their podcast and you can listen to their latest episode here:

There’s no secret knock that will open the door to a full-time author status. You have to put in the work whether you’re working a full-time job or not. It’s hard, it’s really really hard, but you can’t let yourself get bitter. At the risk of sounding trite, you have to determine for yourself what success is. I’ve stayed in the game for years, and that to me is its own form of success. Quitters never win, that’s true, but you have to find your own way to win at this game we’re playing so you don’t quit.

And maybe, just maybe, one day you’ll be walking down the street and a white van will stop alongside you. Someone will shove a burlap sack over your head and you’ll find yourself on a beach in Bali with a piña colada in your hand and part of a secret mastermind group because you wrote that one book that tipped the scales in your favor.

Just don’t get mad at me when I tell you that you have to write the book first.

Until next time!