The Small Business of Writing

Writers tend to be quiet folk who spend much of their time alone at a keyboard transferring imaginary storyworlds into words and scheming ways to make their main characters slog through the most painful drama imaginable.

Marketers, on the other hand, often thrive from their larger-than-life personalities that easily promote a product or service with clever sound bites and non-stop networking. With daily care and feeding, their social media platforms grow to be massive extensions of their advertising reach.

Now imagine both jobs belonging to the same person and voilà—enter the contemporary published author in the twenty-first century. Not only do writers need to master their craft to create the most amazing prose ever captured in a novel, they must also become skilled marketers to sell the books they create and preferably maintain a dedicated website, Instagram, Facebook, X, and TikTok presence.

After completing a manuscript, the author cannot dwell long in that accomplishment. The unsuspecting writer must now educate herself on book proposals, comparables, target markets, SEO (a.k.a. search engine optimization), newsletter email distribution, online shopping carts, and the like.

When their books graduate to published status, writers essentially run a small business where they take on the content expertise along with the bookkeeping, marketing, and management of the enterprise. And like any small business owner, the scope of work can be exhausting.

A quick Google search of marketing for writers produces all kinds of advice and for-profit services on how to sell a book. Indeed, the industry targeting unpublished writers on how to get their novel out to the world makes tons more money than the authors themselves.

According to a recent Author’s Guild survey, the median annual income for full-time writers is $10,000, plus another $10K of related income from speaking, editing, journalism, and other services. So that means about half of these writers earn below the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour for their books.

Piled on top of herculean writing and marketing efforts, most authors do not earn enough from their toil to support themselves, so they hold down another position to pay the bills. With three full-time jobs, sounds like authors don’t have any time left for the rest of their lives, namely family, errands, housework, cooking, shopping, bill-paying, fun, etc.

So why would anyone subject themselves to that kind of struggle? Like any creative endeavor, writing can be a calling. Even if authors choose to step away from their craft, stories and characters continue to haunt their dreams and demand to be told. Whether a labor of love or something bordering on a pipe dream, many writers persevere. And when that story finally connects with readers to make them encouraged, inspired, entertained, or swept away—well, that’s when everything’s worth it.

Check out my new website at CarolEaton.com. Looks like I’ve joined the small business club.