It's About Time!

I'm an impatient guy. As an hybrid author, I know firsthand how long it can take to publish a traditional book. Sometimes years! But indie publishing can be accomplished in as little as a few weeks or a month or so at the longest.

A Career in Fiction?

5 New Year’s Resolutions Every Full-Time Fiction Writer Must Make in 2020, or Else Get a Day Job

(Courtesy Return of Kings)

It’s the new year and already I can feel change in the air. After all, this isn’t only a new year. It’s a new decade. A new era if you will, where politics are becoming more and more divisive, traditional norms like marriage and religion are eroding, and robots are about to take over the workforce. It will be a time of adaptation and innovation. Anyone who doesn’t plan for the future is making a plan to fail.

That’s especially true of full-time fiction writers. Long gone are the traditional query and wait days (that is, unless you’re a total dolt and choose to go that route), while authors can now get their work to market independent of the New York publishing houses in a matter of weeks or even days with online publishing platforms like Amazon KDP and/or Draft to Digital. If you’re like me, you engage in both the traditional and independent forms of publishing (I guess that makes me half a dolt), or what’s better known as the hybrid method. What this means is, there’s never been a better time to be a genre fiction author.

But unlike ten years ago, when you could upload a full-length novel and expect it to sell, the market is far more saturated than it used to be. Now you need to fight for attention not only with fellow mid-list authors, but also the big leaguers like John Grisham and Stephen King. In order to make your brand stick out from the crowd in 2020, and therefore make a good living, you’ll need to do these five things, or die!

1.     Advertise. For better or for worse, investing even a small amount of capital in Amazon ads is absolutely necessary for getting eyes on your books. I’m not about to get into the nitty gritty of how they work, because it’s still a mystery to me precisely how they work. Just know this: Eyes=Impressions. The more impressions the better chance that someone is going to buy one of or more of your books. That said, I’m going to concentrate on advertising first-in-series books, knowing that chances are, the average serial reader will want to read my entire series. 

2.      Optimize. I have something like 40 indie products. Maybe more. I’ve lost count. After five years of solid writing, and very little attention paid to selling, other than the occasional marketing promo, I’m going to be changing out my keywords with the help of KDP Rocket. I’m also going to take a good hard look at my product descriptions to make sure they pass the quality test. Go for enticement, not a book summary. I’ll also look at pricing. Are my books priced too low, or am I charging what they are truly worth? 

3.      Serialize. Unlike my standalones, which I sell to traditional publishers (for the most part, that is), the indie game is all about books in a series. I presently have about seven series going, but I’m going to increase that number. In fact, I’m never going to stop inventing new series. Simply said, they result in long tail sales. Now that’s the gift that keeps on giving.

4.      Audiblize. Audio books are presently exploding. People are reading (listening) to books on their smartphones like never before. I saw my audio sales triple in 2019 and I expect that to happen again in 2020. To be honest, I never used to pay attention to the audio market until I woke up in quarter three of last year and suddenly realized their awesome potential as a money maker. 

5.      Capitalize. Capitalize on other paper book outlets, that is. Another thing I discovered quite by accident in 2019. While eBooks listed in Amazon KU are exclusive to that program and therefore cannot be sold anywhere else, paper is not exclusive. That means you can set up accounts at Ingram Spark for instance. As an experiment, I bought 10 ISBNs off MyIdentifier.com and published eight paperbacks on Ingram Spark (that’s not a typo. I screwed up two of the ISBNs and lost them, but that’s another story). I immediately started earning low three figures right off the bat. Of course, that will only increase with each new book published.       

In a nutshell, I won’t be just a writing machine in 2019. I’ll actually slow down with publishing (primarily because I have two traditional titles being published), but on the other hand, I will be upping my selling efforts in a big way. It’s not enough to be an artist in 2020 and beyond. You must also be a businessman or woman. You must sell you junk if you want to survive in this brave new world that’s changing all around us all the time.   

WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM

Publishing Advances aren't Real Money

 Publishing Advances aren't Real Money...

I realize this is a hard concept for non-industry insiders to grasp. Some publishing outfit like Delacorte gives you $235K for two books. You get the check, after the agent takes his 15%, and you put it in the bank, and you proceed to spend the crap out of it. You do this because you automatically assume there will be more checks like that one coming.

And why not?

You're the toast of NYC, everyone is buying you drinks and steaks, you're partying like a rock star at the Gramercy Park Hotel with other hot authors and agents, you're messing around with your publicist because you're going through your first divorce so why the hell not. You even find yourself chatting it up with Monica Lewinsky on the Amtrak. Clooney and Dreamworks are calling for the movie rights and so are foreign rights cats, and you just put a significant down payment on a new house in the burbs. Life's pretty freakin' good.

You've made it baby!

But in all reality, you've screwed yourself.

Why? Because a year down the road you'll learn the sad truth. You didn't earn out your advance, meaning book sales weren't enough to cover those big fat checks they've been sending you. It means, technically speaking, you owe them that money. Since they're not going to ask for it back, they do this instead: "Hit the road Jack, and don't let the door slap you on the ass on the way out." Other publishers won't touch you either because they have the numbers in front of them to prove what a loser you are. Numbers, by the way, that you somehow aren't privy to.

I'm writing about this today, as is Chuck Wendig, thanks to a really good piece published in Medium by Heather Demetrios: “How To Lose A Third Of A Million Dollars Without Even Trying.” Both articles were brought to my attention by author and pal, Belinda Frisch. Chuck's article in particular really lays out the F'd up math associated with advances and sales of eBook, paper, and audio.   

In a nut shell, Heather's story is so much like my own, it's scary. Even the part where she admits to coming close to a total mental breakdown after making the big time, baby! Authors work so hard, become so emotionally invested in their work, that we don't crave validation for our efforts, we lust validation. We're willing to sacrifice anything to get it. So when a publisher offers us huge advances, we jump at them like a starving dog will leap off the floor for just a taste of raw meat. We lose sight of the big picture and the more than likely scenario of not earning out our advances. What happens is, future advances get smaller and smaller, and we find ourselves writing more and more, in desperate attempt the jump at whatever paltry advance we can get our hands on, just to keep up with the Internet bills.

So much for the big time.

What Heather doesn't write about however, is making a shift from traditional publishing to indie publishing whereby suddenly the author is in control of the product, the marketing, and inevitably the sales. One of the best decisions I made as an author was to go indie with some of my series and titles, and it has guaranteed me a steady income that's only increasing annually. Some books have sold so well that I've been offered new traditional book deals with decent advances (not even close to $235K however).

But there's a major difference between my inking a new deal today as opposed to years past: I no longer depend on the advances for my fiduciary well being. I no longer depend on stellar sales with these publishers. I no longer depend on anything that's out of my freaking control. The indie publishing half of me has freed me up so much, that I rarely email my agent, other than the occasional, "Hey what's up?" In year's past, I would pester him with daily emails. "Hey man, any word from the publisher? I desperately need money. The new wife has packed her bags and she's walking out the door..."

I wrote about my experiences in a nifty little book, The Hybrid Author Mindset: The totally honest, myth-busting, realistic, non-politically correct guide to succeeding at publishing traditionally and independently

It's only 2.99 on Amazon if you wanna check it out. Unlike other how-to books, I reveal my personal story about my publishing journey, warts, divorces, red bank accounts, and all. But it also contains the good stuff, like when I sold over 100K copies of The Innocent (formerly As Catch Can) in a little more than a month and how that one pivotal event led to a new cycle of brand new book deals.

Heather is committed to teaching newbie authors about the perils of modern publishing, and there are many of them. For writers, publishing books is an art. For publishers, publishing is a business and it's a cut throat one at that. Sorry to be the bearer of this little reality bite, but talent doesn't mean shit. You're just a number to them, an invoice, a spreadsheet, an email that can easily be ghosted when you're not selling up to expectations or they're just pain sick of you as a person.

In short. Write your books and put your heart and soul into them. Make them the best they can be. But be warned, if you're going for the traditional deal, the journey will be met with great peril, even if you nail the big time advance. Take the money, but at the same time, take matters into your own hands and free yourself from the gate keeper's and the money lender's chains. Invest in yourself and your own list of titles. Publish both traditionally and independently. Go Hybrid. It's the only path forward in the 21st century.

WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM

    

Proliferation, Profit, and Pulling Legs

This dude writes a lot

Or said simply, the more words I write, the more I get paid. I guess there's probably a mathematical equation that can be construed from this concept, but you don't need math to grasp the idea. Even when I write free words, like I do here on the Vox, I somehow make money from it, either by hooking a new reader, or waking up a former reader who hasn't read me in a while and wants to re-explore my back list along with my new offerings, or finally, by someone clicking on one of the advertised thrillers.

One thing I that struck home with me this past weekend signing books side by side my colleagues at the Albany Book Fair, was how shocked they were when I revealed how many books and novellas I have in print (about 45-50...I've lost precise count). They were even more shocked when I told them I'd have a new product being produced every month by either my own imprint or a traditional imprint for the next two years (I blogged recently that I was thinking of slowing this down, but it turned out to be BS. Sorry). I got the feeling they felt like their leg was being pulled.

If you wish to make a living in this industry you produce high quality books in as short a time as possible. You get the product to market as quickly and efficiently as possible without skimping on excellence. I signed on with a new publisher for a nice advance three months ago. By the time the novel is published in late 2020, I will have produced 15 new novels or novellas. That's the power proliferation. And that's what leads to expanded readership and ultimately, significant profit.

WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM

Chasing your tail...

...Or what's better known in the writing world as chasing trends (maybe I should have titled this, Chasing your tale, get it?). Every now and then, a blockbuster book is published, the likes of Harry Potter, or The Hunger Games, or The Da Vinci Code. The latter is the only thriller written by a US author that I've seen sold in both the Vatican bookstore and The Uffizi in Florence. That's how popular it is. I'd be surprised if it hasn't yet been translated into Apache.

The point here, dear reader, is that when a book and/or a series goes absolutely ballistic, we as authors with more (clears the frog from his throat) humble sales, relatively speaking, sometimes get the urge to follow the trend and jump on board. The urge to write my version of the Da Vinci Code came to me in the form of an itch in the middle of my upper back that I couldn't possibly scratch. It didn't go away until I wrote the first novel in the unbelievably wildly popular and successful Chase Baker Thriller series, The Shroud Key (Ha-ha).

So here's the point: Under normal circumstances, I would not suggest writing to market. I would not suggest one chase a trend just because it's presently super popular. I would instead suggest one stick to one's brand because in the long run, the brand is what will make an author an artistic and financial success. There's a reason McDonalds hamburgers taste just like the McDonalds hamburgers I used to buy as a kid (for less than a dollar).   

But I did sort of chase the Da Vinci/Dan Brown trend with Chase. However, I did so many years after Da Vinci was published and I also did so by incorporating all the typical Zandri pile driving plotting, romance, mystery, and action. I also...and this is key here...love the genre to death (if you don't love what you're writing it's gonna suck). In the end, the series has gone on to serve me well with tens of thousands of units sold. Chase Baker isn't being sold at the Pope's house yet, but hey, you never know. Maybe I should email him or ring him up next time I'm in country ("Hey, Pope, there's a guy named Zandri on the phone for you").

I don't always stick to the same genre. But all my books have one common denominator. They are thrillers through and through. Some series and stand-alones are darker than others, but all of them contain the Zandri thrills you've come to know and insist upon. And hopefully, I'm still learning and still getting better at my craft.

Speaking of switching up genres, I'm dipping my arthritic big toe into the Cyberpunk and Dystopian Thriller genres with Primary Termination, which is presently available for pre-order (launch day is August 16, but it's presently available in paperback) at a special, limited time price (the point is to sell a lot right out of the gate and impress the Amazon algos). My editor and beta readers tell me it's one of my best novels to date, and I believe them because I wrote it (ha-ha again). But I'll let you and Pope be the judge.

   Grab Primary Termination today, before it's too late...

WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM

"Buy Primary Termination or the author gets it!!!"

The Death of the Indie Publisher is Upon Us

Not to be all doom and gloom lately folks, but now that 2019 is half over, it's become plainly obvious (or maybe I've just woken up to the sad reality), that what I once was able to count on as a steady, almost passive income from my indie books is rapidly eroding.

The big question is why.
The simple answer is ads (and this only one part of the answer, but for now, let's focus on this).

I've been using paid Amazon ads for a while now. I've also used Facebook and Book Bub ads. In fact, I just spent over $200 on a Facebook ad that ran just last week for maybe five days (don't tell the wife. Oh wait, I'm not married), and it hardly moved the needle. I'm not entirely sure what distinguishes a good ad from a bad ad, but if I had to guess, successful ads are the ones authors pour tons of money into (I'm talking thousands), as opposed to the ones authors put only hundreds or less into.

In other words, if you're not breaking the bank by upping your ad spend by thousands each month, your books are going to go unnoticed. My guess is that indie authors are also competing with ad budgets of medium and major publishers. For the first time in a long time, I'm beginning to think that what was once the savior of the fiction writing industry--the one thing that could provide an author with a steady income stream that would keep him writing for a living forever and ever, proved but a dream.

No way can I compete with the ad budgets of those who can afford to spend five, six, or even ten thousand per month on ads. Ain't gonna happen. I suppose I could invest in one of those $600 courses some authors are offering up for learning how to use Amazon Ads, but I can bet this will only serve to confuse me more. Besides, if an author is really doing that great with the ads, why go to the trouble of creating time consuming courses? Maybe the question answers itself.

So where does this leave me (us!)?

I guess I could go wide, and move all my indie books back over to Draft2Digital. I already have all my short stories there. But, lets face it, iBooks, Barnes & Nobles, Kobo, and the like don't have nearly the selling power of Amazon, even without the ads.

I could invest more in monthly promos like KND and Book Bub. I already spend hundreds per month on a marketing dude, and he does a great job getting me all sorts of promos. But even during a year where I've enjoyed several Book Bub promos, you can only go to the various wells so many times with your $0.99 promo books. You can only give away so many free books, and believe me, I've given away hundreds of thousands.

Maybe I could increase my subscriber list. I'm steadily doing this, but now Mailchimp is charging even for those who unsubscribe which is like tossing salt in the wound and then viscously pinching it.

I could write more books and just try to win the battle with the power of numbers. But producing a great book not only takes time it takes cash, and now that the return on investment for said book isn't half of what it was even three years ago, it's a speculative gamble at best.

Or, I could make a profound return to the traditional way of doing things, and once again rely on advances and the marketing prowess of a publisher. I'm already doing that, but rather than place a major portion of my energies on the indie side of things, I might concentrate more on the traditional. Like I said, I'll soon have news of a new deal in the making, and without that, I might be ready to pull my toe nails out.

2019 has definitely been a watershed year thus far for the indie publishing world. I predict thousands will drop out, hang it up, and look for work. Luckily, the economy is booming. Luckily I invest in Bitcoin!

I also predict many will once again go back to seeking out an agent who will hopefully nail a book deal or two. Personally, I'm going to stick to hybrid publishing, and continue trying to take advantage of both systems. I do this in the hope that eventually, things will change for the better. Hope is a four letter word, folks.

These are the times that try writer's nerves and separate the men from the boys, the women from the girls. Who's got staying power? Who will survive the storm? Methinks the casualties will be staggering.

WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM
   
  

Luck

Yup, I'm back at Blogger. I thought the change to Wordpress would be worth it, but it turns out most of my subscribers are present on this portal, and it's like starting all over again using a new platform. So there you have it.

I read an interesting blog recently by JA Konrath, arguably one of the pioneers of the indie movement. After selling millions of books he started taking on deals (or a deal anyway) with one of the Big Five pubs, and he sort of disappeared from not only the blogosphere but also from the indie publishing community altogether (I could be entirely wrong about this, and forgive me if I am, Joe, but that's the way it appeared to me). But recently he made a return with some very interesting blogs about the state of the industry including the state of his personal publishing career.

One of his pieces spoke about how he spent a full year working on a huge project which he sent out to some of the Big Five, plus a couple Amazon Publishing imprints (like me he's been pub'd by Thomas & Mercer a bunch of times). He was surprised to find all the pubs rejected his new project. He offered up logical reasons for why this happened, but it came as a shock to me. Here's a guy who was making upwards of $800K per year, until Kindle Unlimited tore into his profits in a big way. Still, he's allegedly moved more than 3mil books (no reason not to believe him), won some awards, done major book tours, has a huge following for both his blog and his fiction, and yet he gets rejected across the board. Huh?

It gave me pause, let me tell you. That's when I proceeded to another blog that talked about what it takes to actually make it as an indie author (as a hybrid author the rules also apply to me). According to Konrath, it's not paid advertising, or relying on "How to Become a Kindle Bestseller" books (the authors are "full of shit" he says, and I tend to believe him), or social media posts that get your books noticed and eventually purchased. These things help get the word out and therefor have their place, taken in moderation. But the key, aside from hard work, consistent output, talent, and focus on one series and one genre, is pure luck.

Take it from me folks when I tell you, Mr. Konrath is spot on. I've been lucky in my career, and I've been unlucky. Generally, the bad luck comes in long streaks, with occasional breakouts of good luck. That said, the bad luck is usually a direct response to a stupid decision or decisions on my part. For instance, the past couple of years I experimented with shorter books and novellas of which I'm proud. But readers don't want short reads. They want 60K words minimum. I also delved into taboo areas like erotic noir, and those projects stunk up the joint (although the reviews were rave). I was putting out books with a medium sized crime imprint also, but it became frustrating since those titles were competing with my own. I also parted with my long time agent, thinking a new slick outfit would be just the boost I needed to get back on track.

But it was all pretty much a disaster. Over the past two years I've seen my income cut in half if not worse. What's it all mean? Going back to what works (just like coming back to Blogger). By the grace of God, my agent took me back and already, we've been making deals, and making some money too. It never really dawned on me until recently, that my agent isn't just an agent, he's a manager. There's a big difference. I also made the commitment to write thrillers and only thrillers, both stand-alone and in my numerous PI series. If I'm experimenting with anything, it's my cyberpunk book, Primary Termination, which will be out soon. A new genre yes, but trust me when I tell you the book is pure Zandri thriller, nonetheless.

I've also decided to pick up some freelance work again...something I'd always enjoyed but got away from over the past couple years. Lastly, I'm not going to put out one book per month (even though I can pretty much write a book per month). Instead, I'm going to stagger my publications (the indie ones anyway), every two to three months. Taken altogether, this is turning out to be a far better year than than the three previous years. My goal (and as Joe points out, it's important to have goals, not reliance on hopes since you have no control over the latter), is to head back into six figure territory this year. Not an unrealistic goal by any means. Chip has already secured me a "nice" offer for a two book deal (more on this coming later), but we're waiting to see what the other interested pubs say. We've done some non-fiction stuff together, and we have solid movie interest in at least two of my projects. That's a huge step up from the big nothing of last year.

All this involves a lot of hard work, but it also involves luck. I was smart to make the adjustment back to what works. I was lucky I realized it before it was too late.

WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM





  

     

The Lady in the Gift Shop

The gym where I lift weights in Florence, Italy, is located on the second floor of a century-plus old building. In fact, I think it used to be a library or a bookstore as evidenced by its beautiful hardwood floors and nineteenth century spiral staircase (which is enclosed in glass according to Italy's stringent historical preservation laws).

During the small breaks between sets, I sometimes go to the window for a breath of fresh air. The window looks out onto the busy cobbled street below.

It also looks upon a small gift shop. 

The shop proprietor is an attractive, forty-something brunette woman who always dresses in black, be it a skirt and tights, or slacks. She always wears high heels too. Fashionista. I don't know how many years I've been coming to Italy for my extended writing retreats (I've spent the past 20 years traveling for assignments of one kind or another), but it's been more than a decade. That same woman has been tending to the same shop with the same merchandise for all that time. Everyday her routine is the same. She opens up the glass door, sweeps and mops the wood floor till it's so clean you can eat off of it. She then does something peculiar. She arranges and re-arranges the already perfectly displayed little knickknacks and jewelry that are for sale.

This attention to detail has always perplexed me. When she arrives, the items have already been set in place as well as anyone can set them. They really don't need any attention at all. But she takes the time to shift an item here and an item there, always taking a step back to review and evaluate the move in her head, like an artist would examine a carefully applied brushstroke or maybe a professional chess player thinking and rethinking a move. My workout can sometimes last up to an hour and all during that hour, she will be arranging and rearranging the little gifts. The decorative shot glasses, the bracelets, the necklaces, the little glass trees, and miniature Ponte Vecchios and Duomos.

Her dedication to job and duty...her pride...got me to thinking about my books. All too often, we publish a book and simply forget about it. It's done, finished, published. Not much more can be done to improve upon it other than a little marketing. But marketing doesn't improve the product. It merely pushes the existing product, great, good, or piss poor. And it's tough these days for publishers big and small to market a book, unless you're Lee Child.

The books my publishers put out, God bless them, are untouchable once published. The publishers simply do not have the time nor the resources to correct editorial mistakes. If a word or two is misspelled, well then, suck it up buttercup. But when it comes to the books I indie publish under my own label, Bear Media, I am able to make corrections. I can fix any misspellings, mess with the cover if it isn't right, or work on improving the product description.

Maybe the book has been published for years. Maybe even six or seven years. But that doesn't mean it can't be improved upon. I can bet the woman in the gift shop who is constantly dusting off the merchandise and improving upon its presentation is never satisfied. She can always do better for her customers. I'm no different from the lady in the gift shop. If I can make even a single adjustment in the copy in one of my books, and take a step back to examine it, like a sculptor who's just made the the most delicate of cuts in a statue he carved a decade ago, then it's worth the effort.

Art might be abandoned, but room for improvement is infinite.

WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM

Grab The Sam Savage Boxed Set for the weekend and binge some escapist action, adventure, and romance.

   

Do you still need an Agent in 2018?

You need to ask yourself that very question these days as publishing becomes more and more democratized. Indeed all of media for that matter (if someone told me ten years ago I'd be watching my favorite "news" programs on my cell phone and/or via YouTube or FB, I would have said, 'Take another sip.').

One of my good pals in writing and publishing, Ben Sobieck, has sold the film rights to one of his stories not through an agent, but instead, Wattpad. You know, that web portal that allows fans to read your work for free. Who'd a thunk it? In fact, he wrote a book on the subject. You should check it out right HERE.

More and more of my indie books I publish through Bear Media are far outselling anything my publishers own, save a few titles that Thomas & Mercer own (and they know how to sell books, even old books, believe me. One of my bestselling titles, The Remains, is currently being promoted by the house and get this, it's six years old). What this means is, I am placing as much importance, if not more importance, on the indie books as I am my traditionally published products. Lots of crime writers are doing the same thing. Check out this article written for Publishers Weekly in 2016 by Nicole Audrey Spector and you'll see why.

This is not good news for agents. As the one-time frequenters of the New York City steakhouse-acquisition-editor-wet-lunch circuit, many have now ceased to exist. Errr, their businesses have ceased to exist, I should say. Some of the agents I have signed with over the years have either died, or quit the business to enter into something far more lucrative and a million miles away from professional publishing. My agent from the late 1990s, and who sold my first novel for $250K, is now a professional magician. You can't make this shit up, I tell you. Some agents are downsizing, and certainly most of them are weeding out the clients who don't earn or sell at all. Who can blame them?

So then, do I still need an agent in 2018? My answer is yes. Agents aren't only there to get you lucrative deals (this is not a knock, but I think half the deals I've ever made I brought to my agent and not the other way around), they are there to deal with contracts and subsidiary rights. They push your books at book fairs and when possible, try to nab movie/TV rights. In theory anyway. But one of the biggest reasons for having an agent is to help out during times of crisis. You can be damn sure that is Amazon KDP were to challenge my ownership of a certain property or if someone accused me of plagiarism, the first man/woman I'm going to look to for help will be my agent.

I go in more detail to discuss the necessity of agents in my new short book The Hybrid Mindset. I hope you check it out. You can nab the book in eBook or paperback. Or you can read for FREE in KU. 

WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM
 

Wattpad's brilliant young Ben Sobieck...

Ben and somebody else mucking it up in NYC

...Is in the house. He and thee have been big buds for almost a decade now and I seen him go from twenty-something newbie to thirty-something professional editor, multi-book author, entrepreneur and now, Wattpad aficionado. Want to check out a really cool product for writing on your laptop? Check out Ben's The Writer's Glove, which I believe was endorsed by a major television news outlet, or something like it. Now Ben is getting into coffee as well. Writer's Block coffee. Is there's nothing he can't do? I'm not entirely sure. He has the guts to try new things and approach old problems like finding a publisher and even a Hollywood producer by forging a new path towards the end goal. For Ben, Wattpad, not a literary agent, is that path.   

But enough of my yackin'...Here's Ben: 

If you follow the Vox or Vince's work in general, you know he isn't afraid to try something new. I should know. He graciously gave me the reins for three Chase Baker stories. If that isn't looking fear in the face, I don't know what is.

That's a quality I've always admired in Mr. Zandri, and it becomes more relevant the more things change. Take Wattpad, for example. In fact, take this entire video.

 Then take in a Chase Baker story over on Wattpad here: https://www.wattpad.com/story/50524321-chase-baker-the-vikings%27-secret-a-chase-baker

Grab The Writer's Guide to Wattpad
 
Grab Chase Baker and the Viking's Secret

WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM

Is it possible to make a living writing fiction?

Signing The Corruptions earlier this year at Mysterious Bookshop in NYC

Probably not if you set out to write literary fiction (I recall one of my assigned reads back in MFA writing school was The Lime Twig by John Hawkes. I nearly barfed it was so boring). Literary authors, in my mind at least, view a commercially successful book as a failure, which is why so many literary writers must teach to make a living. It's different for a genre author. We write books for the masses and gladly take their casheshe for our efforts and in the end, much of our work stands up to the test of fine literature anyway. But I'm getting ahead of my skis here.



The Experiment

This past year (2017), was more or less an experiment precipitated by my having been suddenly fired from the one steady trade journalism gig I had going. It brought in a nice baseline income so that I didn't have to worry so much about royalties and/or advances. Plus I loved the gig. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely needed the book royalties if I was going to survive financially. It's just that because I enjoyed a writing/editing income separate from the fiction, I didn't wake up suddenly in the middle of the night wondering what I could be doing to sell more books.

So, last year, when that ten year gig suddenly vanished due to a cooperate buyout, I found myself with a choice. I could either look for more journalism-freelance writing gigs, or I could concentrate entirely on my fiction efforts and hope that I brought in enough money to at least keep the cable TV on.

Work, work, work

It turned out to be the most productive year in my twenty year professional writing career. I wrote six 60K+ word novels, a couple novellas, and several short stories. In fact, I wrote and published so much stuff that if I write not a single word this year, I am all set for publishing (both indie and traditional) well  into 2019 and perhaps 2020. How did I do it? Simple. I dragged my ass out of bed every Monday morning and set it in the writing chair just like any other working stiff. I wrote whether I wanted to or not (In all candor, I pretended to be an employee of say FOX, and they were expecting me to put out at least one novella per month, or no pay check. The ruse worked!).

Exploring Central American ruins and fictional inspiration this past June

Dollars and cents

Ok, so in terms of dollars and cents, what does all this mean? I'm not going to be entirely transparent here but according to the tax documents I've received thus far, I made a solid mid-five-figures. In terms of more recent years, it wasn't all that great, but this is the nature of the business. Some years you're hitting home runs and scoring major deals and you're pulling in a comfortable six figures whether you like it or not. Other years are down years. Production years I call them. Years when you're working your tail off and not a whole lot is coming in, but the important thing is you're making a living.


 A smart move

For once in my life I made a smart move: Every advance I received (and I took in quite a few of them) over the past five years from agented deals, I invested in mutual funds, which means those monies are working for me on a monthly basis. Another smart thing I did was to invest a big portion of my royalties into my indie books. When you invest in creating a new book, it's almost as if you're buying real estate. Eventually the return on investment will be enough to pay back what you spent and earn you a nice 10-20% per year of passive income from that point on. The key, is to write more quality books that will stand the test of time.


Steady growth 

2017 proved to be an interesting experiment. There were no big advances (I did receive a small four-figure advance from an independent press), no big Book Bubs (I had two Europe only BBs), and no one single title entered into the Amazon Top 100 (that I can recall anyway). Like I've intuited in previous posts, it was a year of steady growth, steady writing, steady sales. And in the end, I earned enough to make a living. I'm actually quite shocked, to be honest. If this were the old days and hybrid authorship were an impossible dream, I would have found myself begging for a job ("Welcome to McDonald's, can I take your order?").

Instead, I'm able to do something most writers only dream about. I can get up every morning, sit myself down at my laptop in my PJs, and write my particular brand of noir and hard-boiled fiction. Hopefully my books are more interesting than the Lime Twig (No offense, Mr. Hawkes). And hopefully they keep on selling so I can continue to work at the only job there is for me.

WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM

Goodbye 2017: Don't let the door slap you in the ass...

The researcher in Guatemala

Okay I jest.
2017 was actually a good year for me professionally, not in that I hit any particular home runs with any one or two books like year's past, but damn, did I put out the word count or what?

I published both traditionally and indie starting with The Corruptions in hardcover back in February (Polis Books), and then onto Chase Baker and the Spear of Destiny, a new Marconi, Arbor Hill. There was The Handyman Series, the pilot novel in the new Steve Jobz series, The Embalmer, my first collected non-fiction Pieces of Mind, the first Young Chase Baker YA novel, Young Chase Baker and the Cross of the Last Crusade (coming in March '18), a new stand-alone which is currently with my agent, plus the first draft of another stand-alone that will soon be with my agent, and I'm finishing up the year with 20K words on a new Keeper Marconi, Sins of the Sons. And did I mention the short stories that I published in Pulp Metal Magazine that are now available on my own site and of course, Amazon, Nook, and Kobo?
 
I could offer links to all these products but you know where to go to buy them.
WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM

New for 2018 will be a brand new short story, HEAD. HEAD will also be included in a new short story collection called Pathological: Collected short reads about sex, lies, and murder. In February The Detonator will be released in hardcover (Polis Books), and I'm very excited about it since it's getting great reviews in PW and Booklist. After that will come the aforementioned Young Chase Baker, then in April, the new Steve Jobz, The Flower Man. In May I'll release the new Marconi, Sins of the Sons. By then I'll know who's taken my new stand-alone, The Doctor Will Kill You Now. I will also have finished up the second stand-alone, No Good to Her Dead. In between these publications look for more short stories and new Handyman episodes.

Okay, that's production side of things. But like I said, this was the first year in which I didn't hit any particular home runs like I have in the past with books like The Remains which went to number 1 overall, or The Innocent which did pretty much the same or Everything Burns which killed it. I attribute this to one, Book Bubs are nearly impossible to get nowadays and two, Amazon KDP seems to have changed up their algorithms again. It means that any books that suddenly spike in sales look suspect and they sometimes will strip you of your rank, dooming the momentum of the book. It's good that Amazon is cracking down on the schemers, but bad for us nice, hardworking folks just trying to make a living.

But if I've learned anything about this year, it's this: slow steady growth is the only tried and trusted path to be on. Anything else is just smoke and mirrors. Those writers who consistently put out good to great content will be rewarded with an ever expanding audience and sales. On the marketing side of things, building your subscriber list has never been more important. I've also hired a marketing crew to handle my AMS, FB, and Book Bub ads and so far they have been doing a fine job. I'm also setting up my own store on my website. What's the address again? WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM

2017 was the year I started going from writer, to writer running a business, and I've learned a lot. I pour just about all my money back into the business, but said business is growing, and I can see myself making a passive income in short order that would rival at least a mid-management position at some downtown firm. Imagine that.

On the personal side of things, it's been a bit of a shit show. There were more deaths of friends and family than I care to count, not to mention Sam Shepard. There were more reports of illness, the sudden and unexpected discovery of my own potentially fatal ailments (don't worry, they're under control, but it did get me to thinking about my own mortality), a totally unexpected breakup, a move back to an apartment and other things too banal to mention here. But it was also an exciting year for traveling and adventure, from caving in Guatemala, to fly fishing in Belize, and of course eating my favorite rabbit dish in Italy. The food poisoning in Guatemala was no fun, however.

Sure, life comes at you hard sometimes, but hey, I could be six feet under and that's no fun. The point is to live a great life while you have breath in your lungs and happiness in your heart and soul.

Back to the books...

WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM

Market saturation? Nonsense...Build your own tribe separate from Facebook

The writing studio in Florence where I'm currently eating, drinking, writing...

One of my best writing buddies posted on Facebook this morning about his having to burn through two years to get the rights back to one of his novels from a rather prominent publisher. Said publisher wasn't doing dick to promote the book so my bud figured (wisely) he could do a much better job of it on his own.

Go figure.

Someone in the comments mentioned the terrible saturation situation that has afflicted the fiction market (and non-fiction market, I suppose). I guess something like 1.5 million books are being published per year, indie and traditional books combined. Is that possible? Or did I dream that stat?

Whatever the case, I don't consider myself competing against 1.5 million books or a million other authors both dead and alive or those about to be born. I write, for the most part in a specific genre that sees far fewer than 1.5 mil books being published each year. I'm talking noir, hard-boiled mystery, and psychological suspense. I'm also publishing erotic noir/suspense these days (Don't tell my mother). Being that publishing isn't a zero sum game, I consider my true competition to be myself. Sort of like a marathon runner who is always trying to best the completion time of his last race.

Here's how I'm bettering myself every year and improving my chances of success.
1. I'm writing more books per year than ever (and in turn writing less journalism)
2. I've hired a professional marketing team to set up ads and provide Book Bub like promos once every couple of months (right now this "growth" program is costing me a lot of money but in the long run...it's a marathon remember...this will pay off)
3. I'm building up my subscriber list to the tune of 10-15 new readers per day (in general, every time I send out a newsletter, I lose about 10 of these subscribers, leaving me with an excellent positive net return). No longer do I rely on asking my 9K friends and fans on FB to "Buy my shit!"
4. I've hired a brand new literary agent who has a killer reputation and who will most definitely land me more traditional deals, foreign deals, and multi media deals to compliment my indie publishing.
5. I'm also toying with the idea of taking on a small number of writing students who wish to be coached on both manuscript quality and publishing direction (more on this in 2018)
 6. I've rented a new writing studio/apartment and will no longer be writing "out of the house." I've seen lulls in my career happen before (they happen to all of us), and at least two of those times can be attributed to my working "at home."

This list is by no means comprehensive or complete. In fact, it's a fluid work-in-progress. But in the end, I wouldn't be worried about how many books are being published per year. In fact, bring them on, because one, most of them are pure shit. And two, most of the authors who produce those 1.5 mil books will never ever write another book again when they realize just how difficult it is to sell even a single copy.

Now get to work...

WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM

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