2023 Part 2 - Content Creation is King by Maggie Lynch

This is a continuation of my What’s New in Publishing for 2023 blog post. The first part focused on the technology changes and tools that everyone can use for discoverability, distribution, and using your book as a Product Multiplier.

 Part 2 is focusing on the actual writing of that book and any other content around it. Without a book you have nothing to sell. Without a book you can’t create other possibilities for discoverability and for product sales. Without a book you don’t need a marketing plan, reviewers, or fans. Writing books must happen first before everything else.

 What are My Goals for Writing in 2023?

1.  Finish at least two series enders—the fourth novel in my Sweetwater Canyon series and the third novel in the Obsidian Rim, Cryoborn Gifts series.
2. Find a publisher for my first book in my Mariposa Lane, Middle Grade Children’s series.
3.  Look at opportunities to generate more products from my backlist and engage with readers at several different levels.

As Part 1 indicated, I have the technology in place for discoverability, reader engagement, and a backlist that leads into the rest of the series and new releases. Now I must write more content.

The Pandemic Will Continue to Have Impacts for Authors and Publishers in 2023

No one can write about what’s happening in 2023 without recognizing the continued fallout from the pandemic. A few writers found the isolation of the pandemic to be a boon to their creativity. However, many more writers found they had too many other priorities or stressors on their time—Zoom school for kids, kids home all day, stress of COVID, grief, confusion, working a day job from home, or worse having lost a job due to business closures. Add to that divisive politics, a midterm election, and the multipliers of more stress that makes it difficult to even consider creating a story.

Writers also used the past two to three years as a time to reflect on what’s important in their life. Writing and creating takes a big chunk of time out of your life. If you don’t know WHY you are doing it, then it may be time to stop and do other things with your time. If your WHY is tied to increasing income, and that wasn’t working for you, you need to ask if something else may meet the goal better. Or what you might do differently to change that outcome.

For myself I came to five important insights.

1. I no longer want to put out four or more titles a year. To do that requires ignoring too many other things. I want to commit to two titles a year with room for a third if it is something I really want to write.
2. I’ve never been happy in a single genre, so I’ve written in several. It is not the easiest path to making an income but I’m happier there. So, I have to accept my income will be limited by that choice and not beat myself up for that decision.
3. I’ve tried to write very commercial, trope-filled fiction to reach a wider audience. Every attempt has failed because I want something more. Finally, after 17 novels that didn’t fulfill the commercial, trope-filled fiction promise, I’ve accepted that is who I am. Stop chasing the potential huge audience and instead focus on my real readers. There are more than enough of them, I just need to continue reaching out.
4. The one book I wrote in 2021 and finished editing in 2022 was a children’s middle grade book. I’d stopped myself from writing this book (and creating a series of books) for more than two decades because I thought I would be throwing my adult book career out the window to make room for this. But, during the pandemic, I did it anyway. I feel great about it. It revived me and made me WANT to write again. It is only my own fear that but me in a box, not my readers.
5. I seriously toyed with giving it all up—writing that is, not life. It’s too hard. It’s too time consuming. It doesn’t pay enough. I’m getting too old…blah, blah, blah. Then I remembered WHY I started writing. I started writing to give voice to my view of the world—a voice to characters and situations that don’t often get explored. I don’t have any other forum for that voice except writing books.
   
   
         After the third or fourth, or fifth book I allowed the goal of making more money with each book to replace my WHY.  Part of that was because I needed extrinsic validation that my books were worthy. At the same time, I was no longer employed in Academia and things were getting tight. I saw that extrinsic validation as money earned from the books.  But that led to focusing on money earned instead of focusing on writing a good book that represented me, my voice, my view of the world. 
   
   
         This happens to a lot of people. The pandemic taught me that money is nice, but in the end it shouldn’t guide my passion. If I needed money I could do other things. I thought it was an either/or choice—write books or earn money. It’s not! It’s an either/and choice. Once I returned to the WHY of my writing, I knew I couldn’t give it up. I just needed to change what it brought for me. If I suddenly make a lot of money writing books I won’t be sad. Also, if I don’t make a lot of money writing books I won’t be sad either. J

What I most want to share from my personal reflection and decisions is that a creative life is NOT an either/or choice. It can be an either/AND choice. Every choice has repercussions, but being a creative also means you can think outside of that binary option. If I say YES more than I say NO, I’ll likely be able to create more and meet more of my goals in the end.

Will I perhaps lose fans if I’m not giving them two or three books a year in the genre they love? Perhaps. But there is an equally good chance there are fans that do read outside of genre. In the case of my Middle Grade books, it’s also possible that many of my fans have children and grandchildren in that age range. If they like my adult books, they may at least take a look at my children’s books.

I learned over the past decade of writing novels, that many of my best fans follow me from one genre to another. That’s because I’m still the same person. I’m still delivering my brand: 

people making heroic choices one messy moment at a time. Whether the person is an eleven-year-old girl, a forty-year-old space pilot, a sixteen-year-old chameleon shape-shifter, or a fifty-five-year-old long time divorcee with cancer, they are all making heroic choices one messy moment at a time. That is where my characters WHY matches mine. There are thousands of readers out there looking for that. I’ve found about twelve thousand readers who are fans of my writing. They don’t all cross genres, and they don’t all cross the same genres with me. But I suspect there are tens of thousands more. I just need to make a concerted effort to find them.

The Time for Beating Myself Up is Past. Now I must move forward with a plan that reflects who I am and what I know I want to do. Instead of worrying about all the reasons why it won’t work, I need to create a path where it will work. 

Big and Small Publishing is Also Facing the Same Dilemmas/Choices in 2023

Publishing is an industry that has always needed to adapt to changing conditions. Those same difficulties that touched me and many other authors, also impacted publishers small and large. They lost employees to virtual work, to sickness, and to questioning their job choice. At the same time, they faced supply chain shortages that put many book releases back at least a year and some for two years. Many large publishers have failed to accept the changing technological environment—eschewing ebooks, not taking advantage of the rise in audiobooks, not being willing to make change, instead believing it’s all a fad. The bigger the publisher, the more difficult for it to accept change or take chances.  

The last 5-8 years have likely seen the fastest (and most disruptive) changes in book publishing to date. Including a number of new threats to traditional books with serials, podcasts, increased desire for audiobooks and audio content. With the growing plethora of outlets for film and TV there are also many more increased opportunities for film/TV/and video licensing.

Independent Publishers Make Gains

As many in the industry view the top publishing houses as turning into behemoths that seek to control the entire book market, smaller independent publishers are seeing a surge. Small publishers are able to be more agile. They are also more willing to take chances.

 

These smaller publishers are in direct contrast to the big-money operations of the top four publishing houses. They are also more willing to take chances. In doing that, they have found a market that big publishers don’t even try to exploit. Small publishers now provide a far wider variety of literature, politics, history, and journalism, of actual risk-taking — and acquire books from a far more diverse group of authors than the big conglomerate publishers”.

 

Self-publishers can learn from these successful small publishers who spend wisely. They may invest more heavily in ebooks, audiobooks and other digital properties while using print on demand (POD) for paperback and hardback. If they do a print run it may only be 1,000 copies.

Despite the small scale, these small publishers still find success, and so do their authors. 

How Does All This Impact the Writing?

Write with the primary goal of sustainability. The “gold rush” for self-publishing is long over. It started slowing in 2012 and was completely over by 2015. Instead of planning for the breakout book that will make the majority of your income, plan for a long-term sustainable career.

Authors need to build content, businesses, and processes that can be sustained over the next three to five years. It’s no longer a “rush to publish,” nor is it a writing fast requirement that was touted in the past. As ALL markets are flooded, writers are more likely to be successful with something that’s really good than with another “okay, I got it out quickly” book. 

What is sustainable?

For me it is writing books that I’m really interested in writing. It’s about writing books in a genre, series, or with themes that I’m willing to commit to over and over again. It’s about writing books that allow me to build an infrastructure of readers and products.

Instead of writing three or four books in a year, I might consider writing one or two and expanding the products created from a single book (ebook, print, audiobook, podcast, video, and pursue translations and film actively). As I talked about in Part 1, let each book be a product multiplier. 

Writing books that are unsustainable (don’t sell more than a hundred copies in a year) may mean making hard choices. Do I believe in investing more time and money in that book or series? If so, I may need to get a part-time job when the income dips. It may be that it’s time to quit THAT book. Not quit writing, but quit what I was doing that isn’t working. Orna Ross and Joanna Penn have an interesting recent podcast topic about knowing when to quit, how to walk away.

As I indicated in Part 1, every book needs a reader following. If I’m writing in series this is even more important. For me writing in series is a part of sustainability. If they like the first book, the reader is more likely to try the next book and the next. Series doesn’t have to mean they are all the same characters, or the same town, or even the same year. It CAN mean the same themes that can tie them together to take readers from one book to the next.

In nonfiction, thematic series might be around a common topic (e.g., presidents that waged war, science from the discovery of the atom to the nuclear age, books on finding identity). In fiction, series can be closely or loosely tied together. An author I know has a series of books that all have magical-realism at the center. The characters or locations are not the same, but the magical-realism is always related to finding one’s true calling.

Know when to quit a book, an idea, or a practice. Don’t continue to advertise a book or series that keeps proving it won’t sell. Don’t try every new thing to make books sell that the market has (at least for now) rejected. Books can take off at any time and fail at any time. Sometimes a book that didn’t sell in 2020 can find a market in 2023. Often writing the NEXT book and releasing it will provide new life to the previous book that had a hard time selling.

Create the best book you can and put it out there. Don’t assume that if your book is not selling it means you are not a good writer. It might. But assuming you’ve done everything required it may be more about timing than talent.

What About Selling—What are Publisher’s Priorities?

According to a Publisher’s Weekly survey, traditional publisher’s highest priority in 2023 is audience growth and marketing, with 34. 2 percent placing it at the top. Second to that priority comes successful SEO, at 25.8 percent. Publishers have deserted social media, newspapers, and magazines as a source of advertising and reaching readers. They are now, for the first time, concentrating on capturing emails, building mailing lists, and engaging with readers.

That’s not to say they’ve quit advertising altogether, but they no longer see it as a method for sales. Instead, it is a method to get reader data and grow/control their audience. This is something Amazon learned VERY well early on. Amazon is King at knowing who their readers are, what they buy, what to offer them and when.

As a self-publisher consider watching NOT what the Big 4 publishers are buying. Instead watch what the small to medium sized independent publishers are doing. They are the ones growing in triple digit numbers. They are the ones who are not following trends, but acquiring authors with talent, a passion for a topic or genre, and nurturing them (like big publishing used to do decades ago).

As a self-publisher you need to do the same. Keep up your craft by learning how to write better. Pick projects you are passionate about and can stick with. Nurture yourself. If something doesn’t work or sell, ask for advice from people you trust. Try a different business tactic. If it still doesn’t sell, don’t beat yourself up. Write the next book and see if that makes a difference.

Write for sustainability. 

Sustainability is achieved with a combination of passion and consistent output and quality. Whether that is one book a year or three books a year. Don’t try to be all things to all people. NO book or series can do that. Instead, work hard to find YOUR audience. There are billions of readers in the world. No one reaches all of them—not even bestsellers. Find YOUR readers and nurture them.

I wish you a joyful and productive 2023. I hope you take time to consider how things are going to change for you, your writing commitments, and your writing business before embarking on the new year. Don’t keep doing the same thing and wonder why it isn’t working. Try something else. Remember, choices can be either/and. Reach for YES whenever you can.