Before you do the Thing recommended by the Expert

Ask questions. Say no. Go write.

An Expert or Just Regular Person on Substack posts an article about an Online Space where you can do a Thing. It doesn’t matter what the Thing is.

Let’s say the expert is a Writer and they’re doing the Thing, and they say, hey, you should also do the Thing, and here’s how.

I would like to make money from my writing, so I go look at the Thing. However, I have a process. Actually, it’s just a bunch of questions I ask myself before I decide if I’m going to try the Thing.

Show me the affiliate link

Is the Expert or even the Just Regular Person using an affiliate link or discount coupon to recommend the Thing? They are? Huh. Is this Thing a Thing that Makes Money because writers believe the Thing is the moneymaker when, in reality, the Affiliate Link/Expensive Course/Monthly Fee is the moneymaker?

If the answer is yes. I usually pass. Recommendations are important to me. I don’t want to recommend Things to other writers unless I like the Thing, use the Thing, or love the Thing so much I want writers to benefit from the Thing, too.

If the Thing requires monetary or social investment from the writer who is already providing the content (bring your social media friends! upgrade your account to earn more pennies! invite your writing buddies!) then maybe the Thing isn’t for me.

I’m not saying don’t use affiliate links or coupon codes or incentives. I’m saying use those things for your own work and to build an audience that YOU own.

Creatives have spent decades building the audiences of social media platforms and Things for Other People. Followers belong to the platform and/or the Thing. Use the platform (or Thing) to build an audience that you own. How? Ask those readers to sign up to a mailing list that is yours and yours alone.

The Thing must have real value if I’m going to tell other writers about the Thing. It’s why I regularly check my Substack recommendations to make sure they’re current and still provide value and/or entertainment.

Hey, are you still there?

I recently read an entire Substack article about a Serializing Stories Thing at a Not Substack Online Space. No affiliate link or sales pitch. Just a Writer trying the Thing. Cool. I look at the website and see how many Writers are using the Thing. Not a lot. Has the Thing been around a while? Nope. If so, is it still being actively used by writers and getting TLC from its creators? Um…? I look to see when the Thing was updated. I do this by:

• Looking at the website’s copyright date. It’s not 2024? Not a deal breaker, but … I’m suspicious.

• Looking at blog entries/news updates. The last post was October 2023? Okay, thanks. I’m gonna go now. No new information makes me feel like the Thing’s creators have left, and anyone using the Thing now is just throwing money/time/effort at the Thing no one cares about anymore.

• Looking at the last time a Writer used the Thing. In this case, how old are the serials on the site? 2023. This reinforces my thought that the Thing has been abandoned. Writers who find and use it are probably not getting support if the Thing fucks up.

Yeah, I’ve already closed the tab

If the Thing doesn’t meet basic We-Give-a-Shit-about-Our-Thing parameters then I’m out. To be honest, 95% of the time, I’m probably out. Because…

If you already have a Thing, you probably don’t need another Thing

I know. We like Things that will help us make money from our art except … the Real Thing that makes us money is The Art.

If we plan to devote time, effort, and money to the Thing, it must be exceptional. When I go too far down a rabbit hole trying to determine the value of a New Shiny Thing, I (eventually) pull myself back with this thought: Go back to the writing. Write. Stop looking at or doing the (probably useless) Thing and make with the words already.

I’ve learned three difficult lessons as a fiction author.

1. Focus on one niche. (At first.)

2. Do not put all your eggs in one basket. (Do not rely on one venue for writing income.)

3. Build an audience that belongs to YOU. (Your readers are your livelihood.)

Focus on one niche

Focusing on one niche is a double-edged sword.

One niche traps you in the niche. So you better love the niche.

Some writers establish themselves in one niche and then decide to write in another niche, but use a pen name. Why? Readers will not always follow writers to a niche they don’t like or they don’t read. Writers don’t always want to write just Niche One.

However…

If you’re a new name in a new-to-you niche, you are starting all over because readers in Niche Two don’t care who you are in Niche One, and readers in Niche One will not automatically follow you over to Niche Two.

The goal is for the WRITER to become more popular than the NICHE, so that the writer can expand into other niches and maintain their readership.

Think Taylor Swift.¹ She could sell her dirty socks, and her fan base would buy them and then Taylor would write a song about selling her dirty socks, which are, of course, the socks she wore when she broke up with someone, and she would make eleventy-billion dollars.² Remember, Taylor started out as a teen in country music. She busted her ass, people. And she built an empire and made the entire music industry her bitch.

Her brand is Taylor Fucking Swift.

My brand is not. Neither is yours. Our brand is our niche because ultimately, most working writers sell stories to readers because the readers like the niche (AKA genre).

Once a reader trusts that you, the author, will produce worthy work in the niche, they’ll start to look for you. They’ll want Author Awesome who writes their favorite story-type because they’ll know you produce consistent content they (almost always) love.

Here’s a story about getting trapped in a niche

It’s thirty or so years ago. I want to be a published money-making novelist. So I did my marketing research and ended up choosing the romance genre. Why?

1. I read a lot of romance novels. Yes, Harlequin. I read those books at the same pace I devoured M&Ms. Romance readers are voracious. They read a lot of books in a short amount of time (and they are cross-over readers, so they devour books in multiple genres). Harlequin had tapped into the market hardcore, getting into bookstores, grocery chains, mail-order … anywhere you could get a book, you could get a Harlequin romance (including garage sales, thrift stores, and your mother’s nightstand).

2. At the time I did my research, 55% of mass market sales belonged to the romance genre. The chances of publication in the romance genre were the highest. Getting into fantasy, science fiction, horror, and other genres was a lot harder because they shared 45% of mass market sales. Let me say that again: All genres NOT romance shared 45% of mass market sales.

Romance is still the best-selling genre in the world. It generates more than $1 billion annually and makes up 1/3 of all genre fiction sales.

Let’s fast forward to 2004 and to me selling my third book³ to Penguin (which is now Penguin Random House). It was a paranormal romantic comedy about a single mother who ends up a vampire and must learn to navigate the supernatural while raising kids (and falling in love with a 4,000-year-old Irish vampire).

I’m the Vampire, That’s Why (Amazon affiliate link!) came out in 2006. I wrote nine books for Penguin Random House about the paranormal citizens in Broken Heart, Oklahoma. All of them were paranormal romantic comedy. Yes, I got to write some horror elements and some mystery elements, but the stories were, above all, humorous paranormal romances.

But I didn’t want to write paranormal romance forever. I wanted to write mystery and thriller and horror. But the audience I built from humorous paranormal romance didn’t want to read those stories.

Okay. How about fantasy (except not funny)? Yes, I tried Niche Two. Readers didn’t follow me to a new fantasy series set in a small Texas town. Never Again (Look! Another Amazon affiliate link!) was still romance. The Wizard of Nevermore series had a bigger story arc, impending world battle between witches and mundanes, not meant to be romantic comedy. No vampires. Just magic users with Big Problems.

The sales tanked.

A lot of my Niche One readers didn’t follow me to Niche Two. Two books into the series Penguin told me, uh, yeah, we don’t want any more of those books. Ouch. Also, apologies to those who read Now or Never (Yes, this is an Amazon affiliate link.), which ended on a cliffhanger, and never got to find out what happened. I don’t know, either.

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket

You know why. If you drop the basket or someone knocks the basket out of your grip or the basket dissolves because it’s made of candy cotton and dreams, the eggs will splatter onto the ground.

No more eggs.

I know. I told you to pick a single niche, which is one egg. How are you supposed to have multiple eggs tucked into other places where readers might find them?

You stay in your niche and expand your reach through different mediums.

Same egg. But now it’s been cloned and turned into an audiobook. A serial podcast. (Do both.) It’s serialized on Substack, but also on Radish or Tapas or Vella (or all of them). It’s turned into a print book, but not one print book. A mass market. A trade paperback. A large print edition. An illustrated edition. A coloring book. A journal with quotes from your stories. Expand into merchandise and sell T-shirts and pillows.

Every new space has new buyers. You’re tapping into audiences that love the mediums in which they consume entertainment. Some people love ebooks, some love print books, some only listen to audiobooks, others are collectors of things related to stories they love—so they buy pillows with quotes and T-shirts with cool graphics.

Build an audience that belongs to you

I got on Facebook before it became a money-grubbing hub of toxic bullshit. I built a fan page for my work and when I put out a post …. every single person who liked the page saw the post.

No, it’s true. Organic reach was insane. People responded. We had conversations. It was awesome. And then, Facebook grew into a behemoth soul-munching monster that started gatekeeping the AUDIENCE I BUILT and extorting me for money to reach the AUDIENCE I BUILT. You know, that whole spiel about how only 20% of people will see your post unless you pay us for more access.

I learned the same lesson on Twitter. At first, it was cool. People got my messages, talked to me about books. We made up funny hashtags and shared stories and ideas and … then Twitter monetized itself and the same shit happened. Hey, you wanna reach the AUDIENCE YOU BUILT? Buy an ad. Oh, here’s an ad that looks like a Tweet. Here are Tweets from people you didn’t follow and don’t know, but who cares, because we own your ass.

But while I was learning these harsh lessons about social media aka Things, I was also building a mailing list. I had direct contact with the people who liked my work and that was better than all the Things. (We need to talk about how to build audiences and newsletters, and we’ll do that in another post.)

If you’re on Substack, you either brought your audience with you or you’re using Substack to build your audience. The good news is that your subscribers belong to you. (BTW, you should download your subscriber list ever so often so that if anything happens, you have your mailing list intact.)

I learned that I don’t want to be on social media. Those Things make my life worse. And those Things interfere with writing and genuine connection with readers and other creatives.

A word about Substack Notes

I use Substack Notes because I don’t think of it as social media. I think about it as a cafe filled with creatives who want to show me art and talk about making art and show kindness to everyone. It really is that cool.

But I am also aware that Notes IS social media because we have followers now. No company, not even Substack, creates Things out of pure altruism. It’s possible (probable) they are doing what every other social media company has done: Allow the early adopters (that’s us) to create the foundation for another revenue stream for Substack.

However, Substack, doesn’t show followers on your Notes profile (or your Substack profile). Not yet. And maybe never, I don’t know. If you want to see your list of followers, here’s how.

Here’s what I’m going to do:

• Use Notes for as long as it remains the open cafe to creatives without advertising or gatekeeping or shoving unwanted content into my feed.

• Focus on SUBSCRIBERS, not followers.

• Remember that I’m using Substack as the Thing for the audience I own.

• Recognize that Substack views me as a product. Every tool they make for me to use is another tool for them to use to monetize and expand their platform. Also, they are using the audience I willingly gave them to expand their platform.

Okay. But what about the Thing?

If you’re on Substack, you already have a Thing. If you’re looking at other Things to make money, gain subscribers, promote your work, and so forth, ask yourself:

• Do I want to spend money on the Thing? (Maybe you need a Schedule C tax deduction. Or maybe you need to put the credit card down and go write.)

• Do I want to devote time/energy to the Thing? (Maybe you want to write less and stress more because this Thing is worth it. Or maybe you’d rather go write.)

• Does the Thing have actual value in pursuit of my writing goals? (Sure. Maybe the Thing that requires money, time, and energy will help you. Or maybe you’d rather tell the Thing to fuck off and go write.)

Here’s the part where I say my opinions are not facts

I’m telling you about my decision-making process regarding whether or not to use a Thing for Writers. I’m a neurotic neurodivergent hot damned mess who makes money lying about people and worlds and situations that don’t exist.

In other words, what I do and/or recommend may not work for you. And that’s okay. Being a writer is a lifelong journey. You decide which paths to take, which advice you like, and what Things you use to accomplish your goals.

Let me leave you with this:

Writing is hard. Building a readership is hard. But you’re doing it! And I’m really fucking proud of you!

Now go write.

1. I am a Swiftie. I love Taylor Swift. Do not insult her in my presence or I will burn all of this shit to the ground.

2. The chances that you’ll become 1/10th of Taylor Swift are low. I’m sorry. That’s why it’s important you love your chosen niche.

3. There’s a whole story behind the sale because the marketing department (AKA Den of Evil) was like readers are so over vampire romance, and we already have one funny vampire series (by MaryJanice Davidson).