#Getting to the end w perhaps 600k words

[amerasdreams]

I would like to know this as well! I will always write bc I can't help it. But it would be nice to have a nice enthusiastic fan base perhaps that grows modestly

It would be nice to earn a living w writing...... but that may not be likely and I'm definitely not just writing fast and sloppily for genre, I'm writing the kinds of books I want to write.

Instead of "20 books to $50k" or "how to increase readership by writing and publishing a book every month that is exactly like every other popular book out there," I need the kind of marketing advice that goes along the lines of, "hey, here's how to get a modest fanbase and sell enough books to justify this as a side gig without having to go crazy and spend more than you earn on marketing." Because honestly, all the advice I find these days either a) requires me to put way more time and money into marketing than I am able to do, or b) requires me to write fast and sloppy in very specific sub-genres, and that's really not why I write stories.

And like Emily Starr, I would--and will--continue to write stories regardless of how many people read them, but it would be nice to be able to reach more than a dozen readers, and to be able to reasonably look on my writing as a part-time job rather than an expensive hobby.

(It doesn't help that there are so many articles out there claiming that self-publishing is dead! It's gotten too bloated and now only a handful can make a living off it! But wait--traditional publishing is also dead! It's gotten too greedy and now only a handful can make a living off it! Mid-level authors? Whether traditionally published or self-published, they apparently no longer exist)