Writing is the craft. Selling it is a business, and most authors treat that half as an afterthought. These articles cover the money side of being an author: pricing, contracts, taxes, and income streams. Treat your writing like the business it actually is and it starts paying like one.
AI AdoptionThe U.S. government switched off Anthropic's most powerful AI models overnight, proving in a single stroke that nobody who uses AI actually owns it. If your business runs on a rented tool, whoever controls it can change the deal or…
Author BusinessA book is the credential that unlocks speaker-fee tiers, from free-with-a-meal all the way to $5,000-to-$20,000 keynotes. The path runs through speaker bureaus, conference networks, and a one-sheet most authors botch. Here is which bureaus take ghostwritten authors, how the…
Author BusinessEvery Amazon sale hands over about 65 percent of the cover price and your customer list to a company that competes with you. A direct sale through Shopify, Payhip, or your own site keeps the margin and, more importantly, builds…
Author BusinessFor two decades I ran computer operations at Trader Joe's, came home drained, and had nothing left for the writing I wanted to do. I had the skills and the ideas but not the bandwidth. Making a living from self-publishing…
Author BusinessThe March 21, 2019 Voice America interview: ghostwriting as method acting across six to twelve simultaneous voices, 50-cents-a-word pricing with 25 percent down, why one keynote pays the book back, the process from free consultation to handshake termination, and why…
Author BusinessThe February 19, 2019 hour on monetizing writing: ghostwriting demand explained through celebrity books, the gig economy, content mills at a dollar an hour versus one contract worth 75 of them, LinkedIn outreach and reference chains, the it-takes-work phenomenon, the…
Author BusinessThe December 18, 2018 hour on confidence: publish the imperfect first book, the freelancer as salesperson, approaching agents through conversation, Richard Branson's accept-and-figure-it-out, fear as fiction, the pretend-no-savings mind game, Bonnie's 80,000 words at 78, the pop-and-lock dancer nobody clapped…
Author BusinessThe November 2018 hour on the professional line: turning passion into a scheduled career with a defended writing space, why the author sells and the book follows, book signing realities, the Fiverr goldmine used safely, negotiate-down-never-up pricing, rate floor math,…
Author BusinessPart two with Sage the Poet, broadcast as a nor'easter closed in: why writing and editing at the same time causes writer's block, the scheduled professional day, 12,000-word workdays via dictation, light outlining with story and character arcs, daily promotion,…
Author BusinessThe November 2, 2015 episode with Artis and Mike: T-Mobile's churn math, Apple's record year, the Help! My Boss Is Wacko launch, the $350 million Eastern European cyber-mafia statistic, why only closet-stored backups survive ransomware, phishing and spear phishing explained,…
Author BusinessThe October 28, 2015 live presentation: why businesses buy books, the Afghani memoir story in its earliest telling, the ghostwriter as project manager, work-for-hire ownership, phased 25 percent payments with a re-quote, the amateur-newbie-or-desperate pricing rule, the $50 tattoo lesson,…
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