The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 31 – The importance of writing in series (with six-figure author, Lindsay Buroker)

The general advise is that it's better to write in series instead of standalone novels if we want to earn a full-time income. What does a six figure author has to say on that topic?

Lindsay Buroker, a highly successful fantasy authors, join Am Writing Fantasy to share advice on how to earn a living as an author.

You can find out more about Lindsay here: http://lindsayburoker.com/ 

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Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion).

Jesper (1s):
You might have heard the advice that one should be writing in a series if one want to earn a living as an author. And there is actually something to that. And today I am joined by Lindsay Buroker who is a very successful fantasy author who earns a six figure income a year from writing. If you're a fantasy author, then you've come to the right place. My name is Jesper and between Autumn and myself we've published more than 20 books.

Jesper (34s):
And it is our aim to use our experience to help you in your writing and marketing endeavors. So first of all, thank you for joining me here on a amwritingfantasy. Lindsay

Lindsay (47s):
thank you for having me. I'm excited to talk about books and marketing and in series of course.

Jesper (52s):
Yeah, it's, it's always a good topic to talk about and uh, but maybe, maybe you can say a bit about yourself, uh, your writing. And I also know that you're, well, I transitioning out of an old podcast and starting a new and so forth. So maybe we could just sort of give a bit of context for stuff.

Lindsay (1m 8s):
Sure. I am mostly self-publish. I have an audio book publisher, but I started self-publishing at the end of 2010. Uh, when my first series was the emperor's edge, and I had only two books written at that time and they weren't in the same series. So I can talk to what it is to start out without, you know, there's a lot more you can do with marketing when you have more. Um, I was, uh, pretty excited about it from the beginning. I saw the potential, even though I didn't make a lot of money to start with. You know, I think I was really excited when I made more than a hundred dollars a month.

Lindsay (1m 40s):
Uh, but as I got more books out in this series, I had people do fan art and, um, they started, you know, doing some fan fiction and things like that. So I saw that people enjoyed my writing, uh, at least certain numbers of people, the ones that you're, you're hoping to target. And so that was really reassuring and I felt confident that eventually I could get to the point where I could make it my day job. And by the time I'd finished that series, I ended up doing about eight books. Uh, I was, you know, making I think over 10,000 a month. And I thought to myself, well, if I could just keep doing that, that'd be awesome.

Lindsay (2m 13s):
And, uh, I could, you know, you have expenses to edit paying editors and cover art and such. But, uh, that was before anybody was spending much money on advertising. So that was mostly take-home money. And, um, I've, since fruit and numerous more fantasy series, I've also done some science fiction. Uh, if you take a peek at me when this podcast comes out, you'll see that I'm doing my star kingdom scifi series, but, uh, I'm, I'm kind of alternating next year would probably be back to dragons. So, um, and you asked about the podcast. We, uh, myself, Joe Lolo and Jeff Poole did the science fiction and fantasy marketing podcast for over four years.

Lindsay (2m 49s):
We are kind of been winding it down this year. I was starting to feel that we had a message that could be for more than just scifi and fantasy authors. So, uh, Joe and I are going to start a new one this summer called six-figure where we kind of help people that want to get to that level. And even beyond that, it is possible as a solo author, if you're a prolific and marketing and in a genre where it works that you know, you can make $1 million or more a year. So there's right now it's a great time to be self publishing or you know, just kind of managing your own future.

Lindsay (3m 20s):
If, uh, if you have any entrepreneurial spirit at all and uh, uh, as I'll be the first to admit I liked the writing more, I kind of do as much, you know, I learned as much in marketing stuff is you have to, but uh, I think I'm kind of can demonstrate that you don't have to be a super pro at a Facebook ads or AMS have or anything like that. I'm still feeling my way. A lot of it, some of that stuff. Yeah.

Jesper (3m 45s):
Yeah. And I'm, I'm glad that you said about the, that this is a good time to, to get into or to publish in general or to write books in general because I, I sometimes come across the line of thinking that, that people think like, well isn't it a bit too late now? And of course if we are comparing two, and I guess you'll have this from personal experience, but if we compare it to like 2010 2012 something like that, then for sure it is a different marketplace nowadays. But in the global view of things here with, with all the countries who doesn't even have eBooks or you eat, there's an old doing all of that yet.

Jesper (4m 21s):
And we're still sort of in the, in the earliest stages of this stuff. Wouldn't you agree?

Lindsay (4m 27s):
I do. And I often tell people, when I started, it was December, 2010 I thought I was too late as it cause Amanda Hawking had already made her like million dollars from a, you know, her paranormal romance books. And there were a few other people that got in really early and we're killing it. And, and keyboards was around back then, the writer's cafe forum. And people were saying like, Oh, it's getting a lot harder. So I was like, well, we'll, we'll, we'll try to figure it out. Um, in the early days you kind of had to go hunting on deviant art.com or somewhere, or no, an artist.

Lindsay (4m 59s):
There wasn't really this whole industry to support indie authors yet. You kinda had to find an editor that maybe could do fiction. Uh, my F my editors started out in the technical editing field and so I was referred, I was her first person doing like SciFinder fantasy and to this day I think I'm one of her main people. She's still, it's like, what is this term you're talking about? But, um, so now at least it's, it's, there's a lot of great advice out there. There's a lot of sites for am promoting your book. If you've got a little money to spend at the social media stuffs a little more established.

Lindsay (5m 32s):
So I do think, you know, you still see people that are just, and maybe they started a couple of years ago, but they kind of figured it out with a new series or something and that's taken off for them. So it's very possible still here and not 2019 to to make a splash. And, uh, I feel you do have to pay attention and learn some of the marketing stuff. It's, it's, you're probably not going to just throw a book up and get lucky by having it in the right category. Am you saw more of that early on, especially, you know, if a new category of popped up on Amazon that hadn't been served by traditional publishing, if you just threw something up there with a horrible cover, it didn't matter if people would give it a try and those days are probably gone.

Jesper (6m 11s):
Yeah, true. Yeah. And in that way, it is a different marketplace now, but, but uh, but okay. But I guess at the end of the day, one should also say that, you know, if you want to get into writing because you want to earn money, then I think there is, there's a lot of different professions that will get your many way quicker than writing books. So that way it's, it's not the right motivation. There's not because you want it. And many I did the right word of business because you love writing and you love telling stories and that that should be the main driver.

Jesper (6m 44s):
But then of course you need to couple it with, with some advertising. But I guess then, uh, coming back to sort of the main topic here, because now that we are talking about advertising and one of the often made arguments about it's better to write in a series rather than writing stand along books is because of course you can sort of put a bit more marketing budget against a, the first book in the series because then people would go on to read the other ones. But I know you've written quite a lot of series, so I'm curious too, to have your inputs or views on, on, well I guess on one hand, how do you decide when, when is it time to stop a series, but also what have you seen from when you're comparing your series to your standalones?

Jesper (7m 32s):
Can, can you still make a standalone work well or is it sort of doing the interface? It's, if you do that,

Lindsay (7m 39s):
it's a little tougher if you have a fan base built up and they'll just, you're lucky enough that they'll try anything new you put out. And I have a, a standalone I did last year PSI Phi, um, that did pretty well. Um, you know, it certainly more than covered its costs and the time I put into it. Uh, but knowing me, I always end up like wanting to write two or three more and the, the readers always want more to. So I have very few actual stand-alones that are still standalone am my dragon blood series, which has eight books, a spinoff book, uh, and a spinoff series of five books that started as a standalone.

Lindsay (8m 12s):
I hadn't known intention of writing, I'm just like, I'm just getting this sweet little fantasy romance with magic and it'll just be a nice side thing. And uh, I really enjoyed the characters, which is what happens. I tend to fall in love with the characters and hopefully the readers do too. And I always end up doing more. And you're right on the advertising. If you're gonna spend money on a book one, you know, especially if you're thinking maybe I'll make it free or 99 cents as a way to kind of lower the barrier of entry then am it helps if you have seven more books at four 99 that people will hopefully get sucked into the series and continue on to purchase.

Lindsay (8m 51s):
I'm not super calculating as far as like, Oh, well last year I actually had a of did quite well. That was a heritage of power. It was that spinoff series in that world where I already had a lot of readers and I wrote five of them and they were still selling really well. And I remember thinking, you know, I should just keep writing more of these, but I kind of planned a five book story arc. Actually I planned a three book story arc and it turned into five. So, and I'm not really someone that can just go, well let's just take these characters and keep writing more of them even though I've sort of solved that overarching story plot so I was already moving onto something else.

Lindsay (9m 28s):
And um, then that's something people can decide for themselves. I do try to write, I like the am to do like three before I launch anything because it lets me really get into the story and I'm committed before, you know, cause sometimes if it doesn't sell well you can get discouraged or even if it sounds okay but not nearly as well as something else you've done. Uh, that can also be like you always comparing either against other authors or your own past successes. So it can be a challenge to stay in food if something doesn't do as well.

Lindsay (9m 58s):
So I like kinda committing beforehand and like, you know, I think this is going to be at least five books and uh, w you know, we'll see how it goes from there. I feel lucky enough to have readers that I know I'm not going to lose money on a series or cause it, they'll try anything new. So that's a nice place to get to. I know that's not everybody yet, but I do think it's worth doing maybe committing to three books there. You know, especially if you're newer and don't, you're still kind of figuring out the marketing stuff. Maybe you can afford super cool.

Lindsay (10m 30s):
You know, like custom illustrated cover art, which is always great in like Epic fantasy if you can have a illustration, but that can be $800 or more. So not everybody can start out with that. And so if you don't have a real cop killer covers to start with, that can be a little tough. If you're not really great at writing blurbs yet, you're still learning how to do that. Uh, you can kind of unknowingly sabotage or a series. So you want to give it a bit of a chance. And then I always say like, before you abandon it, you know, try to try getting new covers, ask for opinions, you know, cause a lot of people really struggle with blurbs.

Lindsay (11m 5s):
Uh, I can't tell you how many I've looked at as just as a reader looking for something to read and like it's just kind of, it'll be a little choppy or it doesn't quite make sense and it's probably cause they edit it so much that it became less natural. So there are definitely challenges when you're starting out and uh, sometimes it's the second or third series that does well for you and takes off.

Jesper (11m 27s):
It's often actually a bit difficult to figure it out.

Lindsay (11m 30s):
What will

Jesper (11m 31s):
sort of resonate with the readers are bare and

Lindsay (11m 36s):
am.

Jesper (11m 37s):
I, I don't, I mean I talked to Dave Chesson quite recently. Of course he has his publisher record a software that sort of can help you figure out if there's a market for certain book ideas. But I, I've always been more of the line of thinking that,

Lindsay (11m 53s):
right. The story

Jesper (11m 54s):
that I'm excited about writing and then maybe it'll take off, maybe it won't, but maybe then the next one will. But I don't know. But that's sort of my, my line of thinking on it. And I guess one could be smarter and the research, the market burst specifically figure out what people want and then write that. But I, I dunno, I've never really been a prescriber to that mythology.

Lindsay (12m 15s):
I'm not any good at it. So I don't either. Like I, you know, I think if you see, I think you can write to market if you happen to be the market yourself. Like you love those vampire romance novels that sell like crazy. I, I'm kinda one that wants to subvert the tropes rather than doing what's super popular. So I've just found that even if sometimes I think before I write a series, you know, this one, I think it's got a few, you know, enough things that are popular and like Epic fantasy that maybe it'll take off. And then inevitably that one, it's just, you know, it does okay.

Lindsay (12m 47s):
But, and then it will be a series where I wasn't expecting that much from it and that will end up doing better. And I'm kind of reassured because I think traditional publishing has the same experience there. There also seemed to not be very good at predicting which things will end up. They end up calling him a sleeper hit because they didn't expect that one to do well. You know? And then sometimes you push something really hard and it's just, it doesn't click with people. And you know, I think you can get better at predicting what will you know, what's going to do well. But usually I can tell in hindsight why something did well, but not necessarily as far as sitting down and planning like, Oh, I'm trying to write the next big hit.

Lindsay (13m 25s):
Uh, I'm just happy to, I like you. I think it's important to write what you're really excited about and then you can figure out how to try to market it in the best way that, yeah. Has the best chance to do well. Like, you know, you can put a dragon on the front cover if there was a dragon in chapter eight, you know? But yeah, that seems to be the traditional fantasy symbol that, uh, people see and get excited about and they're like, Oh, that's my kind of book.

Jesper (13m 52s):
Yeah, indeed. But if we're, if we're saying that committing to at least a trilogy, then is is sort of the advice, um, have you had any success in, for example, having, okay, you show your written a trilogy but it's not really taking off and then you're rebranding it with newcomers and new blurbs and stuff. Have you had success in actually making such a story sale whereas before it actually didn't? And what I'm hinting at here is that the actual story is actually okay, but it was just a wrapping around it meaning the covers and the blurbs and stuff that really didn't work.

Lindsay (14m 31s):
I've seen it happen a lot for other people. Um, my first year is actually did not have very good covers that were, you know, I remember the emperor's edge was my first series and kind of a high fantasy steam era kind of thing. So not only did it not quite fit Epic fantasy or steam punk kids kind of in the middle, I had these covers that uh, I don't know, said is this historical Indian fiction because there are these yellow covers and apparently that's what it puts them in mind. And I agree looking back that they weren't super, you know, they didn't scream Epic fantasy.

Lindsay (15m 5s):
Um, but I was always willing to make the first book free and run sales and I feel that the story pulled people in well enough that if they would just give it a try, they would, you know, enjoy it. And I didn't have like super hot success. Right. Like I said right from the start, but I was always willing to like run those, you know, make this free run a promo, just give away the first book to try to get people to try it. And I was lucky enough that you know enough people like the story and I think the word of mouth helped a little bit too.

Lindsay (15m 35s):
Uh, that's still seems to be a fan favorite that are that first series. So if you're not super to market and you don't have the exact, you know, perfect cover, it's more of a challenge and I think you might have to be willing to do the free book one or you know, to try to lure people in and then hope this story is strong enough to, uh, to get them in there. But if you know better and can you just make it all awesome from the start? Your odds are of course better. And uh, I have seen other people where they recovered it in kind of relaunched the series a that suddenly they gained some traction and am with mine, I put new covers on it eventually.

Lindsay (16m 12s):
Uh, it wasn't really a game changer, but it's, it made it easier to get BookBub ads on the box set. So that's always a plus if you can get some one of those a year. But they're getting, they're getting tougher to get. So even for established others,

Jesper (16m 27s):
and I was thinking, because I know I've noticed that you have quite some some series starter. The first book in a series are free. Uh, and I've also noticed actually I think you have some thought trilogies that are free as well, but do you have a, like a conscious strategy about what you're making free and why and so forth or how do you, how do you decide what to charge for and what to make free?

Lindsay (16m 52s):
I usually don't start out with book one free, but I'll often launch at 99 cents since. So it's uh, you know, people will check it out. And then am it's usually after the series is complete. Like most of the ones where I have a free book, one that's always free, it's like an eight book series. And so there's seven more. And usually you sit and spin off stuff. So if I suck them in with the first one, then they'll go give it a try. And then I will often box up the first three books in this series. I find that, um, if people read the first three books, they're even more committed to going on and finishing the series.

Lindsay (17m 25s):
And if they just try the first one and I don't usually leave those free to sort of like if I got a BookBub a few months ago, I made it free for the BookBub and then I just kind of a pain to go back in. And I have one right now that I think is free on Amazon even though I put the price up on the other sites and it's like, Oh, okay. Um, and so I will usually do those for sales. Do you like the three books? And again, in a series where there's like eight, so there's still a lot of stuff for them to go on and pay for if they wish to.

Jesper (17m 56s):
I'm also sort of tried to use the, uh, book one free or I have my first book in the service for free as well, just because as S I think you've said earlier, it just lowers the resistance and the barrier for new readers too, to actually give it a chance. Um, and in that way, it works. I still believe in here in 2019 that the freestyle is still works,

Lindsay (18m 20s):
I think especially on the non-Amazon sites for those who are not exclusive and want to sell on Barnes and noble and Kobo and Apple, that am, those people don't have a subscription service yet. Like K you can own limited on Amazon. So there, there's still, I feel like a lot of people surfing looking for the free books on those sites. I even had somebody the other day say they grabbed my free book, went on Smashwords, which has like, wow, I didn't know if people are still shopping there, but I think the international crowd that maybe doesn't have a local Amazon, you know, in their country, uh, you might be able to, they might still use Smashwords.

Lindsay (18m 56s):
And you know, some people just like that there's no DRM and all that stuff to deal with on the sites. But I forgot what I was talking about. Oh, free working. Yeah. So I feel like on Amazon, Kindle unlimited maybe replaced it a little bit, uh, because those people will kind of have their $10 a month subscription and they don't think about it. That just automatically comes out of their account and everything in Kindle unlimited at that point is essentially free for them so they can just shop from that store. But I still find that when I do a free run on Amazon that I can get some, some new readers checking them out.

Lindsay (19m 31s):
Uh, I'm surprised at how many people have come in from the free promo sites. They'll say like, Oh I found your book first on Freebooksy or BookBub cause I feel like authors are saying others don't work anymore or they don't work as well as they used to. But I think there's still a lot of readers subscribe to it that you know, they, they read a lot. They want bargain books. And as indie authors, even if we price it for 99 we're still a bargain compared to nine 99 or 1499 from traditional publishing. So I am still a fan of free.

Lindsay (20m 1s):
Like, I'm happy if I can get my stuff into libraries and you know, people can read them that way because people that buy, you know, even if they download your stuff for free, they may still tell a friend and share the story with somebody who's going to go pay for it. And so that's why I've never been bothered by, you know, at least sharing. Most of my book ones ended up being a complete a story. So it's not like they have to read on, but I do try to set up a bigger story arc to kind of draw them in and there's questions that aren't answered about the characters.

Lindsay (20m 32s):
Is that, cause I think if you give him just a complete book that ends, then there's like more friction. They're not necessarily going to automatically just continue on with the next one. Hopefully if they love the characters they will.

Jesper (20m 46s):
Yeah. Then then the cliffhanger, of course you can, you can use those as well just to S people into the next book in the series as well.

Lindsay (20m 54s):
Yeah. I often, I sh I don't like to do those, but somehow it ends up being kind of a cliffhanger. Like I tried to do a complete story and the novel, but then it's obvious there's more things that the characters have to go and deal with. I, especially in fantasy, I think that we just tell these massive sprawling stories that at the end it's a whole different like government system, you know, that had to be put in place. It's not like this, it's not just a little romance. Usually it's this Epic spanning scope.

Lindsay (21m 25s):
We'll pretend that made sense.

Jesper (21m 28s):
Yeah. Um, but I was thinking as well, because we talked about the freestyler, but on the opposite end of the scale is, is uh, the, let's say more expensive pricing element. And I talked to Joseph Melik recently as well because he, uh, actually increased the prices of all these supposed to nine 99. And it was quite interesting conversation because he was telling me that in terms of actual unit sales, there was no difference from when he had the lower price point.

Jesper (22m 2s):
Um, and so you basically use, just increased all his revenues. But he's not selling any less amount of books. And it also went, of course, enables him to, to spend a bit more money on the advertising because he can afford it. But uh, have you played around with the price ranges on your books to see if it makes a difference in that way?

Lindsay (22m 21s):
I, at one point, I went up from doing a lot of them three 99 up to four 99. I am conscious that, uh, I published pretty often. So if somebody's gonna come in and read everything I published that year, it might be like 10 novels. So I would feel that it might be harder for them to buy everything if I made it something $10. And I've certainly heard from a lot of people, they're like, well, I'm kind of on a budget, you know, I'm retired, I have a set income. So I really appreciate that your books are affordable. And in my case, I make plenty. Uh, so I'm not like, you know, I am feel like I need to make more.

Lindsay (22m 55s):
It just cause I have so many books out now that a and I managed to keep the back list selling reasonably well and I almost always have a new series, uh, each year. So, um, you know, if you want to try it and it works, there's nothing wrong with that. I think I, we had Joseph on the show. I think he kinda does like one book a year or something in that I think you might have diminishing returns if you've published really often at that price point. We're am it depends on how prolific you are too. I know he's a big fantasy. You can be doing these 200,000 word novels and you're not going to be publishing is often.

Lindsay (23m 28s):
So, um, I am a big fan of looking at the overall income rather than worrying too much about what one book costs. That's why I'm happy to do 99 cents or free for a book line if it means I make more overall. And um, you know, I, I like I have less than traditional publishing. I feel like that's a real advantage for us. And when I still make 70% yeah, that's, that seems like a really, you know, making $3 three 50 per per ebook seems good if you're, as long as you're selling, you know, lots of copies.

Lindsay (23m 59s):
If you're selling three copies a month, then a little more frustrating and you know, you might want to play around with all kinds of price points.

Jesper (24m 9s):
Yeah. But maybe, I mean if you're selling three copies than three 99 or nine 99 doesn't really make much of difference except that one more cup of coffee you can buy that month. But otherwise it doesn't make much of a difference. I guess

Lindsay (24m 21s):
it depends also if you're in Kindle unlimited and people can borrow them, I've noticed that the higher price points can actually be more appealing then because they feel like, Oh, I'm getting a really good deal because I can just borrow this six 99 book instead of having to pay for it. Whereas if it's 99 cents, they might just go, well I'll either buy that or maybe I won't get that one because it's not as a good of a deal for one of my 10 borrows that I can have at a time. So that's something to consider too.

Jesper (24m 51s):
Okay. So I guess at least am what I get from, from all of this is that for sure it is still advisable that that people should be writing in series. I think we settled on that. Uh, give it a nice commitment to write three books before you were sort of abandoned it and find something else. And I guess also based on what you're doing here that sometimes I, I, it's almost sounds like sometimes you're just writing a book and then you, you just make sure that the ending is at least open enough that if, if people like it, you can write on, but it almost sounds like many of your series of sort of spat out of just one book then then happen to get extended into a full series.

Jesper (25m 32s):
Is that, is that right?

Lindsay (25m 34s):
I think the dragon blood series is the only one where I didn't at all, wasn't planning to do a series. And then I've got a little box set that's two books where am the first one was encrypted and I totally meant that to be a standalone. And then people liked it and I was curious what happened next with the character. So I turned that into a to book things. So it got a sequel and a short story. Generally now you know with experience on my side I will plan out something that can go to five or eight books and I will plan from the start for it to have like there's questions about the hero or maybe the villain that you're not going to get the answers to right away.

Lindsay (26m 11s):
So that will make the reader curious and want to read on. And there's, there's some something going on that needs to be resolved. Like I did one scifi series where the heroin was trying to search for her daughter that was missing and that took it through all eight books. Poor kid. So like, even though there are individual stories, and you'll see that a lot on TV series too, where this sort of like there's one thing where they're trying to accomplish in the end, solve some crime or something. You know? And I think that if you design it that way from the beginning with a few little things like that, that people want to see resolved, it keeps them reading.

Lindsay (26m 47s):
I know I'm reading something right now where I think I'm only reading cause I want to see the character become the thing. You know, she's trying to become a Knight. It's like these are okay. But you know, I'm not sure if I would keep reading if it had been a complete story in one book. So sometimes just that stuff can keep people going on, even if maybe there's some other stuff that wouldn't have made them a super fan and then by the end maybe there'd become more bigger fans of the series. So we also have a very, uh, been sort of watching reading, what's it called, mentality.

Lindsay (27m 23s):
But the culture nowadays and being in Kindle unlimited, I guess that helps. But, uh, do you have all your books in most of your books you can limit or how do you do the split between widen and Kindle unlimited? All of my older stuff or older series are wide because I started publishing before Kindle unlimited and KDP select existed. So I really resisted for a long time. I didn't want to go into the Amazon exclusivity with anything and I finally saw that it was an advantage to be in there and kind of a disadvantage not to be in there since the borrow is also count as sales as far as calculating your sales rank and whether you're going to be in the top 100 of your John rhe thing.

Lindsay (28m 5s):
So cause I know if you pop into like Epic fantasy, you'll kind of look through and unless it's a big traditionally published author, chances are the books are in Kindle unlimited. There very few people who are able to make it and kind of stay in that top 100 for a while if they're not in canola limited. So I started launching new series in there. And so they might stay there for a year or so. And then when I have something new, I'm going to start a move that series wide and kind of do a, like a second launch, I guess. Yeah. On free or 99 cents and run some promos.

Lindsay (28m 37s):
Again, it's sort of an opportunity to say, Oh, Hey, I'm launching now on Kobo and Apple and all the other bookstores. So it's not the ideal thing, you know, I think right now people are making more money by being exclusive with Amazon, which is seems counterintuitive and we'll find it tough to jump. Um, I've heard from, uh, you know, like Kobo and stuff, like the worst thing you can do is kind of jump back and forth. Yeah. I, so I just, I started in NKU and then move it out and then it's going to stay out. I'm not gonna try like yank it and try to put something back in.

Lindsay (29m 10s):
Kau so I'm, it's usually the most recent series is in there. And then, um, yeah, just put the other chef wide and I also do a Patrion for the sole purpose of putting my books out early before I enroll them in KDP select. So the fans that are not Amazon people can, if they're willing to download it from book funnel. Uh, and you know, I announced it on Patrion they can get the books early. I usually put him a week or two up, uh, before the, before they launch.

Lindsay (29m 40s):
So that's sort of how working around right now because the problem was starting out wide as you have fans on the other site and say get grumpy when understandably so when they find out your new book is only on Amazon. So it's, there's a little bit, a bit of a challenge. I uh, I'm would certainly love it if Amazon removed the exclusivity requirement cause I, I don't have any problem with people getting it as a subscription thing. That doesn't bother me. I still make money on that. But they do make it tough by not allowing you to have it anywhere else or even sell it on your own site.

Jesper (30m 13s):
I, I'm not, I have not unwilling to put any of my books are in Kindle unlimited, but uh, but, uh, yeah, that's a whole other story that I've talked about pre previously. So, uh, we'll leave that a little for now. Um, but I was wondering now that, um, now that I have you here and we've talked around the, the, the series and the importance of writing in series, but because, because you also were six-figure author, I'm wondering if sort of you have any advice for sort of the different stages that people go through to get to that level or, you know, is there any good advice for beginners versus a, once you maybe pass that 10 K Mark and, and so forth, is there any, any sort of, uh, the best of the best advice for, for, for those stages of writing?

Lindsay (30m 59s):
I think if you kinda keep your expectations low and just, you know, cause I feel like people get so disappointed if they're, they're new and they see how much you can possibly make, but they're booked, doesn't do, or their book maybe even does. Okay. You know, they're like, Oh, I made $500 this month. That's, that's horrible because this other person's making $5,000 in my genre. So I always had the kind of low expectations. Like I thought maybe if I got enough books out, I could eventually do this for my day job. So, um, it's, I think it's kind of tough actually when you have success right out of the Gates because then you think it's always going to be that easy.

Lindsay (31m 33s):
And I've seen now I've had the opportunity to see a lot of authors disappear. Like they had one series it took off and then their next two series flopped and then they're just gone now. So I think it's, uh, probably not bad if you just kind of gradually, you know, put more books out every time you put a new book out, it gives you an opportunity to, you know, have a sale on book one. And I just think of it in terms of, I'm trying to get a few, few more readers with each new book I launch and, uh, hopefully they'll become lifetime readers. I, I've, I dunno, I think I have maybe 60 novels now between my name and I did like 15 under a pen name.

Lindsay (32m 9s):
And I have readers tell me regularly that they've read every single one. And I'm, uh, I'm just amazed. I'm like, I don't, I haven't even gone back and like read a lot of them as just as a reader. Um, so that's great. And then, you know, of course if you do start making some money, make sure, you know, I was going to be different in every country, how much you need to put aside for taxes. But, uh, the government will want their portion and it can be pretty high when you get up into six figures. They, they, you know, at least in the U S they do your tax bracket based on, you know, what your income was.

Lindsay (32m 42s):
So make sure to put money aside for that. And um, you have to hear, you have to be able to pay for health care on your own. I know in some countries that's what you get as a citizen that pays taxes. So that's something to consider in the U S and some other countries where you need it by your own health insurance. So usually you need to make more as a self employed person than you did maybe as a salaried person in order to cover all your expenses. So it's ideal if you can probably do both for a while and just pay off any day you have before making the jump to full time.

Lindsay (33m 18s):
And then you'll probably find that there will be jumps. Like I thought, you know, income would just kind of steadily rise. Uh, but you tend to like something takes off, you know, a little bit and then you get a big jump and then you're at that level hopefully, and you stay there and then maybe the next year is there'll be a bigger jump. I w even inevitably it won't continue to just always trend upward. So it's, it's good to put money in the bank and then not assume that you're just always gonna make the same level every year. I tend to pay for things with cash just so I don't am and have to worry about it.

Lindsay (33m 49s):
You know, they don't, I don't want a big mortgage on a house or anything like that. So I, I feel like if you have gradually success, you're probably going to handle it better than if you just suddenly start making 100,000 from your, you know, some trilogy that took off like crazy. So, but you know who, who wouldn't hope for that to happen?

Jesper (34m 7s):
Yeah, I guess I can't blame anybody from hoping that. Okay. So thanks a lot for all your advice here. Lindsay am where can people find out more about you if they want to, to learn about your writing or your podcast or whatever.

Lindsay (34m 28s):
I'm on lindsayburoker.com if you come anywhere close, just filling my name, you'll probably find it. It's Google can help. This is not too common of our El. So, uh, that's my website. I'm on Twitter as goblin writer, which is a kind of handle you get if you have had it for 10 years before you started publishing in New York and thinking like, Oh, I need a professional author thing. And then under lindsayburoker on Facebook and also on Instagram. And uh, the, the new podcast is going to be a six figure author's dot com with the number six because that is the domain that was available.

Lindsay (35m 3s):
So hopefully we'll, we're going to do kind of a higher level, you know, just sort of skip the basics cause there's a lot of podcasts that, you know, do some of the basic stuff and we'll try to get on some really successful guests and just drill down and ask them the good questions. So if you're a podcast listener or on YouTube, hope you check us out.

Jesper (35m 23s):
That's great. And thank you so much for coming on to amwritingfantasy Lindsay and have a chat to you today.

Lindsay (35m 29s):
Thank you for having me.

Jesper (35m 31s):
And so you out there, thank you for watching and see you next Monday.