By Jacob Jans
Over the years, I’ve managed to turn my ability to write in to a comfortable career. However, the key to my ability to earn money with my words has many layers, beyond just the ability to write.
This leads to an important truth: The vast majority of writers make their living through diverse means, beyond just writing.
That means, if you want to make a living as a writer, you’ll need to develop a few new skills that help you do just that.
Now, there are many paths to success. Many writers combine teaching with writing. Others find traditional jobs outside of writing. For example, the poet Wallace Stevens was an executive at an insurance company. Richard Hugo worked for Boeing.
I’ve managed to build my career in a way that ties more directly into writing. I’ve learned how to build large audiences, who I can reach directly with my words. (And thank you for being a part of that audience!)
Audience building is an incredibly valuable skill. If you build a quality relationship with your audience, you are almost guaranteed to be able to make a living – once your audience is large enough.
Few things are more meaningful – and more valuable – than a dedicated audience that you know how to serve.
Case in point: In 2013 I helped Emily Harstone launch Authors Publish Magazine. At the time, she saw the need for a publication focused on connecting writers with literary journals. She also had some ideas about how to build an audience for the content she was planning on producing, which she successfully did. (The Authors Publish Facebook Page has one hundred nineteen thousand fans, and even more email subscribers.)
By building an audience, Emily was able to successfully turn Authors Publish into her full time job, and earn a comfortable living.
Unfortunately, earlier this year, advertising rates plummeted, for no discernable reason. (The ad program is managed by Google.) In order to sustain Authors Publish, we had to create a new source of revenue. After brainstorming many ideas, Emily decided to teach a course on manuscript publishing. Because she had spent years serving the audience of Authors Publish Magazine, she knew they would be interested in the topic. She crafted a four week course that was uniquely suited to the people she had spent years writing for.
That’s where I came in: It was my job to make sure the class was filled, which involved creating the sales process, writing the sales page, and course announcement.
Fortunately, I was in a very good position. And here’s what you should really keep in mind. The hard part was already complete. Not only had we already built a large audience – Emily had a clear understanding of the audience. She knew them very well, and thus knew they would be interested in the course.
However, in my experience, there are no guarantees. I was very nervous about making sure the course would be successful.
I mapped out a two week marketing plan, with the hopes of filling the course by the end of the two weeks, and put a lot of effort into crafting high-quality copy to sell the course.
Even though we already has a solid understanding of the audience, I wanted to make sure the copy fit them perfectly, so I sent a short survey, asking about the questions and challenges they faced on the topic of manuscript publishing.
The answers to their questions became the basis of the copy for the sales page.
If you ever have any doubt about someone is thinking, you can just ask. And that’s what we did.
And we were able to ask, because we had built an audience.
Even though we had mapped a full two week plan to sell the course, it managed to completely sell out in just six hours, earning $8,910 in revenue. We had solved the ad-rates problem and found a new way to serve our audience.
Want to learn more about audience building? Read this:
