The Business of Writing: Volume 3: Business of Writing, #3

By Simon Whaley

How do you arrange a virtual blog tour? When it comes to writing, are two heads better than one? How do you go about creating an audiobook? Should you produce your own author newsletter? Can poets earn a living from writing? Are there grants for writing projects and, if so, how do you get one? These, and many more questions, are answered in this third collection of articles that first appeared in Writing Magazine.

 

Contributors include: Jackie Cosh, Julie Phillips, Rachel Gilbey, Bella Osborne, Lizzie Lamb, Dr Euan Lawson, Susi Holliday, John Pilkington, Burhana Islam, Chris Brookmyre, Marisa Haetzman, Ambrose Parry, Peter Jones, Della Galton, Mark Sullivan, Dan Blank, Cass Hunter, Tom Palmer, Anita Loughrey, John Adams, Sue Barnard, Wendy Clarke, Stella Riley, Roz Morris, Mandy Baggot, Samantha Tonge, Richard Vaughan Davies, Rachel Dove, Kristina Adams, David Gaughran, Vaseem Khan, Liam Livings, Peter Ralph, Adam Croft, Joanne Harris, Catherine Fitzsimons, Patsy Collins, Chrissie Gittins, James Nash, Daphne Gray-Grant.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon Whaley
• Release date: Oct 27, 2020
• ISBN: 9781838078645

Simon Whaley

Simon Whaley is a writer, author and a photographer. Like many writers, he's had a few proper jobs along the way (high street bank, local government, civil service) but found that life as a writer suits him better. Since his first book hit the UK bestseller lists in December 2003, he's authored and contributed to several books, written hundreds of articles and seen several of his short stories published across the world. To find out more about Simon visit his website at www.simonwhaley.co.uk. To sign up to receive occasional newsletters visit: www.simonwhaley.co.uk/newsletter/

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1

Culling Clients

One of the aims of being a freelance writer is securing new clients. More clients mean more money.

One of the downsides of freelancing is the innate urge to say Yes! to every work opportunity that comes our way, especially if we’re just starting out, or going through a dry patch (as nearly every writer does, from time to time).

However, there’s no law that says once you’ve acquired a client you must keep them for life, assuming they wish to continue offering you work. It can be useful, liberating even, to periodically cull some clients. So when should you say goodbye?

Adding Value

Business is about valuing your product, which for us as freelance writers means valuing ourselves. Sometimes a commission ends up being more difficult or time-consuming than first thought. For a one-off commission, we can put this down as a learning experience, but if it’s a regular commitment, this has implications for our business. Working on lower-paid commissions prevents us from acquiring and producing higher paid work.

When I first became a full-time freelance writer, I submitted an article on spec to a new local publication. They accepted my piece, for which I was paid the going-rate for county magazines. I sent another, which they took, and another, and then they asked if I’d be interested in a regular column. Of course, the freelance mentally kicked in and I said Yes. I wrote that monthly column for just over six years. It was great fun.

During this time, my book royalty payments began decreasing, and my income dropped, so I reviewed my client list. I realised I was spending a lot of time on this one particular column, and in reality, it was the income from my book royalties that had subsidised this time. I needed to earn more money. I needed higher-paying clients. It was a tough decision, but I had to let the column go.

It was stressful because I was so grateful for the regular work that came so early on in my full-time writing career. It gave me confidence, it gave me regular work, and it gave me regular money. So it was a difficult conversation to have with the editor. They offered more money, but because they were a local county magazine, and their budgets were tight, the increase they offered was nominal.

It wasn’t that the editor didn’t value me. They didn’t have the financial freedom to show how much they valued me. But I valued myself more, and so we parted company (on friendly terms because you never know what the future might hold). I let the regular client go.

For the first few months after that, I worried about whether I’d done the right thing. But, with more time, I was able to sell other pieces to higher-paying markets.

Freelance writer and author Jackie Cosh (https://twitter.com/jcosh), whose latest book is The King with the Iron Belt: The Life of King James IV of Scotland agrees that culling clients is a necessary action.

‘As a freelancer, you always worry. That never goes away and I probably have clients right now that I should walk away from, but yes the worry that the time will come that you have no work hangs there. I have let clients go on a few occasions and for various reasons – low rates offered when I could get better elsewhere, change of career direction, and in a couple of cases editors that really were very hard to work with.’

While that decision might feel frightening at the time, looking back at it later often reveals something more interesting. When I asked Jackie if anything unexpected had happened as a result of taking such a decision she replied, ‘Not really, apart from not noticing any change in my bank balance at the end of the month, which confirmed that it was the right move.’

Editorial Differences

As Jackie mentioned, not every client relationship is charming, delightful and enjoyable (but most are!). Although many non-writers think we work in isolated garrets, much of publishing relies on teamwork, and in particular a close partnership between a writer and the editor. Some editors are under so much pressure their work methods can make working with them somewhat challenging.

One editor gave me an earful of verbal abuse because he claimed he’d wasted an hour waiting by his phone to take a phone call from me to discuss a project. However, his earlier email told me categorically not to call him, but to wait until he called me. I did the job, delivered on time, the editor was happy and payment was prompt.

The second commission was just as fraught when the editor asked me to attend two events he wanted covering, yet I’d already made it clear during an initial discussion that I could only attend one. He understood this and commissioned me on that basis, but later changed his mind. It was hard work, involved an awful lot of re-arranging of existing commitments, but I delivered that piece. Suffice to say that when that editor got in touch offering a third commission, I declined it. That was one client I didn’t want, no matter how good the money was.

Respecting Yourself

Sometimes existing clients can change the way they work, or how they work with you, making you consider whether to continue working with them.

Writing Magazine columnist Julie Phillips, experienced this following the publication of her first book. Fired up with how well this particular business relationship was working she pitched another idea to them. The response was not what she was expecting.

‘When I pitched the second book, they decided to offer me a contract where I would be expected to pay some of the production costs. As a professional writer, that was a definite no from me and I declined. I respected myself and believed more in my writing than going down that route.’

Although the publisher is still one of Julie’s clients (because her first book is still in print), she decided to find other publishing clients. As is so often the case, when one door closes another opens, and it gave Julie an opportunity to reconsider her writing career path.

‘Instead, I trained my efforts on writing other things and ended up a couple of months later securing a commission for three books about World War 1 with Pen and Sword Books,’ she explains. ‘That was a definite challenge for me as I hadn't written anything quite like that before. I'm so glad I did as I secured two further commissions from them for bigger books-- one about Birmingham in World War 2 which has just been released (Birmingham At War 1939-45), and another about Suffragettes in Birmingham due out next year. Although the situation with the other publisher annoyed me at the time, it turned out extremely well in the end.’

It’s hard work securing a traditional publisher these days, so when you’ve got one it can be nerve-wracking deciding whether or not to work with them again on another project. But as Julie’s example shows, it could lead to better things. That’s the difference having a great client relationship can make. Julie wrote one book for one publisher, but is now writing her sixth for another publisher.

Continuous Development

It’s also worth remembering that, just as with any other career, we grow over time. Our interests and skills change, and sometimes this requires a change in clients. Short story writers targeting competitions or the women’s magazine market often progress to the longer-form novel market. Some novelists move into writing screenplays. Something may happen in an article writer’s personal life that turns them into an expert on that subject, leading them to specialise in that new topic. A change in client can happen simply because you’ve outgrown them.

In 1896, an Italian economist, Vilfredo Pareto, noted that in Italy some 80% of the country’s land was owned by 20% of the population. Further studies have shown that his 80/20 principle applies in other areas of our lives. From a freelancing perspective, what this frequently means is that 80% of our income generally comes from 20% of our clients.

Making a decision as to whether to ditch a client often means determining whether they are one of our 20% clients from whom we derive 80% of our income, or whether they’re one of the remaining 80% of our clients who between them generate the remaining 20% of our income. The latter is easier to cull. It’s the former that can cause the sleepless nights as we worry about making the right decision.

But, as Jackie says, ‘Like people, clients fly into our lives and fly out.’ The trick is to keep the higher-paying ones we enjoy working for.

If you ever accept a job from a client that doesn’t fill you with excitement, ask the question: why am I still working for this client?

As freelancers, our natural instinct is to accept as much work that comes our way, but that’s not always the right business decision. A good writing business has a portfolio of clients. And culling some of them on a periodic basis can be cathartic and reinvigorating for your writing business too.

Business Directory

Culling clients isn’t about stabbing them in the back. Instead:

Begin by turning down work, saying current commitments prevent you from taking their commission.

If you need to sever the relationship completely, always be polite. Editors move around and they could move to higher-paying markets.

‘Say nothing negative and leave the door open if you can,’ says Jackie. Anything can change in the future. You may not need that client now, but you may be grateful of them at a later date.

Always complete any commissioned work previously agreed. Don’t leave the editor in the lurch, suddenly.

If you’ve had problems extracting payment in the past, wait until you’ve received what you’re owed, before telling them that you’re moving on.

2

Virtually Touring

Gone are the days when publishers organised country-wide book tours for every author, dropping them into every major town and city bookstore to promote their latest offering. Many authors are probably thankful for this, for such events were frequently gruelling and exhausting.

Today, a good book tour still requires energy and effort on an author’s part, but the modern virtual book tour means we can travel the world promoting our books from the comfort of our own home … even in our nightwear, if that’s what we fancy.

But what exactly is a virtual book tour? Rachel Gilbey, who runs Rachel’s Random Resources (https://www.rachelsrandomresources.com) to help authors with their book promotional needs, explains. ‘Instead of attending a different bookshop in the country for a signing each day, you are instead guaranteed being featured in virtual shop windows, or book blogs, for each day of the tour, potentially being in two or three places at once, so that even more people have the chance to see you and your book at any one time.’

And unlike physical book tours, where you deal with one person at a time in the queue or even worry whether anyone will actually turn up, virtual book tours can take a variety of formats.

‘These shop windows, the book blogs,’ says Rachel, ‘are going to either feature a review of your book, or potentially a post that you have supplied to them, or an interview with you, or even an extract from your book. This allows your book to be seen all over the world and means that you could be displayed in the UK and USA simultaneously on the same day, thus allowing an even bigger audience to see and hear about your book.’

Book tours work best over several days, particularly when your book has just been published. But unlike a real book tour, which can take you away from your writing desk for most of the day if not several days at a time, a writer can slot some writing time into a busy virtual book tour, even one stretching over several weeks.

‘During the tour,’ Rachel continues, ‘I would encourage an author to be online at least once or twice per day to share the blog tour posts themselves, and thank the bloggers. Generally the more interaction an author can put in, the more they will get from the experience.’

Reader Reviews

So why should we consider a virtual tour for our next book? ‘With so many books published every day,’ says Bella Osborne (https://www.bellaosborne.com), whose latest book is Coming Home to Ottercombe Bay, ‘a blog tour is an opportunity to announce the arrival of