There was an article in the New York Times recently about Meredith Wild’s multimillion dollar success story (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/31/business/media/meredith-wild-a-self-publisher-making-an-imprint.html?_r=0 ).
This is the section many writers are talking about
“Before the book was even released, she began buying online ads targeting erotic romance readers. Her husband took out 10 credit cards and a personal loan to pay for advertising. They borrowed $70,000 from Mr. Grishman, a former banker who is Ms. Wild’s brother-in-law. They eventually raised enough to fund a six-figure national marketing campaign, which included paid posts on social media and movie theater ads promoting “Hardwired” that played before the “Fifty Shades of Grey” movie.”
So all we have to do is dump over $100,000 into marketing and our books will sell millions, right?
Ahhh… no.
a) Meredith Wild is an experienced businesswoman. This isn’t her first venture. She founded a graphics company. She has marketing, sales and product launch experience.
b) This story made news because it is DIFFERENT. It is unusual. I’ve heard similar stories from other writers except these stories have very different endings. The writers ended up losing everything and I mean EVERYTHING, including their houses. No one talks about these stories because the average person doesn’t want to learn how to lose money. The average person wants to learn how to make millions. The New York Times knows this.
c) PUBLISHERS can’t even tell you what the next hot story will be. In hindsight, folks will tell you that they KNEW Twilight or Fifty Shades Of Grey would be a success but, at the time, I assure you that very few people and no publishers knew this (if they had, these writers would have been locked into gazillion book deals).
d) Duplicating a success story rarely works because there are many different variables involved, variables certainly not shared in a newspaper article. (Did you know that E.L. James is married to a screenwriter? Could that have helped the success of Fifty Shades Of Grey? I don’t know.)
Before I became a full time writer (thanks to my dear wonderful hubby), I was in new product development. I still mentor up and coming entrepreneurs and these entrepreneurs deal with similar situations and similar temptations.
“Joan Smith got rich doing X. If I do X, I’ll be rich too.”
It would be nice if success worked that way. That would be easy and risk-free but it unfortunately doesn’t. EVERY success is a special case, in writing and in business.
(BTW… this applies to Audrey Carlan’s success also. Signing with Meredith Wild’s imprint won’t guarantee a writer a book on the New York Times Best Selling List and $20,000 a month in royalties.)
Should you invest six figures in marketing your story? I don’t know. You could sell a million dollars worth of books. That IS possible, clearly. But you also could lose that money. That is even more possible.
You have to make this decision for yourself but please, please, please know the risks.
Note: This is not meant in any way to detract from what Meredith Wild and Audrey Carlan have achieved. I greatly admire Meredith Wild’s risk taking and her entrepreneurial drive. I don’t know her personally but it sounds like she worked her butt off for the success she achieved, as did Audrey Carlan, and I wish them both the best.
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Crash And Burn
Crash was manufactured to be one of the best warriors in the universe. The cyborg has spent many human lifespans fighting the enemy. But, unlike his battle-loving brethren, he doesn’t enjoy killing. When he escapes the Humanoid Alliance, he vows to never end another life.
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