Making Versus Managing
One is sexy, one is savvy, both are necessary.
Do you sometimes wonder if the hobby you love so much could also be profitable for you?
That’s what drives so much of the side-hustle industry. You discover there’s actually a market for your art/craft/product, and suddenly you look at your little hobby in a whole new light.
It could be almost anything, but, for the sake of this post, let’s apply it to writing. Are you ready for the evolution that takes place when you start getting paid?
I’ll never forget the first book I ever sold. I’d just independently published my first novel, “Comet’s Curse,” and Sue Lubeck, the owner of a charming indie bookstore in Denver called The Bookies, took one look and said, “Yeah, let me have two of them.”
There was no contract, no invoice. I still smile when I think about Sue walking to the register, pulling out $11.94—my 60% cut—and sticking the cash in my hand.
With that simple exchange, my hobby became a business.
Different dreams
There are plenty of people who enjoy writing. But not everyone has the same goals in mind. I have several friends who write purely for personal enjoyment. They either journal, host a blog, or maybe write poetry. None of it’s done with commerce in mind, and that’s great. It scratches a creative itch, and it makes them happy.
Others, however, want to sell their talents. They want to explore the idea of turning an interest into some income. You may have thought about it, too.
If you’re into writing, the tools available today are remarkably more advanced than what I had at my disposal in 2002. Honestly, although I had a computer, we were still five years away from Amazon’s KDP program, and getting into bookstores—other than my lucky transaction with The Bookies and a wonderful champion named Judy Bulow at The Tattered Cover—was a real challenge.
I won’t say things were primitive, but compared to an author’s toolbox now, well, it kinda was.
What I learned right away was that my life had become segmented: Part of my world was now made up of creating, and the other part was running a business.
Or, in other words, Making versus Managing.
This evokes a groan from most creative people. We have this romantic notion of the celebrated author, styled in their favorite cardigan, sitting before a keyboard with a mug of tea beside them and a fireplace crackling behind them, as they churn out the delicious words that will entertain millions. All the nasty business stuff is done for them by others.
Okay. I guess that happens for some writers today. But for the most part, that ain’t real life.
Real life is dealing with book production, setting up mailing lists, working on promotions, creating ad copy for a new social media campaign, responding to listener emails, dealing with taxes and inventory and God knows what else.
All of that just scratches the surface. The managing portion of a modern writer’s life is as much of a full-time job as the writing itself. You’re essentially working two jobs.
And it’s important to keep in mind that these chores require a separate part of your brain. If you put your creative writing on hold for an hour while you handle a printing emergency, it’s not so easy to slip back into that world of imagination. Your making brain and your managing brain don’t work and play well together.
Yet they’re both crucial to your success.
Don’t panic
None of this is meant to scare you off. It’s simply a heads-up that the behind-the-scenes life of an indie author is way more work than just typing a few clever paragraphs a day.
There’s making—which many consider the fun part—and there’s managing, which is actually where you make the profit I mentioned in the first sentence. There is no profit if you’re not meticulous with the business side of your dream.
Some writers devote their mornings to writing, take a lunch break, then spend a few hours each afternoon doing the messy stuff. Or vice versa. It doesn’t really matter, as long as both get done.
Think about this if you ever lay out a business plan for your writing career. And don’t laugh, that’s solid advice I’m giving you. If you were starting a restaurant, you’d want a business plan. Starting a day care? Start with a business plan.
Well, your writing career is a business, too. Write the damned business plan, and in it, throw in a few notes about how you’ll handle the managing portion of that writing life. You can always tweak it later.
But allow for it now. You’ll be happy you did.
Dom Testa writes fiction and nonfiction, and he had every intention of framing that $11.94. It may have instead turned into a burger and fries.
That first book, “Comet’s Curse,” is now published under one of Dom’s pen names, Tyber North.
Find most of his books at DomTestaBooks.com.