We’ve heard it before. “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket”, as the saying goes. As authors, we take that to mean don’t count on just one book. Write more! It’s still putting all your eggs into one author basket.
How many of us have taken the steps to diversify where our income comes from as an author? We come into the career expecting to write a book or three (or more) and have the royalties from those books support us for the rest of our lives.
The reality is that even if you have a following of 1,000 people and every single one of them buys every single book you put out. You would have to put out a book daily or weekly at the least. You still aren’t going to make enough to pay bills on a monthly basis from book royalties alone. I don’t know any authors that are pulling that off. Well maybe one, but I swear she is super human cranking out 100,000+ words monthly. I’m also almost certain even she has other means to keep it going.
Some of us take on side jobs, using our writing skills to ghost write, edit, or create book covers, to make up the difference. Some of us create other kinds of projects and products to go along side our books. Very few of us invest until we’ve hit a certain point. It’s the furthest thing from our minds until we have more money than we can spend.
Investing
That was me. It costs money to invest, and at the end of the week, or month, there isn’t any left. Can I get an amen?
I’ve been planning to invest, as soon as I had an extra $100 or $1,000 dollars to put in to make it worthwhile. That line of thinking always made it impossible for me to invest anything. I don’t have an extra $100 or $1,000 laying around at any point throughout a month. Payday comes and immediately it goes right back out. If I do have an extra few dollars sometimes, I get something I’ve been wanting or needing and it’s gone too.
This year, I wanted to do something different. I wanted to invest and I was going to do it come hell or high water. On January 2nd, I was doing some research. I’d heard about penny stock trading and decided to investigate it. I’ve got a half a jar of pennies, why the hell not?
Enter Robinhood
Well, it doesn’t exactly work the way that is sounds. You have to have $1,000 or more to get started, so you can buy high numbers of shares that result in a cost of pennies on the dollar, so it’s $1,000 worth of stocks for $100, times a hundred. That wasn’t going to help me, yet. Then I came across Robinhood. It wasn’t like that at all.
I took that few days to look around the site before I did anything. I found out it has a learning section that explains everything. It’s all written in terms I could understand. That was a huge plus because while I understood a little about stocks and how they worked, I was dumb when it came to knowing the terms and any of the finer points. It was those finer points that terrified me.
I learned about everything from initial investments to day trading. It took so much of the fear out of it for me. Now, it’s actually kind of fun.
I laid out a plan for how I would manage things, added companies to my watch list, laid out my personal buy and sell points, and I check it every few days. Today, I sold my first shares and invested the funds into new stocks. I’m up $10.03 on my initial investment of $10.
One Author Several Baskets
It’s January of 2019, I’m an author with eggs in several baskets. Nine published books out now and 26 more planned for the year. I sell signed copies and merchandise for each book through my swag shop, and I’ve got a growing investment portfolio. I’ve got a lot of other things in the works to build even more baskets.
If none of them do well enough to make ends meet on their own, combining what I can make from each of them will get me much closer than just book sales alone. Don’t keep all of your eggs in one basket. Create new baskets and spread your eggs among them and if one gets crushed, you’ll still have eggs to eat elsewhere!
Happy Writing!
Christy ♥
P. S. Just a few reminders.
1) Don’t forget about the 12 Books in 12 Months Challenge. You can start today and join the facebook group to share the experience with others. https://www.facebook.com/groups/198875410887406/
2) This month’s coupon code for the Christy Mann Author Swag Shop is 5Jan2019. Use it to get a special discount when you place an order of your favorite items from the swag shop! Don’t forget that 100% of the proceeds from the Life On Your Terms line go to building the Life On Your Terms Project fund.
3) Keep an eye out for Fogoyle: A Short Story 5 (January 11th) and Terrible Friend (January 25th) releases and check your email to see what books are up for grabs FOR FREE this month!
And finally, #4) Congratulations to this weeks Trivia Question Winner is Brandon Hardison!!
New questions are posted every Thursday on the Christy Mann Author Page and in the Fogoyle Fan Group. Read up and you could be next weeks winner!
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