Why I'm more interested in writing online than querying these days
And what I hope my future writing experience will look like.
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Once upon a time, I got eight query rejections in one day.
Eight!
We were visiting my in-laws for the weekend. It was summertime, the weather was more than pleasant, and my inbox was chock-full of “sorry, not for me” emails. I managed to keep a smile plastered on my face the whole time, though.
In fairness, what could I really have expected? I was querying two novels simultaneously and had sent hundreds of submissions for each.
Still, every “no” stung a little, even if I’d come to expect them by that point.
That story reached a bittersweet conclusion roughly one year later (I’ve talked about it in more detail here), and one of those two novels is due for publication soon. So, all’s well that ends well, right?
But of course, the successful publication of a book isn’t the final rung in the ladder. It’s barely halfway up, in fact, because the dreaded ‘M’ word still looms above, leering down with its slobbery tongue lolling from its fang-filled maw.
M is for marketing, and marketing is something I think a lot of writers don’t anticipate until it’s too late.
Suddenly, their book’s out there in the world, idling on Amazon’s digital shelf, gathering digital dust.
I can’t speak too much into this because, while I’ve done a great deal of business marketing and sell products online every week, I’ve never marketed a book. I’ve sold books, but none that I’ve written myself.
That’s a challenge I relish in the near future (my first novel is due for publication soon), and I’ll be sure to keep you updated on what I learn about it along the way.
The way I see it, there are three main ways to make money writing:
Write books and sell them.
Write for an employer who’ll pay for your time.
Write online and get paid by a hosting platform.
I know that’s massively generalised, but you get the picture.
All three are legitimate ways to make money through writing, and all three depend heavily on the writer’s skill, commitment and fortitude.
However, each option is differentiated by two things: control and time.
Three Options
Let’s say you choose Option One.
You write a book. It takes six months to complete your first draft. Maybe it takes less time, but either way, it’s a significant commitment.
After six months, you lock that first draft away for a few weeks, and then you spend one month editing. This is followed by (at least) a couple of months waiting for beta readers to take your story for a spin, and then another month of editing and preparing query info. Finally, you spend several months querying your novel to literary agents, and if one offers to represent you, you’ll spend several more months waiting for a publisher to pick it up. And in both cases, the word “months” is easily interchangeable with the scarier word “years”.
And after all that, you still have to market the darn thing.
So from the moment the first words of your story hit the page until a reader boops the Buy button online or flashes their debit card in a bookstore, a period of several years will likely pass. In the time it takes for your book to see the light of day, wars will start and end, world leaders will come and go, a hummingbird will live out its entire lifespan, and Taylor Swift will release at least two more acoustic albums to great critical acclaim.
All that’s coming from someone who wants to publish a lot of books in his lifetime, by the way, in case you think I’m being too harsh. I’m talking to myself in this post, too.
Option Two is much faster (you’ll write lots and get paid regularly) but you’ll have to sacrifice the control you might have enjoyed with your novel. And I say “might” because editors and publishers often request changes to manuscripts, so your story could look quite different by the time it’s ready to rock n’ roll.
And then there’s Option Three - writing online. It looks something like this:
You write an article / blog today
It gets published online tomorrow
You get paid for it next month
That’s pretty much it. Or at least, that’s how it’s been for me so far.
For context, I write an article on Medium every weekday and submit each one to a publication. Those publications (I have four or five favourites) usually publish within a day, two max. Each article accumulates its own trickle of income throughout the month, and then I get paid for the collective total the following month.
It’s not yet enough to make a full-time living, but crucially, it’s growing steadily. If things keep going as they are now, it’ll become a sizeable revenue stream within the next year. And multiple revenue streams are much safer than a single source of income.
So instead of enduring a years-long process to create a product that may or may not make any money, I can write a little every day and watch my efforts translate into revenue in real time. I can test new ideas, iterate my methods, and produce content that directly answers questions posed by my audience.
Best of all, it’s usually a ton of fun, regardless of how much money I make.
So that’s why, for the time being, I’m more interested in writing online than querying my novel. Obviously I could easily do both, but there’s a lot of negativity involved in the querying process and I’m enjoying dipping my toes into this new-to-me approach to writing right now.
That being said, there’s no substitute for writing fiction, and I can’t wait to dive back into it in the New Year.
Personally, I think my future will involve a mix of both writing non-fiction online while chipping away at fiction stories behind the scenes. The more revenue streams I can generate and develop in the meantime, the more time I’ll have to do both.
That sounds like the sweet life to me.
What are your thoughts on book querying versus writing online?
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Well, the second half of the article was worth the money. It did raise questions, not the least of which was 'what is medium?' (which I'll google), and 'which online magazines might pay me to write something?', which I'll research. But as somebody completely new to the field (I'm a neuropsychiatrist and medical psychotherapist in the day job) this is all useful stuff.
Idk. The #1 doesn’t seem to include writing a book and publishing yourself, then selling it yourself. I spent most of my career doing that and making six figures in the process.