Writers, whether they’re book authors, magazine writers or news reporters, have a reputation of being very non-entrepreneurial. They have many qualities that would make for a good entrepreneur like diligence and resourcefulness but don’t ask them to market themselves or pitch a business proposition. These things are anathema to many writers who traditionally feel that their job is just to write and nothing else.
For five years I was an editor at a local publishing company and I had to deal with authors of all stripes. Each of them had their own quirks and personalities, as to be expected, but the one thing almost all of them had in common was their aversion to marketing their books. “Isn’t that the job of the publisher?” would be the common refrain.
No, you have to go out there and promote your book or it won’t sell, I’d tell them. Many of them would do this grudgingly. Some actually ended becoming quite good at it. A few refused to do any marketing and not surprisingly, their books didn’t sell well at all. Needless to say, such authors didn’t get signed for a second book.
Today, I suppose most authors realise that marketing is part and parcel of what they have to do. However, even that’s often not enough these days. As book publishers and bookstores come under financial pressure due to so much free content online, fewer and fewer book deals are being signed.
Book publishers want to go with sure-fire bets – established authors and famous names whose books have a higher chance of selling. They’re less willing to take a risk on a relative unknown, even if that person is a good writer. So, what is an author to do?
Entrepreneurial Journalism
Self-publishing is a very realistic option. But once you go down that route, you’re becoming an entrepreneur whether you realise it or not. When you self-publish, you have to do everything yourself. You’ll have to arrange for the editing, design and layout to be professionally done; you’ll have to arrange for the printing and distribution to be done as well. Lastly, you have to market and promote your book to the general public. And, you have to fund all of these activities out of your own pocket. If your book sells well, you’ll reap the profits but if it sells poorly, you’ll be the one who suffers the losses. Just like in any other business.
Gone are the days when an author’s only responsibility is to deliver the manuscript on time. Gone also are the days when journalists can expect a job for life once they join a print media company, whether it’s a magazine or a newspaper. We all know of so many journalists who have left their jobs either through a voluntary separation programme or because they were laid off.
Some try to make the transition to public relations or advertising but those industries are facing tough times too due to the disruption caused by social media. Nowadays many companies handle their own branding, marketing and advertising by using Facebook Ads and Google Ads rather than an agency. And if they need help with managing their social media, they go to “social media managers” – many of whom are freelancers.
So, what’s a journalist to do? Have you heard of entrepreneurial journalism? It’s actually already a pretty well established concept in the West and journalism schools teach it. The basic premise of entrepreneurial journalism is that journalists shouldn’t think of writing purely in creative terms but in business terms as well. In other words, it’s not enough to be able to create great content; you also have to be able to monetise it. Becoming an entrepreneurial journalist entails have to develop hard skills, business skills and soft skills.
Hard skills
Hard skills are technical in nature and are arguably the least challenging of the three new skillsets because acquiring them is really just a matter of investing time on them. The digital age is a multimedia age. So writers need to have some basic audio and video capabilities. That means knowing how to record and edit audio and video content so they can be embedded into your stories. It’s also important to know the right type of platform for what you want to achieve. Is your platform a website, a blog, a social media page, an app, an e-book? Most likely you’ll need to master a few of these but of particular importance will be social media because that’s the platform most people are on.
Business skills
An entrepreneurial journalist must not put all his eggs in one basket and rely on only one revenue source. It’s better to diversity your sources of income so that if some streams are dry you’ll still have some income flowing in. The most obvious way for a freelance writer to make money is to write for established publication. But there probably isn’t enough work from that activity alone so it’s important to develop other sources of revenue. One possibility is creating your own channel on social media where all your content is uploaded and displaying advertising. Another is getting sponsors to pay for the content. Either way the public doesn’t have to pay cash for accessing the content. It’s generally very hard to charge the public for content although some bloggers have set up virtual donation boxes where people can “tip” them. A platform like Patreon (www.patreon.com) is ideal for that.
Soft skills
Writers are usually good at certain types of soft skills especially those that relate to gathering stories. They know how to deal with different types of interviewees, for example. However, when it comes to soft skills that relate to business, they’re usually quite poor. For example, writers are loath to do personal branding.
How many journalists do you know have their own official websites? Pitching and selling content or editorial services to client is another bane for writers. It ranks up there with branding and marketing as necessary evils that writers have to put up with if they want to make it in the content business.
Lastly, writers are good at conceptualising stories but not so good at conceptualising business models. But, like all good entrepreneurs writers need to know how to structure at least a basic business plan for monetising content. The more innovative and novel your ideas are, the higher the chances a client – a publisher, an agency or a business corporation – will take you on. This is the new reality for writers.