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Can a New Author Make Six Figures

By: Ken Brown
Published: 10/22/2020

How difficult is it for a newbie author to make a six-figure income?

Sometimes you hear stories of authors making six figures with their writing . How do they do it?

How difficult is it to make six figures with your writing? If you tell the newbie author or writer that it's possible are you giving them unrealistic expectations?

What does it really take?

Authors making that kind of money are actually good at marketing. Their writing is better than average though not necessarily great. They are, I would imagine, very good with their time management skills. Many are entrepreneurial spirits with a good eye for business.

They understand the need for taking care of their customers, building a strong customer base, and nourishing that base.

Is it wrong to tell a newbie that they can make six figures?

When I was a high school student, one Summer my brother and I were helping out the cross country team bringing in some of the The freshman runners or sophomore runners that hadn't run cross country before and we were doing a workout.

The first workout was low mileage of maybe two to three miles. My brother, Brian, was an exceptional runner and captain of the squad. He took the lead and asked me to to be at the end just to make sure that nobody got lost and help the new freshman survive the experience.

One of the the new guys, a freshman, was struggling and was pretty much done around the two mile marker. We did eventually finish that workout, walked a little bit which is fine that was part of the experience, to give them exposure to what it's like to run three miles.

Two years later, I'm back from college and I'm at a high School track meet. I'm watching the two mile run, and there's this boy, named Tracy, and he is just blazing fast. When I look at him and get information from his classmates, I find he's the same kid that could barely finish a three mile run three years earlier. Later in his high school career he ends up doing very well as a high School Junior and I believe that he finished really high in the state meets. I don't know if he actually won state but he did perform very well. He broke a lot of high school records that my brother set.

How does that relate to writers? I guess what I'm trying to say is you can't determine the ability of a newbie writer, and what their potential is, until they get exposure to what the experience is like. They have to write a book or a short story at the very least, and see what it takes to finish a story. Then proceed to find out what it takes to write the story, edit the manuscript, create a cover, publish, and format it for the different platforms.

They need exposure to creating an email campaign, creating an email list and growing a list of fans. They have to learn to hone their craft, they won't be very good writers the first couple of novels, but maybe three years, four years, or more, and the more they write the better they'll get.

Reminds me of that freshman runner so many years ago.

So yes, I say tell newbies what the opportunities are. And then let them have a go at it. Many different things drive our ambitions, our goals. Will the new writer make six figures someday? I can't answer that, but I'll definitely give the person an opportunity to try. I'll offer advice, suggestions, talk about craft, talk about marketing and see what happens.

Cheers. Remember to Write Everyday. Ken.