Real Talk for Writers

Welcome to the final installment of our four-part series of essential skills for published novelists!

As a reminder, the overall categories are:

• Essential Writing Skills
• Essential Marketing Skills 
• Essential Emotional Skills
• Essential Business Skills (today's post!)

Before I share the ess...

This week's issue of Real Talk for Writers came as a request from a few debut authors that I know. There is so rarely transparency when it comes to sales numbers (author Jason June being one of the rare exceptions -- the royalty posts on his newsletter inspired some of my formatting this week), whic...

Before I dive into today's Real Talk for Writers, just a quick note: I am not a financial advisor, accountant, or tax pro. Everything I'm sharing today is simply advice I wish I had followed earlier in my career. Please check with your own tax/financial pros to see what makes the best sense for your...

As an industry, publishing tends to be shrouded in mystery. Especially when it comes to numbers. 

It’s rare for authors to talk publicly about how much money they make or how many copies of their books they sell.

There’s lots of euphemisms: “Oh, it was a fairly small advance” or “the book did okay...