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A review by egbella
Full Time Author: How to build, grow and maintain a successful writing career that you love by Crystal Hunt, Eileen Cook
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
4.5
This is a massive book, and probably the best overall guide that I've read for authors seeking to turn their writing into a career. I love that it was written by successful traditional AND indie authors. There was very little information included that didn't apply to me in some way or another, and what I can't implement now, I anticipate revisiting in the next couple of years to put into practice. Overall, as an indie author, Crystal's methods and strategies resonated best with me.
With 450+ pages, this guide visited everything from setting goals and priorities, choosing business models and planning for taxes, which publication path best suits you, identifying the best strategies for your books, marketing plans and methods, product price points and distribution channels, author branding and pen names, budgeting, re-branding and re-releasing old books, applying for an agent and publisher as a traditionally publishing author, indie publishing processes, other ways to bring in writing-related income, what to do when things go poorly, and appendixes full of other resources.
The authors have a fairly chatty writing style, but not unbearable to read through - mostly just friendly and welcoming. The presentation of information in each section was clear and easy to understand, at least as someone semi-familiar with many of the topics they discussed. Some of the sections were very short (even just one or two pages), and I would have loved even more details in many of them (ex. newsletters, business models, etc.), but they did always provide other suggestions for where to go for more information and deeper dives, which I appreciate.
I wish that I had read this book when I first started out on my indie author journey! As is, this was an incredibly helpful read as I rebrand and really buckle down on turning it into a career. Even though not all of the information will apply to every author (at least not all at once), I would recommend this book to ANY author looking to write for a living. I'm an indie author and found a LOT of information I could implement, but there were a good number of sections for traditionally publishing authors too (I read those too, since I'm also open to that path, and appreciated the how-to's).
NOTE: in addition to their lists of resources and "Next Steps" in the back of the book, they also provide a free bundle of spreadsheets, templates, and a document compiling all of their action steps and questions into one place, so you can implement the suggestions in each section. These are EXTREMELY helpful, and I highly recommend downloading them. Reading the book is just half the process...answering the questions, reflecting, and actually doing the work is a whole other process.
With 450+ pages, this guide visited everything from setting goals and priorities, choosing business models and planning for taxes, which publication path best suits you, identifying the best strategies for your books, marketing plans and methods, product price points and distribution channels, author branding and pen names, budgeting, re-branding and re-releasing old books, applying for an agent and publisher as a traditionally publishing author, indie publishing processes, other ways to bring in writing-related income, what to do when things go poorly, and appendixes full of other resources.
The authors have a fairly chatty writing style, but not unbearable to read through - mostly just friendly and welcoming. The presentation of information in each section was clear and easy to understand, at least as someone semi-familiar with many of the topics they discussed. Some of the sections were very short (even just one or two pages), and I would have loved even more details in many of them (ex. newsletters, business models, etc.), but they did always provide other suggestions for where to go for more information and deeper dives, which I appreciate.
I wish that I had read this book when I first started out on my indie author journey! As is, this was an incredibly helpful read as I rebrand and really buckle down on turning it into a career. Even though not all of the information will apply to every author (at least not all at once), I would recommend this book to ANY author looking to write for a living. I'm an indie author and found a LOT of information I could implement, but there were a good number of sections for traditionally publishing authors too (I read those too, since I'm also open to that path, and appreciated the how-to's).
NOTE: in addition to their lists of resources and "Next Steps" in the back of the book, they also provide a free bundle of spreadsheets, templates, and a document compiling all of their action steps and questions into one place, so you can implement the suggestions in each section. These are EXTREMELY helpful, and I highly recommend downloading them. Reading the book is just half the process...answering the questions, reflecting, and actually doing the work is a whole other process.