How I'm making money as a writer and how I plan to scale my income

Mastery Den, Tuesday Edition, 3.5-min read.

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I used to think you were guaranteed to stay poor as a writer.

But writing has taken up most of my work over the last decade-plus, and I've been making most of my money from writing.

I make money from freelance projects like writing articles for companies.

I make money from the royalties on articles I share over at Medium.

I make money from the paid subscriptions and written courses I offer on my Substack newsletters.

I make money from the companies who sponsor my newsletter, Untethered Mind.

I make a little money from Kindle sales of my five books.

And I'm just getting started (it has taken me ages to figure all this out).

What I'm most excited about right now is writing books.

The last book I wrote was three years ago: Illusory. I loved writing it (for the most part), and tons of you thanked me for writing it.

I'm wrapping up my next one on self-respect.

And I plan to do well from writing books.

Most people I speak to think books are good for nothing more than leverage. 'You can't make money from books,' they say.

'They're good for creating exposure, that leads to other opportunities like coaching and speaking engagements.'

But I don't want to do so much more of the latter as I enter the second half of my life.

I want to write books.

And I want to make art to go with those books.

And I want to make good money from books.

And I'm willing to write many of them to make them work financially.

The people who inspire me the most wrote a shit ton of books.

People like Agatha Christie, Isaac Asimov, R.L. Stine, Paulo Coelho, Stephen King and Enid Blyton.

And I want to reach more people - this is what selling low-cost books can do.

If you do it right, you can make good money from books.

This is yet to be seen on my end, but I can't help but get excited as F thinking about being prolific in book writing.

(Of course, you needn't write 100 books to make good money with books, but this strategy aligns with my energy).

Now that my money is in a decent place through my other streams, I can finally jump into more serious book-writing projects without all the doubts surrounding 'not making enough to live.'

There are so many technological gifts around us that give us the access to a wider market in creative ways.

Like Substack and Twitter and Midjourney and Audible and Medium and Spotify and Gumroad and Amazon and Instagram and so on. And all of this makes it possible to succeed as an author.

I realised recently that my dream life is to build cabins, travel, make art, and write a LAAAATTA books.

So why prolong that process?

I plan to write silly numbers of books each year, not because I'm grinding to try and make money. This is part of it, but I genuinely want to create many books.

I want to write a wide range of books, too, including motivational books, journals, children's books, and even illustrated books.

This is something I can set myself apart in because most people struggle to write one article, let alone 20 books in a year.

These books needn't be massive, either. They can be short books and novellas.

Most people don't want to read through the fluff anyway.

I enjoy the full process of developing ideas for books and chapters, formatting them, making covers and so on.

It's not always easy, but it's funner than many things.

And then to see money coming in from something I created with my bare hands and brain is icing on the cake.

If I can make it happen, I'd write a book a week. I'd write a mixture of non-fiction and fiction. I'd connect books to each other to increase sales, and I'd also link my newsletter to my books.

This means my newsletter grows as my book ecosystem grows, which in turn creates more book buyers.

I'd promote my books via my newsletters so they each get a boost inside Amazon, which could give those books even more exposure to new audiences.

And if I find myself with a stack of books that aren't selling very well, I can always turn them into articles, prints, content, newsletters and courses.

A book is a collection of ideas, and those ideas can be transferred elsewhere if needed.

There's never time wasted writing a book you believe in.

Anyway...

I know the difference between talk and action, so I better get my skates on and write.

I'm letting you guys in on my thought process right now and showing you what I'm doing.

I always want to encourage you with what's possible.

If you love to write, start with social media and Medium and Substack and newsletters. Build your audience, and develop your craft first.

Mastery Den shows you how to do all this.

Then, when you write your own books, you'll have a community standing by, excited to read your books.

If you'd like to join a community of real dealers who receive a daily content idea and a daily motivational tip, join 150 of us over at Telegram.

Much love,

Dragon Alex.

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Thanks for reading.

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