If an anonymous author posts a recap of his career and no one's around to read it, does it make an impact?
I published my first fantasy novel, "Kastori Revelations" almost a decade ago (March 22nd, 2016, to be exact) but at no point have I been a full-time fantasy author. That's... not quite 100% true, there have been periods where I was doing nothing but writing and marketing my fantasy novels. But there's never been a point where I could pay the bills, save a little bit of cash, and continue to write fantasy--I've always had to pivot at some point to something else.
As the New Year rolled around and I looked to the year ahead, it occurred to me that if I wanted to change this, I had to do something different. My books have typically been decently received; no one would call them masterpieces, but they aren't wallowing with a bunch of 1- and 2-star reviews. So the books aren't the problem, at least not a big enough problem to not be enjoyed by readers. Marketing is one of those dirty things that, done right, actually isn't that dirty, but it can get dirty really quickly.
And then the honest, painful part hit me.
I was happy to market my books. But I was dreadfully afraid of marketing myself--my fears, my thoughts, my process, everything.
I have no interest in becoming an influencer. But as AI floods the market and readers crave authenticity, I recognize--and embrace (truly)--that the best authenticity is me as a person, not my books. So while this will be an ongoing process, I'm putting myself out there more. I'll network more, put my face on camera more, and show more of me to the world.
Starting with this.
The State of Stephen (A Shameless Ripoff of State of Sanderson)
A Brief History of Stephen, The Fantasy Author
I don't like to publish financial numbers for a couple of reasons. One, as a reader, the only thing that really matters to you is if I make enough to continue writing fantasy, and that's a binary yes-no question. Other authors will care, but 1) there are more public examples, 2) spend enough time studying Amazon and author's sites, and one can ballpark well enough, and 3) if they still want to know, I'd want to befriend them first.
I do think a fair question, however, is how many books have been sold and how many readers does that roughly translate to. As of the writing of this post, here's what my numbers look like (not including giveaways or free downloads):
STEPHEN ALLAN AUTHOR STORE: 38 orders
AMAZON: 1,177 paid orders
AMAZON KINDLE PAGES: ~349,000 pages
It's more effort than it's worth to calculate how page reads translates to books read, but roughly ballparking ~500 pages per book (some books longer, some shorter), I'm taking this to mean just a hair under 700 full-length reads. Again, this won't be perfect, as some readers will only read the first 30 pages and call it a day, while others will binge the entire War of the Magi series and average over 500 pages per book, but I think it's a decent enough estimate.
To be honest, this is a pretty humbling realization--in a good way. To realize that I've hit what amounts to almost 2,000 books sold and read (I'm inflating the raw number a bit to account for bundles, sales on other platforms, etc.) over my lifetime is really damn cool. I started writing my first novel (a since unpublished memoir of my time as a poker player in Vegas) in 2013, and when it sold 23 copies on launch day, I was extremely fearful I'd never hit 100 sales, never mind 2,000. Finding book sale numbers in the industry is a notoriously impossible exercise (if I have to make estimates for my own stuff, imagine what analysts have to do evaluating the entire industry), but the most common stats I see suggest that:
- 90% of self-published books sell under 100 copies lifetime
- the average self-published book sells 250 copies lifetime (remember averages are heavily skewed by outliers)
I have 11 novels published, and while some (Shadows of the Empire, namely) have more sales as the first-in-series, it's still awesome to see that on average, I am ahead of 90% of self-published books and am not that far off from lifetime sales of the average published book (I'm only 38, so knock on wood, "lifetime" still has decades to go!).
On the other hand, the truth is, the average self-published author isn't doing this full-time; hell, I'd guess 98% of self-published authors aren't doing this full-time (probably 99%, really). If I want my creative and professional life to revolve around fantasy, these numbers have to be far better than average, and I need to put in the grueling, emotionally painful work to do it.
Still, overall, sometimes it's worthwhile to be reminded that mediocrity is still pretty good.
The Present of Stephen
Which brings us to the present and my current work-in-progress, "The Sword of Fire."
One of the toughest balancing acts as an author is "creative freedom" with what professionals call "write to market." As an epic fantasy reader, you expect certain elements, tropes, and plot points for the books written, or at least for them to be acknowledged. We can call this stifling, but the truth is, I've become more cognizant of how experiencing something that "subverts" expectations often disappoints (for the most obvious example of this, go look at a history of the online discourse around "The Last Jedi."). It's frustrating for me, for example, to play a Final Fantasy game that doesn't feature a full party (looking at you, XVI) or to read a fantasy novel that only has superficial world building.
As a result, while I am approaching the plot and series as organically as I can, I'm approaching things like the cover design, blurbs, and marketing from the perspective of "to market." My goal with these elements is really just to get the book in your hands; if running a cover that echoes something like Ryan Cahill or AC Cobble accomplishes that, all the better. I'm a writer, not a painter or graphic designer; my words are what sets me apart, not my ads, social media content, or even book covers. I don't mean this to sound dismissive of the creative process, but there is a certain balancing act to be had.
The good news from a creative writing perspective is I like epic fantasy so much as a reader that I kind of organically "write to market" anyways. Not in every way, such a story would be boring, but enough so that someone picking it up would know it's got echoes of Tolkein, Jordan, Sanderson, etc. So when I sit down to write at 7 a.m. each day, it's not like I'm sacrificing much creativity or really anything that my imagination produces.
I'll be curious to see how this balance plays out from a marketing perspective in the year-plus to come. Pushing myself to be more authentic and vulnerable while still striking a chord with fantasy readers will be something that will take a little trial-and-error, but when in doubt, I'll always lean to what feels right from a reader connection standpoint.
The Future of Stephen
I could sit here and say "I want to sell 10,000 copies" or "I want to make $100,000" or "I want 1,000,000 page reads on Amazon." Numbers have their place in any business, and I absolutely track them on a daily basis. But I'm really only looking to the future with one question in mind.
Will I be able to write fantasy every day, or will I have to divert my professional time elsewhere to make ends meet?
In that regard, it truly doesn't matter that much if I make $10,000 or $1,000,000. The latter is of course preferable in that it gives me a much longer runway to keep writing fantasy if and when productivity, financial, or life dips hit. But I think Ryan Holiday put it best when I saw him write "the reward for successful work is getting to do more of it."
In other words, the ultimate goal isn't an outcome; it's the preservation of the creative process. I've never really been motivated by money in the long run; I won't pretend I've never had goals of making a boatload of overtime money during a holiday sprint or chasing a sales record. But I'm not intrinsically motivated by cash, and such extrinsic motivation usually fades within a few months.
So really, if you ask me what I want my future to be in February 2027, 2037, and beyond, I'd just say "I hope I get to keep writing fantasy and not have to worry about the financial side of things."
Concluding Remarks
The toughest part of my fantasy writing to date has been two-fold:
- This is the first real hurdle in my life I haven't figured out how to overcome. I got into my dream school, I married the woman of my dreams, I won a mileage award at an ultramarathon after forever thinking of myself as the fat kid who couldn't... but this is the first one that, a decade in, I'm still struggling to crack
- Fantasy is the most fulfilling, and yet currently not profitable enough, of my professional activities. It would be one thing if I just had a trilogy I wanted to publish, call it a day, and move on, but that's very much not the case. I'm pretty sure beyond the series "The Sword of Fire" is in, I have at least three other series outlined enough to write a first novel in within three months.
I have no idea what will happen putting myself out there. I have a really bad tendency to go all in on something for six months, burn out, and never return. I'm hoping that my deep love of this work makes this different, but I have to acknowledge that if August comes around and I'm still not seeing growth, my tendency will be to shut down my efforts to be more authentic and vulnerable and look elsewhere.
But damnit, for now, I'll put myself out there. I'll commit to making others a part of this journey. And one way or another, I will overcome this one hurdle I have yet to vanquish.