RITA ® Award-Winning Author of Fantasy Romance
//A round-up of my very fun weekend with visiting writers and local ones, our wide-ranging conversations, giving and valuing advice, being a caretaker and having friends care, and also coaching from me at Romancing the Vote!
//Owning your process and still being open to learning from what others do to sustain productive creativity and aggressively refill the well. Some data on BookBub Featured Deals and release strategy, too.
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This week at the SFF Seven, we’re asking about book-related income that is specifically not from book sales.
There was an asterisk to that, specifying that the question was in relation to the Authors Guild 2023 Income Survey, which I didn’t read. (I have Opinions about that survey, which I won’t go into.) But I assume the question comes from the survey dividing author income into book-related and not, and the person asking is wondering what the “not” might be. It’s a good question because I’m a firm believer that long-term success in this fickle business relies on diversifying income streams.
I actually have a line on my income spreadsheets that says “Other Writing Income,” as opposed to the “Book Sales” line. What kind of income is that?
//My Patreon and Discord community are live! I’m also talking about one of the best pieces of writing advice I ever got and how, if you want to be a writer for the right reasons, there’s no fire to put out content.
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Exciting news! I’ve officially opened my Patreon: Jeffe’s Closet, A Mentoring Community for Newbie, Intermediate, & Expert Authors. The Patreon leads directly to a Discord community where all kinds of conversations will occur. I’m super excited to make this into a vibrant community. Right now the Discord is open, but pretty quiet – which means you’ll get a lot of personal attention from me. Come and join in!
As far as our topic this week, what we do for health insurance, I self-insure. As a full-time author, I have no employer to provide me with health insurance (or other benefits). My husband took early retirement from his career and was insured through them for quite some time, though each year the premium was sucking up more and more of his retirement stipend. Soon we were going to have to pay in – ugh! Then the concierge health insurance service became available through SFWA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association). SFWA collaborated with other writers’ organizations to make this service available to our members. I was able to transfer my husband onto insurance via the Affordable Care Marketplace – and both of us together ended up paying over $1K LESS EVERY MONTH. I’m a fan! Thank you, Obama – seriously.
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I love these #shelfie pics – ones readers send me of my book spotted in the wild. This one is from a Kroger grocery store in Anchorage, Alaska. Pretty awesome company it’s keeping, huh?
Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is Mentoring: my mentors, ways I’ve mentored others, how to do it right, how to do it wrong, and whether it’s possible to lone-wolf this writing journey. Come on over for my answers!