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Hope you’ve been enjoying Labor Day Weekend, everyone! Today I have a special guest and friend on the blog, Robert J. Crane, author of many series including The Girl in the Box, Out of the Box, Sanctuary, Southern Watch, and more!

My significant other and I met Robert two years ago at a writer’s conference, and he has a wealth of information that’s particularly helpful for aspiring series writers and those looking to self-publish.

In this interview, Robert J. Crane talks about making a living on his writing, and how you can, too.

To get us started, would you mind telling us a bit about what kinds of things you write?

I write mostly in the fantasy and sci-fi genre, with a much heavier emphasis on fantasy. I like to tackle modern superhero mythologies, build new worlds of epic fantasy in the Lord of the Rings style, and just generally mess around with fairly well-established fantasy concepts like, say, vampires, and put my own spin on them.

How many books have you written so far?

I had to check, but apparently I have written 51 books on my own and co-authored another 17. Another couple co-authored volumes should be done (first drafted, anyway) this week, and I’m working on my 52nd solo effort as well.

How long have you worked as an independent author?

I self-published my first book in June of 2011 and have been at it ever since.

Are you able to make a living off of writing?

Yes, since late 2012. Which is fortunate, because there really aren’t any other good ways for me to earn money. My marketable skills list is, sadly, a bit of a bare cupboard at this point, and leans disproportionately on my ability to make fantastical stuff up.

How long did it take for your writing to become a living wage?

A while. I’ve been making a living since the fall of 2012, and a pretty good one at that. It’s allowed me a lot of freedom, and to retire my wife from her corporate career. But it definitely didn’t happen immediately and I didn’t expect it to. In fact, in my first year of publishing I put out two books and made a grand total of $12.25. I had six books out before I hit that “living wage” level, but it exploded fairly quickly when it happened.

Do you only publish on Amazon?

No, I publish a couple of my long-established series to Nook, Google, Kobo and iBooks as well as doing paperback editions of every book, but I suspect the days of me publishing with them are coming to a close. I’ve already moved four out of my six series to Amazon exclusivity because a) they’re the market leader at present and (in my opinion) work harder to sell books than any of the other companies, and b) it’s harder to cultivate a new reader base on those other platforms and Amazon offers significant advantages to authors who go exclusive with them.

Where do you recommend writers self-publish their work to/with when first starting out? Why?

If they’re decided on self-publishing (which is not for everyone), then I’d suggest Amazon as a good starting point. They are, by far, the largest bookseller in the world, and self-publishing through their KDP platform allows you to make your books instantly available in an awful lot of countries, which is an advantage that has not usually been easily available to even traditionally published authors (requiring foreign rights deals to make that leap). As it stands now, about a third of my sales come from the United Kingdom, and I have had fans write to me from Canada, Australia, Poland and even Iran. Furthermore, Amazon’s KDP now offers paperback publishing options with worldwide distribution, which means you could upload your book tonight and have it be on sale in Australia tomorrow. Someone orders it, Amazon prints up a copy in their warehouse, and ships it right to their door 48 hours after you uploaded it. That’s pretty cool, I think.

That said, as I previously mentioned, there are other options for wider distribution – Barnes and Noble, Rakuten’s Kobo, Apple’s iBooks and Google Play Bookstore, among others. But Amazon is probably the friendliest to self-published authors in terms of both getting started and offering tools to sell your books to their customers.

Do you need an editor as an independent author?

I would highly recommend it, though it’s been thoroughly proven by certain success stories that it’s not mandatory. I’ve always employed an editor because I think that no matter how careful the writer or how impressive their pedigree, it’s very difficult to catch all the little errors that creep into one’s work. Having another set of eyes scan through before publication helps to iron out some of those unhappy accidents, among other things. I often find that my editor helps me be more clear when I’ve been unintentionally murky. Without that help, I don’t think readers would walk away from my books with as much clarity, and the whole purpose of me telling a story is for them to, uhm, y’know…get it. A good editor helps with that, especially with the blind spots that I can’t, myself, see.

How do you format your work? / Would you recommend employing a formatter for your first e-book? If so, why / why not?

I would highly recommend employing a formatter because I have no earthly idea how to format a book. I’ve outsourced that particular labor since the beginning and wouldn’t have the foggiest how to take a doc file and turn it into a book. To me, it’s alchemy, transmuting my words on a screen into words on a page. Or e-page. Which sounds less magical now that I put it like that.

How do you get your work seen in a sea of millions of other books out there? How did you, personally, gain your current following?

Gosh, this is a tough one, because I built my following 2012-2015, predominantly, and the game has significantly changed since then. The way I did it involved using the first book in a series or even the first three in series as a freebie to get my work into the hands of eager readers. It was a no-risk proposition for them to try someone new that way, and all it cost me was a digital book. How would you do it today? I don’t honestly know. There are people who have done it more recently than I have that could probably answer that, but I feel a little too early to the game to comment on what it would take now to break through and get noticed.

What advice do you have for writers self-publishing for the first time?

Things have changed since I self-published for the first time, and they’ll probably change yet again in the next few years. I’d say that like any other career, there’s a significant learning curve, and the sooner you accept that and get to climbing it, the better off you’ll be. I think a lot of writers (self-published and traditional) come into the writing business with the illusion that it’s anything other than a business, that it’s just some place we come together and do art, and that someone else will take care of the business part of it, like, say a publisher or an agent. This is a very, very good way to get yourself fleeced either actively or passively by other actors in the writing business.

If I could give other writers any advice, regardless of whether they decide to traditionally publish or self-publish, it’s that they should learn the basics of running a business, because if they’re publishing, whether traditional or self-published, they are in business, and outsourcing all your financial decisions without having any idea of what’s happening in those rather important areas because you can’t be bothered to look up from your art is a recipe for financial disaster. The publishing world is rife with stories of authors who focused on writing their books and leaving agents to make their business decisions for them only to end up completely bankrupt in spite of massive success. Furthermore, the business climate is constantly changing in ways both large and small, and having even a small background and understanding of how the cogs of that particular machine work will aid you immeasurably in looking after your own interests. Given the shifting market conditions, I’ve had to change my strategies multiple times since I first self-published. If I had remained focused entirely on my art to the exclusion of paying any attention to the business, there’s a very good chance I would not even be making a living at this point. Learn business. It’s not that daunting. Find some books on the subject that are well-recommended, and start reading in your spare time. Listen to some podcasts as you commute. You don’t have to make your artistic decisions subservient to your business, but you should at least have a clue what’s going on in the wider world and, more specifically, in your industry and your own balance sheets.

Do you have any upcoming works you’d like people to know about?

I have tendency to write long series, so I’d rather recommend people to books that have been out for a while as a better entry point into my works. If you’re into epic fantasy of the Tolkien variety, you could take a look at my Sanctuary Series, which begins with a book called “Defender.” If you enjoy more of a thriller bent, I’d say check out, “Alone,” the first in my million-selling Girl in the Box series. Both are exclusive to Amazon and available in their Kindle Unlimited program to read for free.

Thanks for Reading!

Thanks so much to Robert for taking time for this interview, and thank you all for taking the time to read. I hope the information here is able to help you in your own writing endeavors, and hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend! ~Alyssa Grace Moore

Be sure to check out Robert J. Crane’s Website!