Making Six-Figures as an Indie Author

Making Six-Figures as an Indie Author It may seem like a pipe dream, but indie authors can make serious cash. I know quite a few who bring in six-figures, and After much research and observation, I’ve come up with seven key things needed to bring in the big bucks. 1.  Ã‚     Treat writing like a job. If you want the money, you have to put in the time. All of the authors I know making six-figures have many books in their backlist. Most have thirty books or more. To get there, you need to be writing every day. Make a daily word count goal and make yourself accountable to it. It might seem impossible to publish as much as they have, but don’t cut yourself short. Writing is a skill. The more you do it, the faster and better you’ll get at it. 2.  Ã‚     Stay positive. It’s going to take a lot of motivation to publish thirty books. Just remember, with every book you publish, you’re adding to your monthly paycheck. Don’t expect to get rich on one book. Take a more measured strategy and go for the long tail. There are many authors getting large checks each month who haven’t hit the NYT’s bestseller list with a book. Keep a steady goal in mind and push yourself to get there. 3.  Ã‚     Research the market. It won’t do you any good to publish thirty books if no one is buying them. Go to Amazon and look at the indie books making bank in your genre. What do they have in common? Buy at least ten and read them. List similarities and tropes that are pulling the readers in. Find common themes. Then find a way to weave similar things into your own books, in your own world. This is called writing to market. Don’t treat it like it’s a dirty thing. It’s another tool in your writing toolbox. Buy books on how to write to market as an indie author and use that tool. It doesn’t mean you can’t ever write a book just for the love of writing. You can do both. 4.  Ã‚     Hone your craft. Don’t ever think you’re done learning how to write. Go to conferences and take classes and workshops. Work with a critique group. Read all the top books on writing in your genre. Even if you’ve read it all, keep going. You might just find something new click into place. 5.  Ã‚     Make yourself look professional. Hire a cover designer and an editor. The last thing you want to do is put your book in a poorly designed package. If you’re not a graphic designer, hire one. Pay an editor. Don’t skimp out on these things or your pocketbook will suffer. 6.  Ã‚     Hang out with other successful authors. No need to re-invent the wheel. Surround yourself with indie authors who have all these things figured out and listen to them. Join an author Facebook group and read the posts. Authors are a sharing bunch. They’ll tell you what ads are working and what to avoid. They talk about what books to read or what YouTube videos to watch. If you’re not doing this, you’re going to get left in the dust. (I recommend 20Booksto50K.) 7.  Ã‚     Don’t be afraid to give your work away. I admit I owe much of my success to giving out ARC’s and making my books free on Amazon. It’s a marketing strategy. Watch the lucrative authors and see how they do it successfully. There’s no guarantee your books will sell well. However, looking at what high-dollar indie authors do and following in their footsteps will give you a better chance to succeed. It’s not an impossible dream. Set those goals and go write.

Brooklyn Bridge Disaster

Brooklyn Bridge Disaster The walkway of the  Brooklyn Bridge was the site of a shocking disaster on May 30, 1883, only  a week after it opened to the public. With businesses closed for a patriotic holiday,  crowds had flocked to the bridges promenade, the highest vantage point in New York City at the time. Near the Manhattan  side of the great bridge a pedestrian bottleneck  became tightly packed, and the shoving of the crowd  sent people toppling down a short flight of stairs. People screamed. The crowd panicked, fearful that the entire structure was in danger of collapsing into the river. The crush of people on  the walkway became intense. Workmen  putting finishing touches on the bridge  raced along trusses to the scene and began tearing down railings to alleviate the crowding. People picked up babies and children and tried to pass them overhead, out of the crowd. Within just a few minutes the frenzy  had passed. But 12 people had been crushed to death. Hundreds more were injured, many seriously. The deadly stampede placed a dark cloud over  what had been a celebratory first week for the bridge. Detailed accounts of the mayhem on the bridge became a sensation in the highly competitive world of New York City newspapers. As the citys papers were still congregated in the neighborhood of Park Row, only blocks from the Manhattan end of the bridge, the story could not have been more local. The Scene on the Bridge The bridge had officially opened on Thursday, May 24, 1883. Traffic during the first weekend was very heavy, as sightseers flocked to enjoy the novelty of strolling  hundreds of feet above  the East River. The New York Tribune, on Monday, May 28, 1883, printed a front page story indicating that the bridge might have become too popular. It ominously mentioned that bridge workers, at one point on Sunday afternoon, feared a riot. The pedestrian promenade was popular on the Brooklyn Bridge. Getty Images Decoration Day, the precursor to Memorial Day fell that  Wednesday, May 30, 1883. After morning rain, the day turned very pleasant. The New York Sun, on the front page of the next days edition, described the scene: When the rain was over yesterday afternoon the Brooklyn Bridge, which had its crowds in the morning, but had become comparatively open again, began to threaten a blockade. With the hundreds who came down town to the New York gates were hundreds of men in the uniform of the Grand Army of the Republic. Most of the people strolled over to Brooklyn, and then turned back without leaving the bridge. Thousands were coming over from Brooklyn, returning from cemeteries where soldiers graves had been decorated, or taking advantage of the holiday to see the bridge. There were not so many on the bridge as on the day after the opening, or on the following Sunday, but they seemed inclined to loiter. There would be an open space of from fifty to one hundred feet, and then a dense jam. Problems became intense at the top of a nine-foot high flight of stairs built into the walkway, near the point at which the main suspension cables passed by the promenade on the Manhattan side of the bridge. The pressing of the crowd pushed some people down the stairs.   Did You Know? Predictions of the Brooklyn Bridges collapse had been common. In 1876, at about the halfway point of its construction, the chief mechanic of the bridge crossed between the Brooklyn and Manhattan towers on a cable to publicly demonstrate confidence in the bridges design. Somebody shouted out that there was danger, reported  the New York Sun. And the impression prevailed that the bridge was giving way beneath the crowd. The newspaper mentioned,  A woman held her baby over the trestle work and begged someone to take it. The situation had turned desperate. From the New York Sun: At last, with a single shriek that cut through the clamor of thousands of voices, a young girl lost her footing, and fell down the lower flight of steps. She lay for a moment, and then raised herself on her hands, and would have got up. But in another moment she was buried under the bodies of others who fell over the steps after her. She was dead when they got her out more than half an hour afterward. Men sprang upon the rails at the side and waved the crowds back from both the New York and Brooklyn sides. But the people continued to crowd on toward the steps. No police were in sight. Men in the crowd lifted their children above their heads to save them from the crush. People were still paying their pennies at both gates and swarming in. Within minutes the frantic scene had calmed. Soldiers, who had been parading near the bridge in  Decoration Day commemorations, rushed to the scene.  The New York Sun described the aftermath: A company of the Twelfth New York Regiment worked hard at dragging them out. Twenty-five seemed to be nearly dead. They were laid along the north and south sides of the pathway, and the people from Brooklyn passed on between them. Men and women turned faint at the sight of the swollen and blood-stained faces of the dead. Four men, a lad, six women, and a girl of 15 were quite dead, or died in a few moments. They had been found at the bottom of the heap. The police stopped grocers wagons coming from Brooklyn, and, carrying the bodies of the wounded and climbing down the planks to the road, laid them in the wagons, and told the drivers to hurry to the Chambers Street Hospital. Six bodies were laid in one wagon. The drivers whipped up their horses and drove with full speed to the hospital. Newspaper accounts of the dead and wounded were heartbreaking. The New York Sun described how one young couples afternoon stroll on the bridge turned tragic: Sarah Hennessey was married on Easter, and was walking on the bridge with her husband when the crowd closed in upon them. Her husband injured his left arm a week ago, and clung to his wife with his right hand. A little girl fell in front of him, and he was thrown upon his knees and kicked and bruised. Then his wife was torn from him, and he saw her trampled upon and killed. When he got off the bridge he searched for his wife and found her in the hospital. According to a report in the New York Tribune of May 31, 1883, Sarah Hennessey had been married to her husband John Hennessey for seven weeks. She was 22 years old. They had lived in Brooklyn. Rumors of the disaster spread quickly through the city. The New York Tribune reported:  An hour after the accident it was told in the vicinity of Madison Square that 25 persons were killed and hundreds wounded, and at 42nd Street that the bridge had fallen down and 1,500 had lost their lives. In the days and weeks following the disaster the blame for the tragedy was directed at the management of the bridge. The bridge had its own small police force, and officials of the bridge company were criticized for failing to place policeman at strategic place to keep crowds dispersed. It became standard practice  for uniformed officers on the bridge to keep people moving along, and the Decoration Day tragedy was never repeated. The fear  that the bridge was in danger of collapsing was, of course, completely unfounded. The Brooklyn Bridge has been renovated to some extent, and the original trolley track was removed in the late 1940s and the roadways changed to accommodate more automobiles. But the walkway still stretches down the middle of the bridge and is still in use. The bridge is crossed every  day by thousands of pedestrians, and the promenade with striking views that drew revelers in May 1883 is still an attraction for tourists today.