Post 2: I Need More.
So let all just address the elephant in the room. I am currently dealing in an industry which can at best be described as morally questionable. Yes, yes, I know, times have moved on and it is not so controversial as it used to be. But at the end of the day, it is still talked about in hushed tones by most people. What I need you to understand, though, is that this is just step one in a multi-faceted plan to get myself on the Forbes Rich List. Preferably position number 1. I do not intend to turn the writing and selling of erotica into a career. It is but a means to an end. Look at these posts as chapters in what would be the first book in a series of books on the life of Fawkes. It will be titled 'My Story as a Seller of (Erotica) Books and you are the lucky ones. You do not only get to read the books, but you get to read them in real time. I know, right? Mind. Blown.
But let us continue. Since the last chapter, I have moved more than 70 free copies and 2 paid for copies. Also, more than 170 pages of my book were read on Kindle Unlimited for which I will earn $0.005 a page. It does not amount to much money, maybe about R20, but it is still no mean feat. About one million books get published on Amazon each year. One million. Do you know how much one million is? It is, like, a lot. That is one big crowd from which to stand out and get noticed. The fact that I managed to move just one tiny little copy of my book out of all the millions that are there, well, I think congratulations are in order. Even if it is being given by myself. I worked my ass off marketing the book. Interestingly enough, that was where I came up with my next moneymaking scheme. But I am getting ahead of myself. So, yeah, marketing. Worked my ass off. Books were moved. Not enough, though. So had to accept that it is going to take a lot more time to make a name for myself and start selling enough books for it to become worth-while. The secret, I think, is that you just have to keep uploading. This is something I learned from those tubers that you. All the big ones give that as their number one piece of advice. You just have to keep uploading and the followers will come. So that is exactly what I will do. I do not think I will buy stories from other people anymore, though. The crap I get is not even worth mentioning so I will be writing the stories from now on. I am going to try and do one book a month.
But what to do in the meantime? It is going to take time and I am not comfortable with this whole not having an income thing. My savings are there, but I really do not like dipping into it. There is no reason for me to touch it. Where there is a will, there is a way, and I need to find a way to get some money in. Yes, I am getting that four digit sum each month from my investment as an angel, but I cannot rely on it. It is not a sure thing. It is invested in a startup and you know what they say about startups. Something like all percent of startups fail within the first minus one seconds. That business can fail at any time and then that monthly four digit sum's arrival will also start to fail. No, I need to get another source of income. I have come up with two schemes.
Scheme one also involves writing. I found this website called Upwork.com where people post freelancing positions for work they need to get done. You bid on the jobs and tell them for how much you will do it, and if your price is good they give the project to you. Well, I got chosen to write 500-word articles on various topics which will then get passed on to websites that require content. You can write as many articles as you want per day, and choose which days you want to work. Now, the money is not good. They are only willing to pay me $1.50 per article as I have no reviews on Upwork.com yet. They did, however, promise to up the amount after two months. I do not think so, though. I reckon I will be able to write one article an hour, and $1.50 per hour is just not acceptable. I am thus going to renegotiate after the first month. I hope I can get them up to $4 per article, which is still not much, but I have a plan. As long as $1 is never less than R10, I will always get R40 per article. I am then going to post on Gumtree and look for students looking to make extra money. I will then pass the articles on to them to write and pay them R20 per article, keeping the other R20 for myself. If I can get at least five people to write one article each a day, except for weekends, that will mean an extra R500 a week for me. That is about R2000 a month. Groceries, covered. Also, with other people doing the writing for me, I will be freed up to spend my time making more money elsewhere.
Such as with scheme two which involves marketing. See, there are these Twitter accounts with 50,000 followers and upward. If you want to market your book, you pay them up to $15 for four tweets! Here is the thing, though, almost none of them want to tweet about erotic books. They are too scared of offending their followers. Thus there is a gap in the market. So I created an erotic book tweeting account. For now, I am tweeting books for free as I build up a solid base of followers. Once I have a few thousand followers, I will start charging. I will start low at about $5. Again, if I can then just get one book to tweet about a day, then it's $5 a day. $150 a month. At the current exchange rate that is almost another R2000 in the bank. Car insurance and petrol, covered, with R1000 left to throw at part of the rent.
It is still not enough, but it is a good start. We will have to see how it goes. It is all very doable. There is only one thing that is going to be hella hard, and that is going to be giving up my first love, smoking. My disposable income is just not what it used to be since I quit my job and I can use that money better. The plan is to throw the money I blow on cigarettes every month into a tax-free savings account instead. That would be a good R1200 a month to invest. Let it start growing for the day I need it instead of it just lying there in the bank doing nothing for me. I guess I am coming back to the JSE much sooner than I thought.
Now, if you will excuse me, I have a difficult conversation I need to go and have with a pack of Marlboros. I think I am going to take it harder than she will.
