by Patricia Gilliam

Created on: June 18, 2010

Like starting any small business, making a living as a novelist comes with its share of lifestyle adjustments.  The hours don't have to be traditional, and you have the freedom to put as much or as little into your work on any given day-with your results being a reflection of your efforts.  Nearing the end of my third novel project, here are some tips I believe can help someone just starting out:

1)  Realize that there are two sides to being a professional novelist.

On one side is your craft, which you need to love on its own.  (If for some reason you hate writing but want to become a novelist to get rich, you're just going to frustrate yourself.)  It takes a combination of long-term passion and persistence to complete a novel amid an endless amount of distractions and set-backs.  You have to care enough to see the project through-which can take anywhere from a few months to several years according to its scope and your own personal pace.

The other side involves developing your sales and marketing skills.  Regardless to whether you publish traditionally or with a self-publishing/print-on-demand service (CreateSpace.com, Lulu.com, etc.), you need to develop enough business and money savvy to help yourself and not put your entire future into the hands of other people.  If you do this early on, as things grow you won't feel overwhelmed.  Some personal finance and business authors I recommend are Dave Ramsey, Dan Miller, Robert Kiyosaki, and Timothy Ferris.  The Guerrilla Marketing book series by Jay Conrad Levinson is helpful as well.

Publishing scams-also known as "vanity press"-are out there but avoidable.  A good indicator is a letter to the effect of, "We love your book, and for only $XXX.XX we will help it become a best-seller..."  They play on emotion and offer unrealistic results, and it's heartbreaking when you meet a fellow writer that's been drawn into it.  It's why you have to balance your drive to succeed with being level-headed.  Otherwise, you can find yourself into a major mess.

2)  Technology is changing the book industry at a rapid rate, and you need to stay informed so you can adapt.

For a real-world example, my paperback and ebook sales ratios are almost equal now.  Preferring physical books myself, I didn't start off thinking that would be the case.  It's going to vary by your genre, but from a financial standpoint it's going to be beneficial to publish in

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