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2024...the Year I Sold Out.

Okay, when I say “sold out” I’m not talking about Metallica cutting their hair and wearing eyeliner. Compromising your principles and abandoning all that you stand for is not exactly what I meant when I wrote th—


Oh wait, this title fits both definitions, doesn’t it?


Welcome to my year in review!


THE DECISION

Before I tackle both definitions, I should probably back up a bit. In June of 2023, I resigned from Maple River after teaching there for 27 years. I made the jump without a parachute. Even though I could say it was done so that I could be a full-time writer, in truth, I mostly lost the joy I’d found while teaching (and I'm not getting any younger). If you read my blog post on Autism and Authorship, you might understand how important routine is for me, and massive changes in my status quo (Covid, Gen Z, new building, retired colleagues), sent me packing almost a decade before I could fully retire. 


Without a plan, I had no other choice: I’m a full time author now.


This change didn’t come as a surprise. As early as 2019, I realized I wasn’t going to make it to the finish line of retirement, so I began ramping up my book production. By 2023, I was doing dozens of events on Saturdays while also teaching full time, leaving me EXHAUSTED. I knew I couldn’t do both. 


So for the last few months of 2023, I coasted on the last of my paychecks and book events, which brings me to 2024.


COLD FEET

Being an author just wasn't enough, apparently :)
Being an author just wasn't enough, apparently :)

Being several years ahead of schedule (early retirement at 55 couldn’t happen until 2026), I started off in a frenzy of activity, especially as I learned how to set up Lura Publications, LLC (my company) for distribution. Granted, I wasn’t making money during these 50 hour weeks, but my awesome wife told me not to worry about finances. As long as I made enough to pay for my own health care premiums and keep Lura Publications in the black, I could pursue this dream. So finance was not going to get me to panic.


Teaching is hard, and for 28 years, I rolled up my sleeves and stomped on that accelerator. So I was SHOCKED by how much free time I suddenly had. Like a shark, I needed to keep moving and stay busy. Unfortunately, I could only do author events on Saturdays and writing for more than a few hours at a time became ineffective. Another problem is that I suddenly put too much pressure on each event to perform. A bad choice for event, a bad location, or a bad pitch and suddenly I’d panic about making enough money for the month. 


So I sold out.


After just four months of being a full-time author, I took another job. Then I took another job. And another. Seemingly, I began to sabotage my writing dreams by filling my day and week with duties that took away my time and energy. Yet I found balance and I diversified my identity as a storyteller.


Maple River Messenger: Gig #1 came as a sports writer for our local newspaper. First, it gets me out of the house at the end of the day. After all “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” right? It also gave me a unique writing challenge each and cranking out a sports story actually made writing creative prose a bit easier each day. While I try to attend all the home games, I can also open up the game footage online, which is great for me. With a deadline each Monday, I can get up and get my stories done and have the rest of the 40 hour work week for writing.


Northstar Online: Gig #2 came reluctantly. An online teaching company approached me during their Holiday break and asked if I could teach a section (1-20 kids) of English 4 for seniors. With a focus on world mythology, I agreed enthusiastically. The curriculum was set. There was no lecturing (leaving me to seek library gigs as an author). Aside from a few comments while grading, the kids and I are all about business. NO DRAMA! Each day at 3 PM, I open up the submission folder and grade. It’s a great way to transition out of teaching with an hour or so each week.


Maple River Memories: Gig #3 came unexpectedly. When June arrived, the sports season was over AND all the seniors finished their coursework, and suddenly, I had WAY too much time on my hands. So I created MAPLE RIVER MEMORIES to tell more stories. I do profiles on graduates out in the real world, share traditions in the community and school, and dig into local history. PLUS, I get to do video work. At first, this became a major distraction for me as I got it up and running. By September, Northstar Online AND the Maple River Messenger asked for me to continue Gigs #1 and #2, so I needed to find balance. Now I spend about 8 hours a week working on Maple River Memory stories (10 AM to noon), 5 hours a week grading, and about 10 hours (3 writing and 7 at events) with sports. 


SELLING OUT (the good way)

One of my "worst" events still provided me with enthusiastic new readers.
One of my "worst" events still provided me with enthusiastic new readers.

Relying on author events to pay the bills is way too unpredictable. My 2024 calendar of events was a hot mess. Some weekends, I’d attend a familiar event only to see a drop of 30-40 books from 2023. Then I’d return to another familiar event and see it sell 30 more books than 2023. WTF? 


Signing up for untested events is also scary. I picked a few where I had thousands of people pass by my table but readers were few and far between. Then I’d attend an even where only a few hundred people showed up and I’d CRUSH the sales. So the volume of attendees didn’t mean anything.


A factor that really helped me out is that I had a dozen or so titles in several different genres. In these unpredictable markets, I’d sell a little of everything and by the end of the day, my pockets would be full of cash. This also made packing quite unpredictable. There are only so many cases of books you can pack into a Honda Civic. Throw in a canopy tent, tables, chairs, decorations, etc and packing is like a game of Tetris. With two book series, I know to pack extra of THE FIREHANDLER and THE ALCHEMIST’S MAP because they are book #1 in a series. So experience has taught me to prioritize space for twice as many books for these titles. Yet I can show up at one town and it’ll be all Firehandler. Then the next week, it’d be all MAP. It’s so crazy. Oh, and then I show up with plenty of FIREHANDER and MAP and I sell-out of THE ALCHEMST’S RING (book #3) because folks purchased the other books in 2021-23 OR there are a bunch of pirate fans. Emptying a case of books is such a joy, though. 


So the highlight of the year came on a trip to Ely for a three-day event. Now, I had the Civic packed to the ceiling with ALL the titles, and by the time a storm rolled in on Sunday, I had several totes empty. “Can I get your address and I’ll send you a signed copy?” Pure bliss having to say that. 


So I’ll be taking the Durango in 2025. A few extra sales will pay for the bad gas mileage.


THE GRAND TOTAL

Wowza. My in-person sales were a grind. I had a +/- difference of over a hundred books between my best and worst event but it all balanced out to be a great year. Having the other gigs took the pressure off of a poor weekend, and with no rhyme or reason for finding the right kind of readers, I just sat back and let the sales come to me, which they did. 


It’s easy to feel successful as an author with a single sale. Yet knowing I signed over 1,200 books at 45 events feels even better (until you remember your existing inventory, registration fees, net cost for each book, taxes, gas, hotels, etc.) Then you deflate a little.


So having a weekend where I feel like a failure with 15 book sales now gets balanced out by knowing I had 6,000 views on a video I produced. Or several hundred people will read one of my profile articles. It helps the ego to tell stories on a variety of platforms in a variety of mediums.


So I guess selling out is not so bad after all.


(But Metallica in the 90s? That's another story).






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