Video and Audio Income Streams for Writers

Learn a new way of earning money through writing

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

We mostly write.

I know like me, there are many writers out there who actually love to write a lot. Pouring our words on paper is actually the best thing about writing. We have control over it. We can create whatever we want.

This is how we have seen it mostly.

But now things are changing, isn’t it?

There have been many really fantastic writers who have failed miserably in their life. Let’s sink in.

One can fail and one can win. It not only depends on writing but also on how to handle the business stuff as well.

Writing and business — go hand in hand.

Be both.

Be a writer.

Be into a business as well.

Wear both hats.

One question will arise is it possible? Can you do both if you are new?

Well, you’ll know the answer only when you try.

So how to expand your writing income stream?

I have mostly concentrated on ebooks. As you have seen, all of my articles are mostly concentrated on ebooks only.

It was last year that I got out of writing mode and wore my business hat. I started marketing my books and trying to build my presence on social media platforms.

Honestly, it’s slow and time-consuming. But this will pay off in the long run.

During this, I met some writers on Reddit and Medium who were not only making money off their ebooks but also expanded their books into audio versions and also video versions as well.

Write one book. Then have multiple versions of it.

This increases your horizon and you reach more readers worldwide.

And in my case, this proves to be true. Because I myself read more paperback versions nowadays rather than ebooks. My cousin is into audiobooks. She kept on buying audiobooks and later she shifted to subscriptions.

I don’t go for the video version but this is great if you can have text on the screen or a standstill image and the audio playing in the background. This works too.

I cannot say that we will be able to do that all by ourselves. It takes time and yes, in some cases we do need money.

But if you work alone like me then this is the proper path you can take -

1. Audiobooks — Record your own books using a Boya Mic and Audacity software. The mic is cheap. I bought it during the pandemic and it’s still in good condition. Audacity is free but yes the learning curve is a little high. You can use free youtube tutorials for this. Or you can hire someone from Fiverr and split royalties. I don’t think we can pay in full all the time. If you have few books then pay in full so that you can get to keep full royalty. But if you write a book every month then the split option will work best for you.
2. Video — For fiction writers, they can create a video with a standstill image and audio running in the background. You can give a small trailer here. You can go for short free stories as well. And if you are into non-fiction then you have more options. Use some experts from your chapter and make a video on it. This will save you enormous time because writing scripts is time-consuming.

So this is all for now.

I was thinking about this for a very long time. Because we have to agree that most make maximum income from ebooks alone. Ebooks are cheap and readers like to buy them in a bundle. They don’t have to worry about the space on their device.

But things are changing. The behavior of people consuming data is changing. The pattern is shifting from text to audio and video version. And with the less subscription fee for audio and video sharing platforms, it’s time that we writer should utilize this for our benefit.

If you want to know more about making money writing ebooks, then you can check out my book “My Mistakes in Self-Publishing”. Happy Writing Journey!