Talking About What I Want to Talk About

With swearing

I finished my MBA at the age of 30 and began working in marketing immediately. And I immediately hated it. Not long after, the dream of becoming a writer developed. Not just a writer, but a full-time writer. That meant earning.

At the age of 40 I landed a 20-hour-a-week executive director role with a not-for-profit that paid well enough so I could spend the other 20 hours chasing a writing career. A little over two years later I was making enough to write full-time.

Enough. Not a lot. But enough because I was married to a wonderfully supportive physician. I recommend that every aspiring writer marry a doctor.

It took another ten years before I really started to achieve my financial dreams of not just being a full-time writer, but a well-paid one. Going into writing for the money is as stupid as it gets, but I had delusions of grandeur. And also patience and a willingness to adapt, work hard, and be a shameless promoter of my work.

There was an assload of privilege associated with getting to this point. I acknowledge that.

But I also learned some things I wish to share. Writers are notoriously bad at marketing, and I wish to help them be better at it so they too can fulfill their dreams of making enough money to tell their asshole boss to inhale a big bag of dog farts, or whatever.

No, this is not a sales pitch. It's just a story I'm telling.

In early 2020 my writing career was on life support because my previous book had tanked and the freelancing dried up because I'd shifted away from fitness writing to gamble on a science-based self-help book (the one that tanked). My strategy was to shift more to public speaking to earn, and I probably would have been successful. But then Covid hit and speaking was off the table and in a random and desperate act I began writing sweary history and holy shit it worked out.

Since then, I've resisted adding speaking gigs into my income stream. I evaluated it, and realized a couple of things. The first is that the corporate speaking circuit--where the money is--would require me to deliver a message I wasn't keen on, and temper my opinions and also my profanity. So fuck that. It would also take a lot of time and effort that would be better spent on writing, because I've proven that for me, writing is where the real money is.

But I still enjoy doing the odd speaking gig. And so, I'm doing one next week that is exactly the type that I will enjoy, and it involves helping my fellow writers.

In Calgary next week there is a writer's festival called When Words Collide. It's sold out so if you're not already going you're out of luck. But if you're going to be there, I'm speaking at 11am on Saturday August 5.

I hope to do more such speaking gigs at other writing conferences in the future. If you're involved in one and want me to come yack about earning money and marketing shit for authors, please send me a message.

Here is the session description for next week's talk:

TITLE: Income Streams and Marketing Schemes: How to Make a Good Living as a Full-time Author

Marketing. Barf. I have an MBA in the subject, and I hate it probably as much as you do. But I am also good at it; good at it in a way that didn’t require me to sell my soul and engage in sleazy sales tactics to get people to buy my books. Please buy my books. There won’t be any “one neat trick” in this presentation. Success comes from busting your ass in a smart way.

James is known as the “Sweary Historian.” His writing income is well into the top 1% for all authors in North America because he is skilled at two things: 1) Writing stuff that people want to read; 2) Promoting the crap out of it without spending too much money. Promoting your work doesn’t have to suck if you put the same creative energy into it that you do into your other writing.

Okay maybe a bit of a sales pitch: Buy my book On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down.

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