Since I get asked this question just about every day, I'm just going to write up an answer that I can copy and paste in response.
It’s been a rough few years for me professionally. The world stubbornly decided that it wasn’t interested in some of the funniest books I’ve ever written, and I’ve been having a harder time getting new readers to try out the Caverns & Creatures series.
So I did what anyone who likes to eat does. I got a job.
Unfortunately, that means I’m progressing extremely slowly on Critical Failures 10, tapping out a few words here and there when I can spare an hour or two.
But fear not, friends, for I have a strategy to get back to writing full time.
Some authors successfully market their books through advertising on different social media platforms. I initially had some success with that, but over time it produced diminishing returns to the point that I was spending more on ads than I was making from book sales.
So about a year ago, I decided to funnel my advertising budget into content creation instead.
Rather than throw money at Facebook and Amazon to show my ads to a few people for a fleeting second, I thought, “Fuck it. I’ll bring the audience to me.”
I started writing reviews of D&D spells, then started outsourcing that when I realized I’m not very good at writing spell reviews. Over time, this website began ranking for more and more search terms on Google, driving more and more of my target nerd audience to the site.
From there, we’ve been covering feats, classes and subclasses, eldritch invocations, etc…
My website traffic since its inception according to SEMRush.
Then I started doing the same thing on YouTube. Each video I put out has a corresponding written article linked in the description, and each written article links to the corresponding YouTube video. Most importantly, they all have ads for Critical Failures.
Thanks to these efforts, I’m finally starting to move a few books again. But I’m still a long way from selling enough to be able to go back to writing full time.
If you’re wondering how you can help, the biggest thing you can do (aside from buying the books) is to engage with the content. Read the articles. Share them with your friends and in your gamer groups. Subscribe to the YouTube channel. Watch the videos. Like them and leave comments.
The more engagement I get, the higher Google and YouTube rank my content, making them visible to more people, some of whom will be lured by my advertisements into reading Critical Failures.
Believe me. Nobody is more eager for the release of Critical Failures 10 than I am. When that happens is largely going to depend on when I’m able to start devoting more time to writing it.
Thank you for visiting!
If you’d like to support this ongoing project, you can do so by buying my books, getting some sweet C&C merch, or joining my Patreon.
