It is possible to make a full-time living as a writer. One way is to write a home-run book that sells 1 million copies. A more reliable way is to stack base hits. Instead of swinging for the fences, you swing to get on base, then do it again and again.
Our guest today makes her living by writing base-hit books. Chautona Havig has written more than 70 books on a variety of topics. Whether she is critiquing writing samples, helping with formatting, assisting with marketing, or redesigning ineffective book covers, she loves serving the author community and helping writers earn money from their work.
How did you get started writing?
Chautona: It was cathartic. I had eight kids at the time, and people kept asking, “How do you do it with eight kids? I cannot manage with the two I have, and I’m falling apart.”
I kept thinking, “I was falling apart with two, and I am falling apart with eight, but you do not get them all at once. You get them one at a time.” People did not understand that.
I got so frustrated I wrote a story about a girl who inherited her eight nieces and nephews when she was 22.
Thomas: You basically wrote your own story.
Chautona: Sort of. I did not inherit children. I had mine one at a time the old-fashioned way. But that little 60,000-word book grew and eventually became four books, each over 100,000 words, and it became my bestseller.
Did you pursue traditional publishing or go indie?
Thomas: That was your initial series. Did you pitch it to agents? Did you pursue traditional publishing or go indie?
Chautona: No. I wrote another book. I liked that first book and thought it had commercial potential, but I had another story I wanted to try. So, I decided to try the indie thing and see if I liked it before I decided what to do next.
I do not recommend doing it this way. I published that book with every mistake possible, and I mean every one. It was horrible. I recently re-released it, completely rewritten, with a new cover, new title, and everything, because what I originally did to that book was cruel.
Thomas: But you did not know that at the time. I bet when it came out, you thought, “This is a masterpiece.”
Chautona: I knew it was not a masterpiece, but I loved the process. So I kept going indie. I did not know how to market, though. I cannot sell my own stuff, but I am great at helping other people find what they are looking for.
When I realized that is what marketing is, things changed fast.
Why is the first book rarely market-ready?
Thomas: You wrote your first book, and it was not very good, but you caught the writing bug and went back to your “book zero,” the first book you wrote.
That is extremely common. I have talked with authors for years, and it is rare to find someone whose first published book was literally their first book. Most first books are practice books. They make you a better writer, but they are not ready for the marketplace.
What holds many authors back is clinging to that first book. They will not let it be the learning experience it was meant to be. They will not move on.
As you write more books, you get better. That brings more readers, which helps you write better books, and it becomes a virtuous cycle. But you cannot start that cycle until you are willing to put the first book down.
Chautona: I do not think you have to abandon it forever, like some people say. But you have to be willing to slaughter those darlings, because those darlings are wolves in sheep’s clothing. You have to kill them.
Thomas: In a sense, you did abandon the book. The original 60,000-word version does not exist anymore, but you did not abandon the characters or the story. That matters.
Chautona: Exactly. I set it aside. Some lines are still there, but I mostly added and cut fluff. I added far more than I cut. The original read like a laundry list.
How did you go from your first books to writing more than 70?
Thomas: Your first book came out, then you rewrote book zero and expanded it into four books. How did you go from those first few titles to more than 70 books? What does your writing process look like?
Chautona: At first, I was not marketing, so those little books just sat there. Then I heard about a strategy I did not understand. Someone said you join KDP, make your book free for four days, then leave the program and earn a lot of money. I thought it was ridiculous.
But at the time, people really did it. I mentioned it on a homeschool moms’ message board and asked how it could work. A woman replied, “Oh yes, that works. It is a good strategy. You should do it.”
I asked how she knew. She was a marketer, and she became my publicist. Without her, I would never have learned marketing, and my books would never have been seen.
She put my book Ready or Not up for free. In 24 hours, we had 33,000 downloads. I had about $50 in my KDP account that morning, and by the end of the week, I had over $6,000. That is when I knew she knew what she was talking about.
After that, whatever she told me to do, I did. Because of her, I became a five-figure author for quite a while, which was exciting.
Why give a book away for free?
Thomas: People ask, “But you gave your book away for free. How do you make money off a free book?” Your enemy is not piracy, it is obscurity. The problem was not that people were stealing your book. The problem was that no one knew who you were. Then suddenly 6,000 people knew who you were, and they liked what they saw.
Because if 6,000 people, or 1 million people, know who you are and they read your book and think, “Ugh,” you are done. They will not touch you again, and you are worse off than before.
Good marketing helps a bad book fail faster. That is a cliché, but it is true. Those 6,000 readers started exploring your other books. Was the free book the first in a series?
Chautona: Yes. It was the first in a series. That week, the last week of the month, I made $6,000. The next month was July, and that was the month my grandson was electrocuted.
My grandson spent a month in the burn unit. He should be dead, and my daughter did not have insurance. I kept asking, “How are we going to pay for this?”
Then my publicist messaged me and said, “Check it out.” I looked at my Amazon dashboard and saw $15,000 at the end of that month. I said, “Oh, God has this covered.”
She was amazing, and I miss her. But it is also good that I have learned to do it myself.
Why is marketing so hard for Christian authors?
Thomas: You are in good company not liking marketing. At the beginning of your story, you did not like marketing and you did not do marketing. That describes a lot of Christian authors. Why is it so hard for Christian authors to engage in book promotion and platform building?
Chautona: I think there are two issues. One is personality. For me, it is personality. I believe the laborer is worthy of his wages. I have no problem with people getting paid for what they do.
But a lot of Christians feel like they should not charge for what the Lord has given them. I always ask, “What does Scripture say?” Because that is not what the Bible says. Scripture says the laborer is worthy of his wages. When an author spends hundreds of hours researching, writing, and editing, they should be paid.
For me, I am naturally shy and introverted. I have to force myself to be gregarious. Once I get going, I do better. So part of it is personality.
But when I realized marketing and advertising are two different things, my world opened up. I thought, “Oh, I can do this.” They are not the same thing in my mind.
What does the Bible actually say about getting paid?
Thomas: Going back to the laborer being worthy of his wages, the Bible does not just fail to forbid getting paid. It gives specific instructions in both the Old and New Testaments.
It is okay to be a professional Christian. Pastors, missionaries, and Christian authors can be paid for Christian work. Not only is it okay, it is what is supposed to happen.
If you are not getting paid, you may have a distorted view of money. You may need to repent and be willing to say yes when people want to give you money.
Chautona: When we did that workshop in Southern California, I wanted the title to be Jesus Won’t Send You to Hell for Marketing Your Book. We figured they would not let us.
How do motives affect marketing?
Thomas: Getting the word out is okay. Promotion is fine as long as it is ultimately a means of glorifying God. If you are trying to glorify yourself, you will feel guilty.
A lot of Christians struggle because they have not examined their motives. Some people say God called them to write, which may be true. But deep down, they want validation. They feel insecure or inadequate, and they want the book to validate them.
Because of that, they feel like they cannot promote their book. They think, “I need other people to promote it so I can feel validated.” These are often the same people who loudly claim they are not motivated by money or sales.
That thinking is toxic. If you do not care about money and only want validation, you will not reach readers, you will not change lives, and you will not even get the validation you want.
Chautona: That is exactly what I tell people. The only way to know if your book is doing what you wrote it to do is to see the dollars. That is how you know someone read it.
Is money a sign of blessing?
Thomas: You make money by blessing other people, and they choose to give you money as a thank you. “You fed me, thank you.”
That way of thinking shows up repeatedly in The Book of Proverbs. Wealth is described as a reward for righteousness. But Proverbs is not the whole truth. That is why you need Ecclesiastes as a companion.
Everything in Proverbs is true, but not complete. Ecclesiastes reminds us that much of this is meaningless apart from fearing God and obeying His commandments. There is a tension there. God does reward righteousness, but what matters most is fearing God.
That said, let’s get back to marketing. What should believers not do when promoting their books? What pitfalls do you see Christian authors fall into?
Chautona: One of the biggest pitfalls is thinking doing nothing is safer. Not marketing is still marketing. It is negative marketing. It tells people there is no value in your work.
Some authors say, “I do not know what I am doing, so I will put my book on Amazon and trust God.” That is like leaving a dying baby on a park bench and hoping a doctor walks by. It does not work that way. You have to do something.
What does trusting God really look like?
Thomas: That is not how trusting God works. The heroes of the faith trusted God by taking courageous action. Laziness is not holiness. Fear is not holiness.
The servant who buried his talent was called wicked. The faithful servants worked. They invested. They acted. Jesus told that parable often, which shows how important it is.
Chautona: Fear is part of it, but not always fear of rejection. Often it is ignorance. People do not know what to do, and they do not want to waste money. So they end up wasting the book instead of the money.
Thomas: Or they waste their time. Many authors do not value their time enough. They spend time on low-return activities.
It is like digging a ditch with a garden trowel. If you invested in a shovel or rented a machine, you could do in an hour what takes a month. Machines cost money, but you can make more money. You cannot make more time.
You need to treat your time as valuable. That means investing in tools. The right answer is not always spending as little as possible, and it is not always spending as much as possible.
Chautona: It is spending what you need to achieve what you need.
What should authors invest in first?
Thomas: The first thing I recommend people spend money on, before hiring a virtual assistant or a marketing or PR company, is education.
Education does not have to be expensive. We have an affordable course at the Christian Writers Institute, but there is an even cheaper source: books. You can buy books on writing and marketing, and they will help you spend your money on the right things and the right people.
There are con artists out there, and there are people who know what they are talking about. Education helps you tell the difference. If you do not know anything, it is easy to get taken advantage of.
Chautona: We have a couple people in town who gave a certain company a boatload of money for nothing. The covers were atrocious. The editing was atrocious. The marketing was nonexistent. They were out thousands upon thousands of dollars and asking, “How do you make money at this?”
I tell them, “I do not do what I just told you not to do, and you did anyway. That is how I make money at this.”
Which publishing companies actually work?
Thomas: I got an email earlier today by accident from someone interacting with one of these predatory self-publishing companies. I suspect it was a God thing. She was negotiating contract terms and had questions.
I told her, “Be careful. This company does not have a good reputation.” I sent her a link to an article about their bad practices and pointed out that they are not listed in Christian Writers Market Guide. If a company is not listed there, that is a big red flag.
Indie authors making a living usually publish through two companies: Amazon and Ingram. That is it. Those are the only two where people consistently make a living.
That does not mean you cannot succeed with companies like BookBaby if you need more help. Just realize they cost a lot of money, and it is harder to make a living. As you get better and more profitable, you do it yourself and hire people directly.
When you hire your own editor and cover designer, you get better quality for less money because you are not paying a middleman. If you are paying $60 an hour, the editor may only get $20 an hour. You are paying a $60 rate for $20-an-hour work.
Instead, hire a $60-an-hour editor and get an amazing book, or hire a $40-an-hour editor, save some money, and still get a much better edit.
Lear more about predatory publishers in our episode on Hybrid Publishing.
What happens when authors try to save money on editing?
Chautona: When I started with my first book, I told myself, “I do not want to put tons of money into this,” which was mistake number one, “because I do not know if I want to do this,” which was mistake number two.
I went online looking for a good edit for free or almost free. The advice I kept finding said, “Find ten grammar experts in your social network. Send it to the first one. Have them fix it. Do not go back and change anything because it corrupts the file. Then send it to the next one. By the time it comes back, it will be perfect.”
It was worse than when I sent it out. I did not know because I believed them. I was naive. I sent out a book with a hideous cover and horrible editing. There was no developmental editing.
Someone needed to tell me, “We do not use omniscient point of view like this anymore. You do not want to be in everyone’s head.” I said, “Oh, I did not know that.” I had read way too much 19th-century fiction.
What is developmental editing?
Thomas: That is an important point. Many people think editing is just fixing typos. That is like saying, “I need to build a house, so I will hire someone who is good at fixing light fixtures.”
There is a time to install light fixtures, but if you do not have blueprints, architecture, or decisions about how many rooms you need, that person cannot help you. You need an architect first.
In publishing, that role is filled by a developmental editor, sometimes called a substantive or content editor. They are not fixing commas or spelling. In fact, great developmental editors are not always strong grammarians. Big-picture thinking is a different skill from line-level editing.
I am always suspicious when someone claims to be excellent at both. Usually they are very good at one and dabble in the other.
Chautona: I am better as a developmental editor. I do a lot of developmental editing. If I see something else while I work, I mark it, but I am not a proofreader or line editor.
Thomas: If you only need proofreading, software can catch a lot. Grammarly Pro is impressive, even with stylistic suggestions editors often make.
People say, “But Grammarly Pro is $100 a year.” An editor costs far more, and Grammarly gives instant feedback. It does not replace an editor, but it helps editors focus on more important work.
Chautona: It works well as a final pass. Every time someone edits and makes changes, new errors can slip in. Grammarly can catch things no one noticed after all those revisions.
How does professional editing actually work?
Thomas: Traditionally published books go through several stages. First is the developmental edit, sometimes with multiple rounds. That fixes the story, or the ideas in nonfiction.
Chautona: Or adds the proposal I did not want to write but the editor insisted on. I was so mad.
Thomas: After that comes the copy editor, the person most people think of as an editor. They ensure grammar, consistency, and correctness.
Then the book is typeset, and a proofreader reviews the final formatted pages. Even if your copy editor caught everything, typesetting can introduce new errors. That is why proofreading matters. You want someone reviewing the book as the reader will see it.
Chautona: Even if you catch 99.9% of errors in a 100,000-word manuscript, that still leaves 100 errors. Why skip a final review?
Every one of my books has something in it. With indie publishing, I can fix it. My traditionally published book has a couple of errors I cannot fix, and it drives me crazy.
Thomas: One advantage of print-on-demand and ebooks is that you can fix errors later. You cannot do that when 1,000 books are sitting in a warehouse.
Some listeners might be thinking, “I thought we were talking about money.” We are. Editing illustrates the mindset of a professional author, someone who puts bread on the table and contributes to the family budget.
You have to be willing to spend money and do things right. Doing it right versus doing it wrong can be the difference between making hundreds of dollars and making thousands or tens of thousands of dollars with a book.
It can even be the difference between hundreds and hundreds of thousands. Authors who make good money are at the top of their categories. If you cannot beat competitors with one book, you beat them with volume.
How does a backlist multiply income?
Thomas: When you have more books, each one supports the others. Together, they can generate significant income.
Chautona: They also lead readers to the next book. I hear people say, “I found this book for free, and then I plowed through 30 books.” I love hearing that.
Thomas: What is the average price of your books?
Chautona: At launch, I do a preorder at $4.99. The day after launch, it goes to $5.99 for a year, then back to $4.99. Once there are several books in a series, I drop the first one to $2.99.
Thomas: If we assume an average price of about $4 across 30 books, that is roughly $100 before Amazon’s cut. You are still looking at $70 to $100 from one binge reader, far more than from a single full-price book.
Chautona: Exactly. Because I have more than 70 books, I can make one book free every week. I do not even cycle through my whole backlist in a year.
About 7 to 10 days after a free promotion ends, I start seeing paid reads. I can track when it kicks in. When you have a lot to work with, you have a lot to work with.
How did you build a 70-book career?
Thomas: Let’s talk about that, because you did not start off with 70 books. How do you approach your writing so you can write quickly? How long did it take you to get to 70 books?
Chautona: I have been doing this since 2010. I have been doing it for ten years, and I have 70 books.
Thomas: That’s about seven books a year, so roughly a book every one to two months. How do you write that quickly? Walk us through your process, because I know you have a disciplined system.
Chautona: We live in the middle of nowhere, and our ACFW chapter is about three hours south of us.
Thomas: That’s your regional chapter meeting, not the annual conference, just the local group where you hang out with other authors.
Chautona: Right, the chapter. It’s in Orange County, so it’s a three-hour drive without traffic. Once you hit traffic on the 15 or the 91, you are in trouble.
On the drive, I plot books using an audio app on my phone or a digital recorder, depending on what I have with me. I plot the whole book on the way down. A lot of times, I delete that version and plot again, because the story is better the second time. I discovered that by accident when one got deleted and I realized, “Wait, this is better.”
Between Ridgecrest and Orange County, I usually plot at least two books, sometimes four, counting the drive there and back. Right now I have about 50 to 60 plotted books waiting to be written. I transcribe the audio, and those become scene lists. I copy each point into Scrivener, and then I am ready. When I sit down, it tells me exactly what to write because I already planned it.
Chautona: Then I sit down and write, and I write all night long.
Thomas: You mean that literally. When you say “all night,” you might start at 9:00 or 10:00 p.m. and write until 6:00 a.m. That lets you write when your kids are not around.
Chautona: Yes, and wanting all my attention. And my youngest is 15, so I am not as evil as I sound.
Thomas: You do have to sleep. But I have worked with a lot of fast-writing authors, and audio is a common part of their process. Where it fits varies. Some outline on paper and dictate the first draft.
What you are doing is brainstorming the broad plot by audio, turning that into scenes, then writing the scenes. The point is not that everyone has to do it your way. The point is that if you want professional money, you need a professional process. You have to find and follow a system that consistently produces quality work quickly.
Excellence is quality quickly. Anyone can be excellent if they take forever. A great plumber is not the person who can fix the leak, it is the person who fixes it before the house floods.
How did you get comfortable with dictation?
Chautona: Amen. It was not comfortable at first. I was driving down the road talking to myself, and that felt weird. Listening to my own voice felt weird. I do not like my voice. It drives me crazy. It sounds nasal and frustrating.
But I made myself keep trying. It was awkward and stilted at first. I kept thinking, “This is a waste of time,” but I also felt like it was the right thing to do. Right after I got good at it, dictation started showing up everywhere, and I thought, “We are all thinking the same thing.” It made a big difference to do the uncomfortable thing until it became comfortable.
What tools do you use, and why do you transcribe yourself?
Thomas: What software do you use for dictation?
Chautona: I use the built-in voice app on my iPhone, or a tablet, or a digital recorder. I usually transcribe it myself because it is part of my process.
Sometimes I do not have time. If I find out I need a book for a collection by a certain deadline and I have to write it now, I send the audio out to be transcribed. But most of the time, transcribing it myself cements the story in my head. It is that hear-it-and-type-it combination. It also generates new ideas, so I add ideas while I transcribe. For me, it works better than having the computer do it.
Thomas: So you are doing an initial edit as you transcribe, cutting some ideas, adding others, and raising the quality from the audio brainstorm to the written draft.
Chautona: Yes. The difference is unbelievable. I have pulled over because it was unsafe to drive because I was laughing so hard at my own ideas. People look at you weird, but I am used to that.
To learn more about dictation and writing, check out the following episodes:
- Triple Your Writing Speed with Dictation
- How to Write a Novel Faster Using Dictation Software
- How to Write 5000 Words an Hour with Chris Fox
- How to Publish One Million Words a Year with Chris Fox
How did you build your email list?
Thomas: I love what you are saying about productivity. You have to write faster so you have more books to work with. One of your strategies is giving away a free book, supported by an email list. Walk us through how you built that list so people know about the weekly free book.
Chautona: Every book has a signup at the beginning, and usually at the end. Sometimes it is not at the end, but that is because I did not think of it yet.
At the end of my books I also recommend the next read. I say, “Have you read this?” If you liked this, here is the next one. Here is the first chapter. Check it out.
When I offer freebies, I tell readers, “Sign up for my newsletter.” They get my short story collection, even though only one story connects to my books. It is a stupid collection, do not make that mistake. But they also get updates on which book will be free for the next five days, every week.
I have about 3,000 people on my list. That is not a boatload, but most have been there a long time. They stay. I send a newsletter almost every week.
When I was gone for almost three months caring for my mom, I barely sent anything. I expected a bunch of unsubscribes, but they were still there when I got back. They were praying for my mom. I nurture relationships with my readers. I send birthday cards. If I see something they posted, I tell them, “I am praying for you,” and I stop and pray right then. They know I care about them. They know they are not just dollar signs to me.
Thomas: That relationship is powerful, especially when you are starting out. You cannot do that for 1 million people, but you can do it for a few hundred. If you only have a few hundred people on your list, make sure they feel blessed to be there.
Where can people find you and subscribe, especially if they want to learn from what you are doing?
Where can people subscribe to see what you’re doing?
Chautona: My website is Chautona.com, and the newsletter page is at /news. When you sign up, you can also subscribe to blog posts, which are mostly book reviews, but not entirely.
I also do a serial novel. It has been on hiatus since my mom got sick, but I normally send an episode every week to people who want it. They sign up separately because I do not want to bombard inboxes.
So readers can get the newsletter, or the newsletter plus blog posts, or the newsletter plus blog posts plus the story installments. It gives people a taste of what I am about.
Any final encouragement for authors?
Chautona: Do not be afraid to be yourself. Do what is comfortable for you, but also push your comfort zone. If I had not pushed my comfort zone, I would not have been able to maintain what I am doing for as long as I have. I had to decide, “I need to make people more important than me.”
Thomas: That is excellent, and it matters. Play to your strengths, be who you are, and push yourself to grow stronger.
It is okay not to be okay. It is not okay to stay that way, as John Burke often says. That is true in our writing too. Start where you are. Do not try to become someone else. Do not put on Saul’s armor if you are a slinger.
But do not be content staying a shepherd boy forever. There is a time to stand up to the giant and become more than you were before. That is part of what makes fiction fun, our characters grow and evolve. It is also part of what makes real life fun, because as we grow in the Lord, we grow and evolve too.
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