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For many aspiring and emerging authors, the ultimate dream is to be able to support yourself fully through just your writing income. While achieving this level of success is undoubtedly challenging, whether you are traditionally or self-publishing, it is possible.

So, how did all of the highest-earning authors go about making money publishing books, and what can they teach us? Today, I want to talk about strategies that you can adopt right now to help set yourself up for success to one day earn money from writing books.

A little bit of background: I worked in the traditional publishing industry, both at a high-profile literary agency and at an imprint of Penguin Random House, and I worked with several New York Times best-selling authors and authors who received very big advances. So, I have seen authors make the big bucks in publishing firsthand, and that's where I'm coming from with my tips today.

Here's how to make money publishing books and maximize your earning potential as an author:

1. Offer Something Special

Now, this almost goes without saying — any author who earns a lot of money publishing books has some kind of special talent, whether that's in their specific style of storytelling or in their writing capacity and their specific style of prose. Even if you personally don't like a best-selling author's style or story, clearly, they're doing something right to engage readers. They're offering those readers something they can't get anywhere else — and that's what you need to do as well to make the big bucks in publishing. This is one of the things that set professional writers apart from amateurs: They bring something to the table that no one else is.

That doesn't mean that you shouldn't take cues or use established tropes from authors who have already been published; you certainly can, and many authors do — to great success, even. But still, even if you're working within an established genre or within an established story trope, there still has to be something that stands out about your story.

Try to identify your particular strengths as an author. What are you especially good at? Do you have a specific expertise that you bring to your stories or do you have an especially strong ear for the cadence and flow of language that gives your stories a literary quality? Can you conjure immersive and creative worlds that people are intrigued by? No matter what it is, try to figure out what that writing superpower is — that thing that makes your stories different. Then, you're going to have a much better understanding of what you as an author are bringing to the publishing landscape, which is only going to help you succeed in making money writing books.

2. Know What Your Readers Want

While at first you might write just for yourself — maybe you wrote this story because you felt personally compelled to, which is the position many authors are in — if you're thinking about publishing (and specifically making a lot of money in publishing), then you need to think about your reader.

These are the people who are going to pay for your book. It is, at the end of the day, an exchange of value; you're offering something to the reader that they think is worth money to consume. So, try to articulate what value you are providing your reader. What do they want, and how are you going to fill that void for them? For instance, George R.R. Martin became so successful because he drew readers into his epic world, and then they wanted more of those characters and stories, and he could continue delivering that.

So, who is your reader, first and foremost, and what do they want? Are they looking for an escapist fantasy or a feel-good romance? Or, in non-fiction, are they looking for guidance or information on a specific topic that you can bring your expertise to? Authors who are high-earning know what their readers want and continue to provide that for them.

3. Capitalize on Other Opportunities

The next way to make a lot of money publishing books is to capitalize on other income opportunities. Obviously, successful authors make money selling their books, for which they receive a certain amount of royalties for each book sale. But publishing a book actually opens you up to a lot of other income opportunities, and smart authors can create a number of income streams that boost their ability to support themselves.

Some additional ways to make money in publishing might be:

Starting a paid newsletter
Teaching an online masterclass-style course on writing
Becoming a creative writing professor or teaching in-person workshops
Booking speaking engagements
Offering editing or book coaching services

Once you've experienced some amount of success in publishing, it's likely that other authors will want to learn how you've achieved what you've achieved. This ultimately opens up a lot of opportunities for you to make money as an author in addition to the actual book sales that you are making. In fact, some of these other income streams could then in turn boost your book sales as well.

4. Sell Subsidiary Rights

The highest paid authors don't just make money on the initial edition of the book that is published through their publisher; they also make money on additional deals, which are called subsidiary rights. These could include:

Film or TV production rights
Audiobook rights
Foreign edition rights
Merchandising rights, which is any type of product created from their characters or their book’s world

Many big authors have published in many different countries and have also sold the TV and film rights of their books. How many blockbuster movies that are out today are based on books? All of these subsidiary rights deals can massively increase your reach and income as an author.

Your literary agent will be the one spearheading these rights deals, and they will negotiate them for you — of course, with you being fully looped in on what's going on. As with your initial book’s publication, they will take a percent commission on any of these subsidiary rights deals that they make for you.

Subsidiary rights are something you can even talk about with an agent when you are in the beginning stages of your relationship. If it's important to you, for instance, to have your book translated in other markets and/or to have the film or TV rights sold, I would definitely recommend bringing this up as early as possible. You can ask the agent if they see potential to sell subsidiary rights (also called sub rights) for this book. You can ask if they have the proper relationships to make those kinds of deals for you. It's important for you to advocate for yourself and make sure that this is a good literary agent match who's going to support you in your goals for your career.

5. Never Give Up

My final tip for making the big bucks as an author is to never give up. So many high-earning, best-selling, high-profile authors have shared stories about the many rejections they faced across the course of their journey. Some were rejected by dozens of literary agents and publishers before they made it.

Now, the real difference between them and authors who don't make it is that they continually believed in the potential of their story and their potential as an author. They kept persevering through the rejections because they believed in their abilities and they cared passionately about getting this story told. So, even if it takes you years to secure a literary agent, or even if your first book doesn't sell the way that you expect it to, that does not mean you are never going to achieve your dream of being a high-earning author.

There's no doubt that publishing a book can be incredibly discouraging and challenging, but the beauty of it is that there's always a chance to break through and make it big. If you need proof, check out these stories about two authors who were discouraged about the way their publishing journey was panning out, only to suddenly sell thousands of copies of their book and become best-selling authors. Remember that the only way to ensure you never achieve your dreams of becoming a high-earning author is to quit!

I hope this gave you an idea of how to make money publishing books and helped you feel encouraged about the ways you can earn income as an author. Thanks so much for reading and happy writing!

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