You are receiving Jane Friedman’s self-study class, How to Earn a Living as a Writer. New lessons release every Friday through April 18, 2025. Browse the archive.​

​
Week 15: The dream of passive income

For the last few weeks, I’ve been discussing what profitable authorship looks like, and often it can be boiled down to this: You’re building a body of work that produces income long after you’ve moved onto other things.

Some call this “passive income.” In the book publishing world, we call it the beauty of backlist sales, and any healthy publisher today needs strong backlist sales to continue taking risks on new work. Similarly, as an author, you can take more risks and spend more time on the projects you choose if you have a strong backlist that results in regular income. (This is why every author, without exception, should take time to republish their backlist if the publisher has reverted rights or stopped selling the book.)

In 2007, I vividly recall reading The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss. He focuses on the dream of passive income, or at least setting up a business that can mostly run itself or designing systems that can be delegated to others—freeing up your time for other things.

While some aspects of that book are no longer interesting or helpful (the book heavily emphasizes remote work and online business models—not exactly revolutionary these days), the dream of passive income has not disappeared because it means financial freedom. Other popular books make similar promises: Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki is about generating income by acquiring assets, such as real estate. And many promises made by online courses (including the scammy ones being prosecuted by the FTC!) are about generating passive income through quick content generation.

Most writers don’t think of themselves as “content generators,” although I think everyone can benefit from asking themselves what they might create that could have a long afterlife, that could sell and be relevant for years to come. It could be a book, but it could also be a self-study class, an interactive app, a template or workbook system, etc.

The key to this working well, however, is having a readership or audience you can reach that trusts you and is interested in whatever you’re offering. Passive income is typically only realistic or achievable if you personally have reach to your readership, or you’re partnered with someone who has reach, like a publishing partner or marketing partner.

Exercise

• Take an inventory of all the work you have produced, whether available or not. Basically: look at your backlist across all channels and mediums. Is there anything that should be made available again—that you’re still proud of, that’s evergreen and/or that your fans would be interested in?
• Is there some aspect of your backlist that could be repackaged, remarketed, or repromoted, to boost sales? Sometimes it’s as simple as appearing on a podcast to tie-in with current events (see this case study), or running a small advertising campaign to piggyback off interest in a competing title (see this case study).

Explore further

• ​How You Can Repackage and Sell Your Backlist by Jess Lourey
• ​Intellectual Property: The Big Picture for Authors by Ethan Ellenberg
• Learn how to get your rights back from a publisher (Authors Alliance)

Does someone you know need this series?

​Here is the sign-up page. All new subscribers receive a link to the archive so they can catch up on lessons they missed.

​ The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (releasing April 18, 2025) ​Pre-order a signed copy from Joseph-Beth​ Pre-order at Bookshop​ Pre-order at Amazon​ Pre-order at Barnes & Noble​

​