Should I Make More Money Or Sell More Books?

A Literal Literary Loser Compares and Contrasts

Getting into school in New York City - yes, even public school; yes, even your local public school - is a convoluted, chaotic, and complicated process. (It also involves other words that don’t start with the letter “C,” but I enjoy alliteration.)

After doing it three times for my own kids at each school level, Kindergarten, Middle and High School, I realized just how much the Department of Education goes out of its way to obscure and obfuscate the process. (See, I told you I liked alliteration.)

As an author of books ranging from regency romances to figure skating murder mysteries to soap opera tie-ins to Soviet historical fiction, I obviously knew what could solve this problem.

Books! Books solve all problems, which means, obviously, books would solve this one.

So I wrote two books, “Getting into NYC Kindergarten” and “Getting into NYC High School.” (I did not write a book called “Getting into NYC Middle School” for… reasons.)

“There,” I thought proudly to myself. “Now that I have written books about it, no NYC parent will ever be confused by NYC school admissions again, for I have laid everything out in a clear and easy to follow manner, and at a cost of only $9.99, to boot. How fabulous, I am!”

Gentle Reader, it turns out that I am not all that fabulous.

Despite my best efforts, reading “Getting into NYC Kindergarten” and/or “Getting into NYC High School,” written, as noted above, in a clear and easy to follow manner, did not make it so that no NYC parent was ever confused by NYC school admissions again.

People still had questions.

So I started hosting open to the public workshops to expand on the information in my books.

People still had questions.

So I started offering consults to discuss families’ particular situations.

Now, almost a decade after I published my first instructional book, I make much more money from the workshops and the consults than I do from book sales.

So here is my dilemma: If I didn’t provide workshops and consults, I would sell more books. (That’s my hypothesis, anyway.) But if I only sold books, even twice the amount I am selling now, I still wouldn’t make as much money.

The thing about book sales is that they lead to more book sales. Not only do people recommend the book to their friends, but, online, your sales rank goes up. Your sales rank going up means your book is shown to more people, which means you sell more books, which makes your sales rank go up, which… you get the idea.

I realize that, for most people, my question is a no-brainer: Duh, this is how you make your living so, obviously, you should do the thing that makes more money, which is the workshops and the consults.

That is obvious and practical and all-American. Except I think my dilemma is more existential (note the sneaky alliteration at the beginning and end of the sentence).

While I don’t mind doing workshops and consults and I am, in fact, quite good at workshops and consults, I don’t see myself as a consultant.

I see myself, first and foremost, as a writer.

If the bulk of my income comes not from writing, am I really still a writer?

Should I focus on writing, not just my education books, but my historical fiction, at the expense of all else?

For almost 20 years now, as I’ve also been writing non-fiction about the state of education in America — as it gets worse and worse, it is the content gift that keeps on giving; I’ve been telling myself that the school business is my side-hustle, and that being a novelist is my day job.

My tax returns would beg to differ.

So what do I do now?

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Speaking of things that I do that aren’t writing, check out my latest video discussing the book, “Soviet Born” and tackling the thorny question: Why are these (Soviet) Jews different from all other (American) Jews?