"Win More"

The key to getting rich is having money

Those of you who play collectable card games (CCGs) such as Magic the Gathering or digital games like Hearthstone may be familiar with the concept of a “win more” card or strategy. It’s a game theory term, but it has some real-world applications.

In simple terms, it’s a card or play that is powerful, but only if you are already in an advantageous position.

As an example, consider a card that grants life equal to the number of creatures you control, the number of cards in your hand, or the amount of life you already have. Or a creature that gains strength based on how strong your other creatures are. On the surface, these effects seem extremely powerful – a card that could grant you 20 life, or a creature with twenty toughness! However, this is a type of card that is only powerful when you are already winning the game—when you have lots of creatures or lots of cards and you haven’t taken much damage. In a real match, it’s a card that sits in your hand, waiting for things to turn around, or is used inefficiently in desperation while losing most of its value.

A pattern I noticed in the real world is the promotion of win more strategies as solutions to problems. I became keenly aware of them in the publishing world as part of what I generally call the “author services” sector, but I also see them in personal finance and wealth building, fitness, dating, etc.

As an example, consider the standard Dave Ramsey method of reducing debt, which entails saving for emergencies first, then paying down high-interest debt, then methodically working on other sources one at a time. Perhaps you notice the flaw in this approach: it requires that you already have a high income. For most people really struggling with debt, the problem is not that they are too disorganized to pay the debt or wasteful with their money; they don’t make enough money to service their debt at all. Chances are, they acquired the debt because of conditions and decisions in the past they cannot undo. They’re stuck in the present with a low-income job and no way to pay down their student debt. The key to getting out of debt is to make lots of money, duh.

Maybe you’ve heard how you should stop renting and buy – after all, you’re paying someone else’s mortgage! That implies you have the finances to buy a house to begin with, and if you’re renting, chances are you don’t. I once had a person ask me, in all seriousness, why I don’t flip houses. After all, I could make 100 grand on each one! Well, yes, but I would have to be able to buy the house in the first place, which is rather hard to do when you don’t have a cool million in cash sitting around or aren’t already earning more than 200k per year to be able to get a loan and service a mortgage until you can complete the flip.

Out of money? Just sell some stock!

In the world of dating, it’s insane how much advice boils down to “be attractive and/or rich.”

In the world of Author services, there is a major problem with most of the not-so-secret strategies promoted by gurus.

Before I get to a few of these, notice that the bookselling gurus make their money in author services, not selling fiction books. They have no skin in the game (they also don’t lose any money when you fail with their strategies).

The typical strategy for author success is:

1)     Find a lucrative microgenre

2)     Write a long series in that microgenre

3)     Buy a great cover, get great editing, and make your blurb great.

4)     Get 10+ reviews for the first book.

5)     Advertise the crap out of the first book to rank it up, and then Amazon will show your book to readers without you having to advertise.

Gurus will sell you all of the things you need for this strategy: cover art, market research tools (like Publisher Rocket) or consulting, editing services, review-generating services, advertising courses and services, etc.

All of these things cost money, so if you aren’t already independently wealthy or successful with lots of extra time on your hands, you simply can’t afford to become successful (defined by having high sales, usually).

It’s a “win more” strategy. Alternatives are also generally bad. Get book reviews. How? If people only buy a book that has reviews, how do you get those first reviews? By asking your audience (that you mysteriously already have), or by paying for (mostly fake) reviews?

How do you get a great cover when you’re broke? How do you advertise your book to no. 1, buy copies to get on the bestseller lists, etc., when you don’t have tens of thousands of dollars in the bank?

Unfortunately, these sorts of strategies don’t scale down, either. You can’t spend twenty dollars a month on ads and expect a return. You have to spend thousands to get enough traction to rank up and many hours learning ad copy and Amazon keywords to have ads that get shown at all (or you hire an expert for even more money).

This is why I have spent the past few years providing free education on writing, editing, cover design, and book marketing. I don’t charge for these bits of information because I’m trying to find paths that don’t require prior success, means of gaining an audience that don’t require thousands of dollars of investment and hundreds of hours of research and keyword testing, and ways of creating the amazing story you have inside you without having to risk all your day job gains.

It’s very challenging, though. Many alternative strategies are still “win more,” things like selling to your social media following (how do you get one of those!?), making content about your new book (why would anyone read it?), or (crazy) getting an agent and getting traditionally published.

The truth is, most successful crowdfunds or alt-media campaigns generating big money (like in the six figures) are exploiting an already existing large and loyal following. It has very little to do with the quality of the product absent the personality pushing it and contains virtually nothing that is repeatable by the little guy. Internet celeb X puts out a comic. The Kickstarter hits 100,000 dollars. See? Jump in the indie market, guys; there’s loads of money to be made! Except all of that is just win more for the big guys, a way to get more money out of something they already have.

With all that in mind, how do you begin winning? Allow me to give some humble suggestions.

First, keep your expenses low. Spend money only on the things you really need help with. A 50-dollar generic cover from a design website will probably do as well for you as a 1,000-dollar painting when you are starting out. If you don’t have that, watch my videos and those of cover designers and put together an acceptable cover yourself. Use stock photos, royalty-free images, or even AI images if you need them (personally, I don’t take any of the hate toward AI seriously – readers don’t usually care whether you hired an artist, used a stock photo, or used an AI). Use your current computer, free software, shoot video on a phone you already have, etc.

Second, build an audience away from Amazon. Easier said than done, but the keys are consistency, patience, and knowing what your audience (who hopefully would want your book) is interested in. Writing scifi? Make content on substack, YouTube, X, Facebook, or anywhere else about science fiction. Lambast things that suck (great for attention). Talk about all the things you love about a book that is awesome (great for positive engagement). Then, do it consistently, every week. Try to get better at your content craft. Serve your audience as you build one, then look for ways to widen it. Talk about fantasy in addition to sci-fi. Talk about romance.

You can even talk politics, though this builds a different kind of audience than one that is interested in your work for its own merits; rather, it’s an audience that buys things from you as a means of agreeing with you and promoting the political agenda. Circling back to “Win More” – lots of “indie” comics and movie projects exist only because the people making them already have attention being political. It is what it is.

Build connections with other creators. This means interacting on X, streaming, blog tours (don’t see those much anymore), joining anthologies, etc. They aren’t your audience, but they can help you find yours, and you might have some in common. But you won’t build your own audience following other authors – you have to give readers a reason to know you, too.

Third, make a great product. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? Not to make 50k writing whatever schlock sells but to find success writing the things we care about. If all I wanted was to make money, I wouldn’t be telling you any of this. I’d be selling a course on ads or something or, if I really wanted to make money writing specifically, I’d be publishing trashy romance. To be real, if all I cared about was money, I’d just be in a different business. I care about creating great things, and I know you do, too. It’s not just about winning; it’s about winning at doing what you love to do.

Be sure you’re running the right race.

I am an independent author and musician. You can get more of my stuff from https://www.patreon.com/davidvstewart where you can get a copy of my creativity manual The Keys to Prolific Creativity for joining. Or you can buy it on Amazon: