Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Lauren Smith. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Lauren, appreciate you joining us today. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?
I’m lucky…but also I’m not lucky. That’s the thing about earning a living full time from a creative work based career. I’ve always wanted to be an author, but I learned early on that wanting and “doing” are two different things. To “do” the thing you want, you have to not only work hard, but work smart and be stubborn.
I was raised by two hard working parents who’ve fought for their careers and their livelihoods every day. They are smart, brilliant people but they’ve never “gotten lucky.” Their successes are entirely to their own credit. And they raised me with the same expectations. I learned to work hard, to know that sometimes I’d got knocked on the chin, but I’d get up and keep going, keep fighting.
To be an author, I was going to have to start as something else. Like being a lawyer. I got a respectable job, but all the while, quite literally under the cover of darkness or in the middle of law school class, I was working on the thing I really wanted to be: an author. While I was young and had the energy, I put all the work on my shoulders that I could handle. I earned two law degrees, one in America and one in Canada while holding down two part time jobs…and I was writing. When you really, really want something? You will do anything to get it, you will burn the candle at both ends and fight for that extra few minutes to get words on the page.
But writing wasn’t the only thing I had to do. Being an author meant getting published. I studied every avenue, I joined every club and organization. I took every workshop I could get my hands on. Within two years of leaving law school I had published my first book.
Ten years later, I’m 88 books deep into my career and have three pennames. I’ve sold foreign rights, I’ve produced my own foreign translations. I’ve produced audiobooks, I’ve gained fans in over 40 countries, a reader named her first born son after one of my heroes, and for the last six years I’ve been earning over six figures a year gross in book sales and other revenue related to my books. Just three years into my writing career, my legal career ended and it call came down to me surviving on my stories. Could I do? It wasn’t a matter of if I could. I had to. By taking charge of my fate, and knowing it was going to come down to how hard I could work, I started producing a ton of stories, stories I knew would sell, stories that were written to market, but also written from my heart. Even when I was tired and close to burn out, I couldn’t give up. I loved what I did too much to walk away.
So what’s my secret? That’s the thing, there isn’t a secret, it’s just grit. That’s the key. Having the sheer determination mixed with the right type of research, dedication and lastly…this is where the luck comes in…talent. I am not, nor will I ever be the best writer, but I am a natural born story teller. But talent without grit means nothing. It’s the grit that gets you where you need to be. It makes you do the research on what books sell, it makes you push to sell your subsidiary rights or use them yourself for extra income streams. It makes you produce more books, but still good books, and it inspires you to connect with your readers and keep them engaged and coming back for more stories from you.
So boiled down, what’s my advice? Do your research. Don’t let the stars in your eyes blind you to the work you need to do. What kind of creative work sells? Can you do your own unique work in a way that will fill the market need, but still offer a part of your soul up for the beauty of the art itself? Recognize that your day will be filled with more “administrative” work than creative work. It will make you cherish your creative time even more, knowing how precious it is. Never let an opportunity get by you without you stopping and examining it carefully. You don’t have to do everything, but you should try a lot of things and think outside the box on everything you can.
Don’t expect it to be easy, but just because it’s harder to earn a living as a creative worker, it doesn’t mean it’s not worth it, because it is.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I have always been a writer, ever since the third grade when an author visited our school and told me that writing books was something you could do when you grew up. From that moment on, I had but one true goal in my life, to become an author, to tell stories. And I wanted desperately to tell stories that would change people while still providing them an escape from reality.
As I grew up I read everything and anything I could get my hands on, which gave me a wonderful background to write just about anything but also to write anything in a way that would appeal to most readers. I eventually settled on romance as my primary genre to write in.
I am proud to say that I write in nearly all subgenres of romance as well as historical fiction and cozy mysteries and that my readers have trusted me to deliver a good story no matter what type of book it is. When readers come to my worlds and my characters they will always find heroes that respect the heroines (even if they are enemies at first), and they will always have heroines who are strong, smart, compassionate and brave. My stories offer a promise of what we should all strive for in relationships with others and ourselves.
For people that think “I don’t even want to read a romance,” that’s where I like to challenge readers with my stories. I write adventurous books that happen to have passionate romances within them. In other words, I don’t believe that romance should be considered separate from good stories. Real life has passion in it, it has romance in it. I believe that love is the greatest force there is to fight for and strive for in the world and stories should have love in them. So I often ask readers who say they don’t like romance to try at least one of my stories and see what they think afterwards. I’ve converted quite a few people into enjoying romances who never would have touched them otherwise and I’m very proud of that.
Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.
Writing turned into a full time career six years into my career as a lawyer. Even though I’d been writing since the third grade, I didn’t officially get published until 3 years into my career and it was another 3 after that before I was able to retire from the law and work full time as a writer.
How I scaled up was to start writing quicker and quicker, producing more books more quickly. I also focused on writing a longer series that built up a strong following which was able to sustain and grow my fanbase.
One of my biggest milestones was in 2017 when my first publisher closed and reverted rights back to me. I was able to self-publish those books on my own publisher account and I had a sudden, unexpected windfall of money come in from publishing my own books. With a higher royalty rate and a quicker payment system I was able to pay off my law school debts after just six years of having left law school. That set me up for a less debt encumbered situation in which to pursue my writing career.
One of the challenges they don’t tell you about writing as a career is that if you pursue self-publishing, you’ll need to cover costs up front and banks don’t typically give business loans for writers. That means you need to be able to figure out a way to pay for most of your expenses up front. It’s very much a pay to play system now compared to ten years ago when I first started writing. I am very fortunate that I got my start back in 2014 with publishing since it was easier to reach readers back then compared to now.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
As painful as it is to admit, my biggest lesson to unlearn is that even though I’m a lawyer, I cannot be my own lawyer. When you are involved in a creative endeavor, your mind is clouded with the excitement and desire to have your dream fulfilled. But that makes you susceptible to being tricked into situations that could harm you and/or your business. When it comes to any decisions about your business, or your creative works, you need to make sure that you hire a lawyer (especially if you happen to already be one). You cannot imagine how easy it is to get swept away in the moment and how you can agree to things that would hurt you. I signed a few contracts without having another lawyer look them over and it resulted in legal issues for several years and it was quite costly emotionally, physically and financially to fix these issues. It’s far smarter to pay an hourly fee up front to have a lawyer help you prevent issues, than it is to fix things on the back end.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.laurensmithbooks.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laurensmithbooks/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LaurenDianaSmith
- Twitter: https://x.com/LSmithAuthor
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@laurenandemmabooks
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Lauren-Smith/author/B009L54KTC?qid=1384012235&sr=1-2-ent&ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true
Image Credits
Photography credits on The Darkest Hour book cover to Wander Aguiar Photography