We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Victoria Mccombs a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Victoria, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

Sometimes it’s easy for me to focus on writing the next book, marketing it, and driving sales, to the point that I lose the simple joy of storytelling. Last year I started writing little children’s books under a pen name, adding simple illustrations, and publishing them so I can order copies to have a home. Then at night, I read these stories to my kids. It’s brought back not on the simple love for creating stories, but turned it into something that everyone in the family can get involved in.

These books will never take off. They won’t earn me money. But they mean more to me than all the other books I’ve written.

Victoria, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m an author of young adult fantasy, and it’s been a wild ride to get here!

I started pursuing writing more seriously after my first kid was born. I sent out a hundred queries to agents, all starting with the phrase ‘Dear Agent’ (which is a huge mistake to do. Always personalize that thing.) Needless to say, I got no replies.

Discouraged, I wrote another novel and queried again, this time putting more effort into the pitch. I got two people interested, with one making an offer.

Everything in me wanted to sign right away. I’d done it! I got a contract!

But it came from a vanity press. (I encourage everyone to research those!) Basically, they wanted me to pay to help with the production costs. It would have resulted in a published book, but I’d be stuck with a basic cover, cheap editing, and publishers who already got their money out of me. Disheartened, I said no.

The next book I wrote, I tried to query again. During a pitching session with agents, I was getting nowhere, but sought out books similar to mine to see what agents were interested in those. Then I specifically sent my book to those agents. It worked. Only ten days later, I signed a four book deal with a small press.

In hindsight, I should have turned that one down as well. They delivered wonderful covers, but the editing was lackluster and marketing non-existent. A few months before book three released, I bought the rights to my series back and quickly learned how to self-publish.

The next contract I signed was with a much larger press, and I’ve happily published five books through them.

But my quick rush into self-publishing started my love for the control over the process, and I began seeing story after story of authors having massive success with self-publishing, while all my friends who signed with a small press regretted it.

Now, I’m skipping the querying, betting on myself, and self-publishing all my stories. My years of being in this industry have greatly helped to prepare me for what readers are looking for, and how to release a book on my own. Now, I’m very passionate about educating others about the pros and cons about each publishing path so they know exactly what they are getting into.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I’m sure everyone has heard you should ‘diversify your income stream.’

Cool. I can do that.

So I started a coaching business where I would look over writer’s books and help them through it. I had several clients a month. I started an editing business. Cover design. Patreon. Growing my newsletter. I was thiiiiiiis close to creating a youtube channel. Posting to pinterest. Attempting TikTok.

Was I making more money?

Yes.

But it wasn’t passive. It was quite the opposite. Instead my mind became so full of what I had to do to satisfy customers that it had little room left for my own stories, and writing got pushed to the sidelines. My sales weren’t great.

Now, I’m more focused on passive income. Writing the next book, publishing, repeat. For this coming year, I’m looking at launching my second penname to keep up with all the books I’m writing, and my sales are higher than they’ve ever been.

All because I learned that my mind doesn’t need many avenues. It needs to do one really well.

I suspect when my kids are grown, I can focus on more than writing, but for now, this is way better for me.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

This one is huge.

If you want to publish, go join the 20booksto50k facebook group. It’s AMAZING in teaching writers how to make a full time living through their books.

Don’t be overwhelmed. They’ll be talking about facebook ads, amazon ads, publishing a book a month, and have ten different streams of income. I remember feeling like I didn’t even understand the words they are saying. But bit by bit I learned.

If anything, it’s just daily encouragement seeing other’s posting their income and how they achieved it, and seeing that it’s possible to make a living writing books.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://victoriadmccombs.wixsite.com/authorblog
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/victoria_mccombs/