Screenwriting or Monetizing? — One Honest Indie

Debbi Mack
3 min readFeb 8, 2022

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Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

Hi! Well, today, I just want to talk about where I want to go next with this channel and with what I’m doing in general.

Now, one of the things I’m thinking about doing is talking more about this stuff.

That is a not very well formatted screenplay. It’s The Big Lebowski. And I bring this up because one of the things I do is I go through screenplays and I will try to pick out the different beats, the different plot points, because screenplays, as you may or may not know, are supposed to follow certain beats and reach certain plot points at certain times in the script. If we’re talking about a movie, it’s the 12-step Hero’s Journey, or it’s the however many step “Save the Cat” template. Whatever formula you follow, it generally follows the same kind of arc. And anyway, having said that, I’m talking about screenwriting now. That’s one way I could go, and I might go there.

The other way I could go is to talk more about how to use things like Substack and Patreon, to the extent I’ve been able to use them at all, with any degree of success in terms of monetizing my content, because the reality is I’m not gonna be able to make a living off of Amazon, period. I mean, I have come to accept that in the same way that I’ve come to accept that my left hand will never be normal ever again, as long as I live. So, I mean, you just have to learn to accept certain things and adapt, and that is what I’m doing, hopefully. And, uh, so if you have a preference in terms of what you would want to hear from me, I would love to know what that is. I mean, if you’re an indie author and you are just struggling as much as I am with all of what’s going on in terms of technology, how to monetize things, how to function on the internet.

I am really, really interested in helping people with that kind of stuff, because I myself am learning as I go. And so that’s it. I just wanted to know if you had a preference. Do you want to learn more about screenwriting or do you want to learn more about fiction writing or do you want to learn more about some of this stuff like Substack and Patreon and so on? And Medium, as well. So that was it then. And please leave a comment, whether it’s on one of my blogs or on this YouTube channel, I would really appreciate it. Thanks. And I’ll talk to you later.

PS: Here’s how my income streams for 2021 broke down by percentage ( de minimis and non-recurring income omitted):

7.8% Amazon royalties (world-wide)

9.9% Draft2Digital royalties

3% Kobo royalties

1.2% Smashwords royalties

2% Audiobook sales

4.5% Patreon payouts

17.6% BiblioLabs

11% IngramSpark compensation (print book sales)

16.4% Udemy course payouts

Can you see why I’m not relying on Amazon alone? Or at all. 🙂

PPS: The problem with easy money. Ahem …! :)

Originally published at https://debbimackblogs.com on February 8, 2022.

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Debbi Mack
Debbi Mack

Written by Debbi Mack

New York Times bestselling author of eight novels, including the Sam McRae Mystery series. Screenwriter, podcaster, and blogger. My website: www.debbimack.com.

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