Making poetry pay: Neal Zetter on the business of making a living as an author
Making a living as an author is far from easy, and making a living as a poet is generally considered close to impossible. And yet, some authors and poets somehow do. Neal Zetter, who has eight Troika books to his name, is one of them. We asked Neal to pass on some of the secrets of his success.
Troika: Neal, you’re a man of many talents. How would you describe what you do?
Neal Zetter: I’m an author using my comedy performance poetry to help develop communication (writing and presentation skills) and confidence in people aged from 3 to 103. Given that my eight books are aimed at children, I’m visiting primary and secondary schools virtually every day during term time, running fun poetry writing and performance workshops, performing my work and doing Q&As, book sales and signings.
Troika: When did you start?
Neal: Well I wrote my first poem at six years old! I started to receive some kind of regular income from my poetry in 1989 (when I staged my first performance) and eventually became a full-time poet/author in 2005. My first book with Troika, It's Not Fine to Sit on a Porcupine (illustrated by Rory Walker), was published in 2016. In the meantime I’d self-published six very low-cost poetry books in the 1980s and then self-published my first 'proper' book, Bees in My Bananas in 2014 – which sold around 4,000 copies. This was subsequently taken on and rebranded by Troika (illustrated by Chris White). I also produced a CD of my adult poetry about ten years ago with the help of a friend of mine who is a DJ and I sold these at my comedy club gigs.
Troika: How do you make a living from your work?
Neal: Contrary to popular belief, most poets and authors are not rich! To raise and sustain a profile and a modest income I’ve always tried to be many things to many people and rarely turn down work. I performed my adult poetry in comedy clubs in London’s West End from 1989-2002, and then ran my own comedy and spoken word club from 2008-2015, which I also compered. At the same time I ran workshops, and still do, in all kinds of places - state and private schools, colleges, with school-excluded children, adults with mental health and/or drug and alcohol issues, people with brain injury, those with learning difficulties, the homeless, abused women (in a women's refuge), offenders, the elderly and those with dementia, people learning the English language and many more community groups and arts organisations.
Troika: But it seems you spend most of your time in schools – why is that?
Neal: Sadly, due to government funding cuts, much of the work with adult groups has dried up in the past ten years, although I still do some. Fortunately for me though, I produced my first (self-published) book during that time and my publishing career grew from there. I now have eight books ‘out there’ and three more in the pipeline. In my experience schools are far more interested in booking a published poet/author with books to bring along. Encouraging reading is at the top of almost every school’s agenda and so they like visiting poets to stage a book sale so that the children have a book from a 'real live famous' author (their words, not mine!) who they’ve met, to take home and keep.
Troika: What does your typical working week look like?
Neal: I work in schools four days a week in term time, taking Wednesdays off for things like writing, seeking out new business, invoicing, admin, emails, meetings etc. I try and take school holidays off too, apart from in the summer when I work on staging children’s and family shows in libraries, take part in various literature festivals or do some work with adult groups.
Troika: What advice would you give to a writer hoping make a living from their writing?
Neal: It's not an easy path. To be a success at anything you have to work extremely hard. When I started out I used to spend days phoning schools, hospitals, libraries, community groups and arts organisations asking for work. Eventually it paid off and now most of my work comes via repeat business, recommendations, people Googling me or my websites, author agencies etc – I don't really 'cold call' any more. Given the current economic situation it's more than twice as hard now to establish oneself, since money is so incredibly tight out there.
Unfortunately just being a great writer with a book or two is unlikely to be enough. You really need to be a strong sales person with a good business head. Since I see myself as running a business I need to be able to put together business and lesson plans, market myself, assist clients in drafting funding bids, organise my invoicing, chase payments, develop my website (with my web manager), plan and organise events and run my Twitter account.
I’ve seen top authors unable to engage a classroom or assembly hall full of children or teens, cope with challenging behaviour, deal with demanding head teachers, be sensitive enough in a classroom to not take over a teacher's territory and instead work alongside them, etc. You must be a strong people manager and effective communicator too. Luckily for me I developed most of these transferable skills in my previous 27-year career in local government public relations, where I also learnt a lot about how public sector and school budgets work and so I’m aware of the sensitivities surrounding them during the recent times of austerity.
Troika: How do our readers find out more about you and your work?
Neal: My website is at www.cccpworkshops.co.uk (CCCP stands for Confidence in Communication through Comedy Poetry). On Twitter you can find me at @nealzetterpoet and I have my own Amazon page.
Troika: And of course Neal is right here on the Troika website too - where you can check out his eight books with us. And, as he says here, there are more in the pipeline - watch this space…!
