Making research pay

Many of us find that research is the best part of writing.

We spend years hunting down every conceivable detail. Knowing how New York might have smelt on 4th July 1776, the taste of a roasted dormouse in Pompeii’s heyday, whether Cardinal Langton, author of the Magna Carta, was left or right-handed. No detail is too insignificant.

Eventually, we pull ourselves out of our research rabbit holes and get down to the writing. As you’ve undoubtedly heard, much of this knowledge shouldn’t intrude into our work. It should flavour it and help us avoid hideous errors, but no one wants to read a novel that is simply the author showing off how much they know about a time and place in history.

Is all that research that doesn’t appear on the page pointless, all the time that goes into it wasted? Of course not. The point of research is to inform the final work, so nothing is ever wasted, even if we never mention how the cardinal held his quill.

But what if we could get more from our research? What if we could make research pay?

Getting more from our research

And why shouldn’t we? Historians like Saul David, Dan Jones, Alison Weir, and Kate Williams have turned their hands to fiction, drawing on their fields of expertise to inform novels. There’s no reason why it can’t work the other way around.

In fact, for those with established careers in fiction, it’s often a way to go. Bernard Cornwell delivered a non-fiction account of Waterloo, while Patrick O’Brian wrote a short introduction to life in Nelson’s navy after publishing the first handful of Aubrey / Maturin books. Of course, these books required a different approach to writing and much greater detail committed to the page, with time spent sourcing and checking references.

But what if you’re not a household name? What are your options?

Literally getting paid

First, you can get paid. If this were an article for a start-up publication, about growth hacking or aimed at creators, we’d perhaps label this monetising, but it’s not, so we won’t. Whatever you call it, it’s worth considering whether there’s a way of making money from your research.

One that’s tried and tested is pitching yourself to publications covering your area of research – not for PR, but as a freelance contributor. While the media industry is being decimated, titles such as History Today, Ancient History, and Ancient Warfare pay for contributions as long as they’re not promotional pieces. Yet, despite not being able to heavily mention your work, there’s still the chance that you’ll be able to get a brief sentence or two at the bottom as a bio.

As well as paying you directly, those sorts of pieces help raise your profile and, further down the line, are verifiable proof that you know what you’re talking about if you need to approach agents and publishers.

Feel you’re too specialist for even those titles aimed at specific areas of history? Don’t despair; you’ll often find that if you can link something happening in current affairs with a story from history, your niche interest might be relevant to a more general audience.

Research as an audience builder

This extra information also allows your readers to get to know you better. Take them with you on your research trips and share your broader interests. Bestselling historical crime author and CWA Chair, Vaseem Khan, for example, shares insights into forensic and general science articles that also tap into his work at the UCL Department of Security and Crime Science, as well as exclusive short stories, articles and reading recommendations.

And this is an important point. Whatever your plans to promote your work, you will need content; it can’t all be about your book(s). Sometimes, you need to talk about tangentially related topics – you don’t want to stray too far off track, but you’ve got to offer your followers something different. Diving into some of the topics you’ve researched could give you more to talk about, whether it’s a picture of a Roman roasted dormouse for Instagram, a blog on 13th-century writing implements for your website, or a series of newsletters on life in colonial New York.

Aside from feeding the content machine that is your marketing, these also help educate your readers. This could lead to them enjoying the novel more (and earn you better reviews).

Earning from audience demand

That audience might be interested in hearing you speak directly. Being able to demonstrate demand can help you secure speaker opportunities at established events. Alternatively, you could put on your own. Free virtual events could help you test the waters, eventually graduating to tours of the places that have inspired your work, something Octavia Randolph also offers alongside research snippets.

Another avenue would be incorporating your research into short stories, bridging gaps between novels if you’re writing a series or trying out secondary characters as protagonists. These stories can be part of your marketing or sold in their own right.

Some writers even turn access to their research into a revenue stream of its own. Many services allow users to implement subscriptions in different ways, including Substack, Patreon, Wix, and Squarespace. Readers pay for access to perks, such as additional material, exclusive covers, behind-the-scenes posts, and Q&As to name a few. Historical fantasy author Lucy Holland uses Patreon to offer research notes, among other types of content, with a three-tiered system and free trials to attract her audience.

It’s important to remember that there’s often a long lead time between finishing a manuscript and publishing it, whichever route you go down. Research as a part of marketing is a good way of pricking your audience’s interest, keeping them engaged, and building up to publication day.

It’s time to make your research pay