Don't Quit Your Day Job

I will quit my day job next spring. I am decided to do it. I don't expect to be a rich author though

I love my day job because it doesn't stress me out, and affords me plenty of time to keep writing, without the financial pressure. I can indulge in pretty covers for my books without panicking about ROI.

Once I decided that was the route I wanted to take... it took a couple of years and some awful jobs until I found something that clicked for me, though. There are lots of paths, none of them are easy.

I'm happy in "no pressure" land. I haven't quit dreaming of success or trying my best, but it's so much easier not to stake my life on it.

I write full-time. I kind of got thrown into it when my husband was transferred overseas with the military, and there were no civilian jobs available, so I basically went from zero to full-time overnight. The agreement was if I could make a part-time income out of it before we came back to the States (3 years), I didn't have to get a full-time job. Considering I'd just done 9 years of customer service, that was, shall we say, motivation. As was trying to pay a mortgage and bills on E-5 military pay, which was miserable for that first year and a half.

That was the end of 2008. My first book came out just under a year later, and I've been writing roughly one book per month since. I made a full-time income (comparable to what I'd made at my last job) in...I think it was 2011. Since 2012, it's definitely been more than I'm qualified to make in a regular job. The market does fluctuate, of course, and some periods have been leaner than others, but overall it's been solid.

That question has so many "it depends" attached to it that it's hard to answer. Whether or not you can make it work depends on the cost of living in your area, whether or not you have a spouse to help out with everything (including health insurance), what your spending habits are, etc. etc. etc. And then there's the question of whether you already have books published (and by whom--trade published or self published?) and whether you're already earning royalties on those (or have advance money in the bank.) There are some good threads on this topic elsewhere in the forum.

Jurné Ends said:

I'm about to derail my own post for a moment but @ thethinker42 I see your title Blood from a Stoner and have to ask: are you finding obstacles with publishing or selling with a main character who is a stoner? A couple of my leads are stoners as well but I wasn't sure how well perceived my story would be because of it. Perhaps I should make another thread to avoid derailing this one lol.

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Not really, no. Blood From a Stoner is self-published, but I have 4 or 5 books with publishers where the characters smoke weed, and it's never caused any issues with sales. In fact, my highest earner ever has some pot smoking scenes in it.

I do write in a somewhat niche genre -- queer romance -- so your mileage may vary in others, but I can't imagine how weed would be a deal-breaker as long as it works for the story.

Jurné Ends said:

cool beans. I'm not sure where my story will land when it finally does get finished ...it's a m/f but not really traditional. It does give me hope though when I see other romances featuring stoners ...even if it's m/m

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I'd say 20 years ago it might have been a deal-breaker, but these days? Nah.