I apologize- but how much do you make as a writer?

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JamieFord

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Check out PublishersMarketplace.com A lot of deals list a "deal range". It'll give you a better idea of what people are getting for their books.
 

Old Hack

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In 2000, the Society of Authors in the UK asked their members for information about their income. The results were pretty depressing: I've blogged about the survey here. Here's a snippet of my post:


Although the national average wage was £20,919 when the report was compiled, 61% of the writers polled earned under £10,000. 46% earned under £5,000, of whom 123 said that writing was their main source of income, while 14 had no other source of income at all.


There's been a more recent survey (by the ALCS, I think) but I can't find it right now... give me time.
 

CheshireCat

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You can't make a living just writing. Period. All my research indicates that it's not possible. Basically what I'm saying is, don't quit your day job. It takes too long to get a novel ready for publication and you only get paid a few thousand dollars for it. Not enough to last you through the next two or three years it takes you to write another novel. Sad, but true.

Absolutes are certain only in science. And frequently not certain then. Plenty of writers make a living at it.

Um . . . many writers make a living from their writing. Several of whom are on this very board. So to say it will never happen is a bit . . . extreme.

What is important to note is how difficult it is to achieve that. That it is a lot of work, and yes some luck. There are easier ways to get rich than writing, and so that is why it is always recommended that writers truly love the writing first, the money second.

But to make the blanket statement "You can't make a living just writing. Period." is um . . . well just not true.

What Toothpaste said.

Guys, I meant novel writing. Sorry I didn't clarify.

Still not true.

I started a long time ago. I had a day job while I wrote my first book. (Commercial genre fiction.) It sold for a bit over two grand. I kept the day job through the next three or four books, then quit to write full-time.

I've made a living at it ever since. It wasn't a great living in the early years, but I kept a roof over my head and food on the table.

Gradually, things got better. I had to write a lot, because the pay per book wasn't that great and improved only slowly. But I was working to build a body of work, on the assumption that my career growth was steady and growing, knowing that I would see more actual money on those books somewhere down the line -- assuming I became as successful as I wanted to be.

The advance on my most recent novel, still commercial genre fiction, was seven figures.

There were more than twenty years of hard work and a lot of novels between that first two grand and the current seven-figure advances. There was also, eventually, national bestsellerdom (NYT, USA Today, etc.).

It's been a long, difficult, challenging career. Lots of ups and downs. The ups were euphoric. The downs were crushing. There were times I had to borrow money or hock something to pay the electric bill while waiting for advance or D&A money from a publisher that undoubtedly paid its editors promptly on time but took weeks or even months to pay its bottom-rung or midlist authors.

Would I do it again?

Bet your ass I would.

But I might have kept the day job another year or two, and I most certainly would have been wiser with the money I did earn.

And I believe writers should talk about money more often, because there are a lot of misconceptions out there.
 

rljude

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CeCe

May I ask the names of some of your novels?

Congratulations on your diligent road to success.

Rosa
 

CheshireCat

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CeCe

May I ask the names of some of your novels?

Congratulations on your diligent road to success.

Rosa

Sorry, Rosa, but I'm anonymous here. I discovered (a few forums in the past) that I prefer it this way. Not looking for new readers, just looking to talk about writing and publishing with my peers.

And thanks. Sometimes I look back, or at the books on my shelf, and I can't believe I've been in this business for so many years.

God, I'm old.
 

Madisonwrites

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I had always heard that you couldn't make a living writing nothing but novels. Huh. You learn something new everyday! Maybe that means there's hope for me, 'cause I'm happiest when I'm writing my novels. But I guess I need to get published first! :D
 

Fillanzea

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Well, Stephen King and John Grisham and James Patterson certainly seem to make a pretty good living writing nothing but novels!

(Another data point, without any actual data: I'm a lot closer to making a living from novels than I ever thought I'd be. But I actually like my job, and I'm all about the health benefits and 401k plans, so I'll be here a little bit longer.)
 

CheshireCat

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(Another data point, without any actual data: I'm a lot closer to making a living from novels than I ever thought I'd be. But I actually like my job, and I'm all about the health benefits and 401k plans, so I'll be here a little bit longer.)


Wise of you. That's one of the things too many writers don't take into consideration when they contemplate the possibility of making a living at this.

There's no safety net of company bennies or retirement plans; you have to take care of all that yourself. And as any self-employed person will tell you, finding decent insurance alone is a huge problem.

So when you sit down to plan a budget, you have to remember the costs that only come out to bite you when you're self-employed.

And you really, really, really have to factor in plenty of waiting-for-my-check time, because many if not most publishers are amazingly slow to pay even after work is in-house and approved.

If you're lucky enough to stay at the same publisher for a time, you'll get a better sense of how promptly (or not) they pay, and then can plan with, maybe, less wiggle room.

Finally, another fatal mistake some writers make is to plan on royalties. You never, ever put royalties into your budget, because you'll never be able to guesstimate how much will be coming in. I've had royalty periods where a few hundred bucks came in; now it tends to be tens of thousands twice each year.

But that money is never in the budget. Never.
 

Kujai

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CheshireCat, you seem to be very knowledgeable and I thank you for your input and the insight you have provided of your personal experience. That offers a counter balance to the few claims that suggest that making a living off writing novels is not possible. You seem to be an optimist and that is greatly appreciated. You get a :banana:

What many need to understand is that it is possible to earn a living writing, but like any other job it takes time, effort, and planning as it is indeed a career. If you put work into it you will likely get a return. If you have an interesting idea, plot and story, you have access to more contracts. If your writing improves, you earn higher advances due to an increase in potential success. If you take the marketing of your writing, novel in this case, seriously, you have the ability to reach a greater audience which will most likely raise your book sales and the monetary value of your royalty checks.

But as with any job, success will have to depend on performance. And as such daily sacrifices must be made until one reaches an acceptable range of performance. Sacrifices may include attending writing groups, attending writing classes, writing practice stories, numerous revisions, build up monetary savings that you can live off of if you need to take additional time off your day job in order to allocate more of your schedule to writing. As per these examples, the main sacrifice is time. If you are willing to put time into writing and put aside that devilish desire of procrastination, I do believe that good things will happen. If not, at least you tried pursuing a dream you had. No harm in that. :Thumbs:

If you have a unique idea, story, writing ability, and at times a bag of luck stashed away, I do believe that one can make a living in this particular trade if they take it seriously and are willing to put in the time and effort to reach financial success. With time comes greater skill, with greater skill comes better performance, and with better performance comes promotion, a promotion in life and trade.

I know that writing a novel is a hefty task and that most do not make the leap into publication, but I always ask myself why that is the case. Do they lack talent? Do they lack skill? Do they lack motivation? I found that these three questions are irrelevant because, as stated before, if one is willing to put time into their work/trade they can reach success.

As CheshireCat noted, pay at first is not that great. This is unless you have exceptional skill, talent, connections, and are in the right place at the right time. But not everyone is lucky and I understand that, so quitting a day job to pursue writing is not exactly sound advice as it takes much time to reach the point where your novel hits the road. It can take years from the time you plot out an idea, write your chapters, complete the rough draft, revise and edit the draft, send out the manuscript to beta readers, receive feedback from the beta readers, make appropriate adjustments, send the manuscript back to the beta readers, make adjustments, write a query letter, research potential agents, send out queries to agents, receive rejections, revise query letters, send revised queries, receive requests for partials, receive rejections, revise partials, send partials, receive requests for the full manuscript, receive rejections, revise full manuscript, send out the full manuscript to the interested agents, get representation from an interested agent, agent then sends the full manuscript to several publishers, receive rejections, make adjustments to the manuscript per the request of a publisher, the full manuscript is accepted, contract is drafted with a publisher, royalties and advance are discussed, advance is paid off to you, novel is then scheduled for publication, novel is marketed, reviews of the novel are made, and finally the novel is published and sold after the appropriated street date.

I know that I must have left out a few steps, but I illustrated the process to show the vast amount of work and time needed to get a single novel published. From an idea to the book being sold could be anywhere from two to five years, and that is for a single novel. I give this range because it depends on a person's skill, effort, and the amount of time they are willing to dedicate to their writing. If all you do is write, then you may get published sooner and receive the monetary benefits of writing sooner. Because many lack an extensive resume, a legion of successful and critically acclaimed books, when they enter a writing career, a day job, an actual job, is needed as one pursues a writing career as money on hand is essential in order to pay for current living expenses.

As for me, I worked hard. I attended college full time and maintained a full time job during that time, working around 32-36 hours a week while I took five classes a semester. I received scholarships, received a decent wage from my job, and excelled in my classes. I spent a minimal amount of my earnings for entertainment, but much of it was saved for what I had planned. I recently graduated, retired from my job :Clap:, and I have dedicated the past eight months to writing. I have provided my self with a two and a half year window in which I would be able to write and live in acceptable conditions. If my novel does not get published, and I find out that my writing style, story telling abilities and skills are in fact abysmal and are not acceptable to agents and publishers, I have a fall back path/career in life.

I earned and allocated time and money for my writing. If my writing does not pay off or if I am unable to be successful, then I can say at least say that I pursued a dream and gave it my all.

To answer your question Darzian, so far I have made no money as a writer. I expected that and I am currently on schedule. I will in fact lose two years worth of potential earnings from my fall back career if I am not successful. Depending on where I would have received a position the monetary value lost could be anywhere from $120,000 to $240,000. I take risks, but calculated risks. Is pursuing a dream and failing worth hundreds of thousands of dollars? Yes, as we only live once. Why have a life that you did not live?

:box:
Disclaimer: These are just random thoughts. I do not claim to have actual advice, just simple musings to raise the spirits of pessimists.
 
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veinglory

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If you want some random specifics I make $5000 a year (maybe closer to $10,000 this year) from writing as a hobby (a few hundred words a day, max) and epublishing the results. On that basis I suspect I could make some kind of living at it if that was my goal, but I wouldn't by writing at the rate I enjoy and would loss the stability, benefits and other perks of being salaried--including my US work visa.
 

Darzian

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CheshireCat, you seem to be very knowledgeable and It can take years from the time you plot out an idea, write you chapters, complete the rough draft, revise and edit the draft, send out the manuscript to beta readers, receive feedback from the beta readers, make appropriate adjustments, send the manuscript back to the beta readers, make adjustments, write a query letter, research potential agents, send out queries to agents, receive rejections, revise query letters, send revised queries, receive requests for partials, receive rejections, revise partials, send partials, receive requests for the full manuscript, receive rejections, revise full manuscript, send out the full manuscript to the interested agents, get representation from an interested agent, agent then sends the full manuscript to several publishers, receive rejections, make adjustments to the manuscript per the request of a publisher, the full manuscript is accepted, contract is drafted with a publisher, royalties and advance are discussed, advance is paid off to you, novel is then scheduled for publication, novel is marketed, reviews of the novel are made, and finally the novel is published and sold after the appropriated street date.


I was always aware of this but to see it compiled like this..........oh well must keep up my hopes. My novel shall find a place in some dusty bookstore someday.
 

Kujai

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I was always aware of this but to see it compiled like this..........oh well must keep up my hopes. My novel shall find a place in some dusty bookstore someday.

That 'someday' depends entirely on you Darzian. I do believe that you have the proper motivation, as you would not be here on AW. All you need is encouragement. Publishing a book follows a lengthy process, one that I expansively described in my previous reply. It is all simply a matter of time management. If you truly desire to become a writer, allocate the appropriate time to your novel whenever possible. Also, may I suggest that you take a few literature/writing courses in your upcoming college semesters as some of your free-electives. I recommend that you do this to find out whether or not writing is something that you can see yourself doing as a career. These courses will not only increase your knowledge, but your writing skill as well.

Knowledge: +88 EXP
Writing Skill: +96 EXP

You just need to plan ahead. Take time and contemplate what it is that you desire in life. Do you want to pursue a full-time writing career, part-time writing career, or do you simply want to publish that single Fantasy novel of yours and be done with it?

:guns:

But take your time Darzian, as it would be unwise to take a miscalculated risk and end up being the prime suspect in the dual homicide of two shattered years in your life. We all have time and the game of life is to decide what we will do with such time.
 
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Darzian

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Thanks for the advice!

My primary goal in life is to graduate with an MD degree. I want that, my family wants that and I'm going to get there one way or another, despite the 8 years of undergraduate and postgrad life ahead of my and all the financial issues involved. I might also add that I'm having some immigration difficulties (the Canadian Embassy in Sri Lanka has no heart at all).

Writing will likely not become my chief occupation but its something I like to do. MY current WIP (my first) took me 9 months to plan. Now that I'm writing it, very little is actually going according to my extensive planning. The funny part is, I like it this way. I found myself typing something yesterday at 15 000 words which I actually intended to put in somewhere around 50 000 words!

I hope this will be a duology. I'm making the first book seem as stand alone as possible as many people on AW advised in other threads. Writing will play a great part in my life.

Due to the huge amount of time I take to think up an idea, the process of completing the WIP takes forever. The actual writing part is somewhat fast but the thinking part takes forever so I will likely take another YEAR to think of another idea for another story. (The prob is that I like epic fantasy and there is so much out there that it takes me a lot of time to think of something that is at least remotely different and somewhat new)

So, yes I am serious about writing. I will begin my college career in Feb 2009 (BSc Biotechnology) and then hopefully move onto medicine. I'm determined to complete my WIP before December because I need to work hard at college to upgrade my scholarship which is currently 50% to 100%. They want an average of more than 90 for that which I hope to reach.

Thanks for the advice. I was truly curious about the actual payment that writers receive. Since I'm in Sri Lanka and I intend to query agents in the US (that alone reduced my chances somewhat), I will need quite a bit of cash for postage for full MS (if any request it!).

Let's all hope for the best, and thanks for the replies and encouragement.
 

Darzian

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Also, Darzian, you'd be amazed how much tech authors with a BSc in BioTech can make!

Forgive me, but what do you mean by tech author? Never heard the term before.

And thanks for the encouragement!
 

Deccydiva

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Well I don't have the option of a day job, as I lost mine 16 months ago and have been unable to find anything since. Still, it gives me plenty of time to write ... if I do make anything it will be deducted from my Welfare income so unless I make more than that, it will not change my lifestyle!:D
 

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Forgive me, but what do you mean by tech author? Never heard the term before.

And thanks for the encouragement!

People who write documentation for stuff, be it computers, mass spectrometers, or cameras.

Few people have both engaging writing skills and high-level understanding of a particular science, so if you do the BioTech and can write non-fiction in a way that doesn't make a reader lapse into a coma, you're onto a winner job-wise. And a paying job's always a good stopgap until the money from the novels starts pouring in :)
 

Darzian

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People who write documentation for stuff, be it computers, mass spectrometers, or cameras.

Few people have both engaging writing skills and high-level understanding of a particular science, so if you do the BioTech and can write non-fiction in a way that doesn't make a reader lapse into a coma, you're onto a winner job-wise. And a paying job's always a good stopgap until the money from the novels starts pouring in :)

Ah ok thanks! I hadn't considered non fiction, but will hopefully do so in the future! I'm putting all my hopes on my current WIP

Edit:
I'm going to come back to this thread one day and post my own experience when my WIP is sold. (Yes I am saying WHEN and not IF- a positive attitude really helps and I'm going to try the Universal Law of Attraction). For more on this Law, you may visit:

http://www.som.org/2laws/universallaws/attraction.htm

(this is not a joke btw)
 
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The Lonely One

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I'm working two jobs right now; staff writer at a daily and lottery-player.

Just waiting for the second one to get me a promotion.

Lottery-winner, now that's the ticket.

A lot of time to write and drive a hot British sports car, to be sure.
 
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