In a previous blog post I pointed out that authors do not make a lot of money. And that’s true. They don’t.
The reality is that you DON’T simply write a book and watch the money start coming in. Not unless you hit a one-in-a-million publisher feeding frenzy for your book or accidentally write the next Harry Potter. Instead, you write a book that will eventually provide you with a modest amount of money — and “modest” may very well mean, “enough to finally get that tune-up you’ve been putting off” — then you do another, and another, and another, because if you don’t you’ll have to get a day job.
Which is something most authors have, anyway.
Literary agent Rachelle Gardner recently did a nice job of showing how the royalty system works. If you’re curious about the business side of writing, take a look.
Maybe more enlightening is having the numbers broken down for you by a New York Times bestselling author. She received a $50,000 advance for her latest book, which sounds very generous until you realize that she is a very successful author with many books to her name, nine as Lynn Viehl and sixteen as S.L. Viehl.
Guess what, folks? If you don’t have a track record like that and you’re name isn’t Hillary Clinton, you’re not going to get an advance anywhere even remotely in that territory. (Author Carrie Vaughn said her first advance was $7,500. You try paying your mortgage on that. Go ahead.)
The lesson here, folks, is that writing is a ridiculous career choice.
(NOTE: This is NOT a bitter “pay writers more!” rant. Rather, it’s a call for realistic expectations. Writers, writer because you love it, and those of you who are friends or family of a writer? Set aside your assumption that they’re going to be swimming in dough just because they got a book published, because it simply isn’t true.)
