Loved this! My royalties this year were £97 but I have had such lovely reviews and meet ups with readers it all feels worth it. The privilege of having people want to read my work is hard to measure.
I would so love to be able to make a career out of this but my marketing is abysmal, I never knew you had to market when a publisher published your book.
I must read your books. Tom Cox substack introduced me to his. What a pleasure!
Connecting with readers, getting positive responses to your words, is the true gold here. The money side is only what enables us to go on writing. I would have many more books in the world if I had an independent income! I am hopeful that Substack will become that so that I can share with more readers - in the form of more books - the skills it has taken a lifetime to develop.
Thanks so much for sharing your perspective and for breaking down the financial implications. This post will be especially valuable to authors who are just completing their manuscripts and who may believe that finding an agent and traditional publisher will solve their financial problems. As you have shown, trad publishing does not net instant riches unless the author is already a celebrity or has put in the time to develop a TikTok following. Unfortunately, the time spent developing social media “assets” is time stolen from writing.
Well I would say there are always exceptions! Debut deals are often more generous than later ones. And the dream of financial reward is a powerful motivator to write when the going gets tough. Plus of course holding a positive vision of yourself as a prosperous author is a helpful magnet to invisible forces so long as one is truly focused on the vision, and not the gap between that and reality. And on the back of a decent debut advance, if one didn’t have the debt and high outgoings I did - and maybe an earning partner - full-time writing (especially higher selling genre fiction) could be possible. Now I am a full-time writer through circumstance, so I shall be making it work one way or another … watch this space!
Thanks so much, Ros, for this great post. One of my first jobs following my degree was working as the assistant to a respected literary agent in the UK. Twice a year, I processed our authors’ royalty statements, took out our agency cut of 15%, hand-wrote the royalty cheques and posted them to the authors with a copy of their statements. The numbers told me a story: very few authors make significant, enough-to-live-on money from writing…though some did! After starting to write myself and meeting other writers, I have realised how common it is for people to romanticise writing, particularly the money and lifestyle. I’m grateful to have had this grounding experience early on, though I have definitely struggled in my own, different ways balancing the “day job-writing-time” equation. I think it’s not helpful, though, to be so “realistic” and “grounded” that you give up on hope, dreams and the magic of life and writing. I really resonated with something I heard Elizabeth Gilbert say on a podcast in 2017, (to paraphrase) that she never wanted to put any pressure on her writing to earn money. I had been doing that, and I realised it was making me unhappy, and that my writing was unhappy, too. Hearing that helped me find peace with the idea of having a day job. Now I have a day-job I really love. And I love writing. I still love my dreams of publishing and earning money, but I feel happier in my “now.”
I couldn’t agree more about not letting the hard reality of these numbers crush the dreams and the joy. Indeed, I had some qualms about re-posting this (albeit with revisions) because its energy is somewhat counter to what I’m envisioning for myself and in the process of creating! But for some it is helpful info and for me? We shall see what it practically brings.
It certainly helps to take the pressure off writing to earn you money… but for now and the foreseeable future I have nothing else to bring money in. So now I must trust it will happen.
Wonderful to find the right balance of practical and dream works. Well done you! Sometimes a douse of "reality" is just what you need to kill off any ideas you might have. Better to let reality sit on the shelf sometimes. Reality is relative anyway.
Wow. Thanks for sharing. I have sent this to a few friends who told me to 'be more optimistic' about royalties and kept saying, selling 1000 copies via a small publisher (my earn back) can't be that hard... The dream of my book finding readers is still real, the dream of earning a living as a trad published writer has been slowly waning as I meet more published writers. Thankful to have a day job 🙏
Most of us need some kind of day job, or other strings to our bow, but I hope you do well. Keep the vision of your success intact. Self-belief helps a great deal.
Nodding all the way through this, Roz, and I know from my own experience that your calculations are correct.
The only difference is that after two trad-pubbed books, I made the decision to abandon ship and take the indie publishing route. BUT – and we’ve already exchanged notes on this – I am fortunate in having the skillset to cover most of the bases required, though the sales/marketing aspects are challenging and I certainly can’t afford extensive advertising.
I’m also lucky in publishing non-fiction to a very niche market that knows me well: big fish in a tiny pond syndrome. I’m much less certain when it comes to my ambition of writing and publishing fantasy fiction, which of course is a huge ocean inhabited by many well-known writers already. And that journey is made even more scary because it’s a world dominated by multi-book series, usually trilogies, and a lot of advice seems to be to have the entire series ready before publishing the first book!
Those factors you mentioned really help. Big fish in small pond plus marketing skills makes indie publishing a bit more viable. Indeed either of those, but especially the latter! If you can't market it's tough out there. As to writing a whole series before publishing the first: *shiver*.
That last aspect has been exacerbated by the reaction to a couple of big-name authors. George R R Martin and the whole “will he finish the next book?” thing is well known; even more spectacular is Patrick Rothfuss, who wrote books 1 and 2 of an exquisite trilogy The Kingkiller Chronicle… and we’ve been waiting for the finale since 2011! Meanwhile, he’s drifted off into peripheral short stories and the like, leaving millions of fans very pissed off! Hence the modern advice to at least have a solid outline, if not a final draft of the whole series before publishing the first book, lest the baying hounds of modern fandom tear you to pieces!
Hilary Mantel took a *very* long time over The Mirror and the Light as well. Really struggled with it. The pressure that falls upon authors to finish trilogies or series when they've had enormous success is profound.
Thanks, Lauren. That's my thought on it too; better to know the reality so we can support the writers we love more effectively. Book buying remains vitally important, even if it doesn't generate much income for the writers, because without buoyant sales they may not even get the next book published! I'd say if the choice is buying through Amazon or not actually buying, choose Amazon! Plus this can lift a book on their rankings, bring it to the attention of other potential readers.
Thank you for sharing. I feel for you! That balance between working and trying to fit in the writing is so hard. And the pay!!! Congratulations on getting your novel finished.
My version of this - my own story of the hustle and the juggle - is here: How writers really earn a living
Thanks Sanjida; I read your piece when you posted this comment (6 weeks ago now) but must have run out of time to actually reply - sorry! Yes, all very true -- and what a shame the teaching part of that 'other income' equation is now collapsing, having been my mainstay for over 25 years!
Hi Ros, I do sympathise. Earning much from writing is more a dream than a reality, though it shouldn't be, given all the work put into creating a piece of literature. Years ago I gave up the idea of making any money from writing and more recently decided to start my own writing website and post my stories on there. That way, I feel they are reaching an audience, small though it is, and are not laying dormant. My daughter is due to have her first book (historical fact) published next year but she's not envisaging making much on it., so at least she has a realistic view. Good luck with all your writing projects - I hope it will eventually prove lucrative. - Lauretta
Thanks, Lauretta. In truth it has already paid me very handsomely in lots of ways; the income from writing hasn't been negligable by any means and has laid the path for me to write through teaching writing. Now things feel a little more precarious but that too is probably illusory; the universe has always provided for me when I've needed it. I hope your daughter's book does well. As for your stories, have you considered publishing here instead? Substack can work very well as a writing website and has a lot of connectivity that can bring you new readers.
As someone who would say reading was one of their main pastimes and way to ground, this was a very interesting read. I was under no illusions regarding the pay author's receive but I didn't appreciate it was as little as it per book. I also didn't realise author's do receive some money from books borrowed in a library, but am glad to hear they do as libraries are essential for a lot of people to access books. When buying books from current authors I do try to purchase the books from independent or slightly larger bookshops and seeing the difference between these and Amazon I will continue to try and do this.
Last year I read one book by a celebrity author for book group and it was the worst book I read that year. As for children's books written by celebrities, I get angry at the thought someone feels they are qualified to write a book for developing, dream filled minds just because they are famous. One author in particular I cannot abide and when, because it was given as a present, I sat and read it with my son a few years ago now, he himself pointed out the faults and failings with it. The other books that were gifted written by the same author were given away (and I felt guilty for subjecting someone else to them). More and more this celebrity book writing seems to be becoming a thing and I feel for true authors who are having a much more difficult time trying to get their words out there. Now I am off to look at your books and consider where they will fit on my reading pile.
The kind of writing that makes someone want to have a coffee with me is the kind of writing I aspire to. Not sure how doable it is, but I love the sentiment!
This is a really fascinating read, Ros. Thanks for sharing your experiences and being honest about the money side of writing.
I made more from one 800-word piece in the Telegraph (£350) than I did from an 80,000-word book (approx £0.) Ha. Thought I might be onto something but not had anything else commissioned by a paper since! Also, to be honest, I prefer writing whatever I feel like on Substack and publishing it whenever, rather than having to think of a salesy headline/hook and wait for responses (silences) from commissioning editors!
You mentioned the Guardian - have you done much writing for papers/magazines? Do you think it’s a viable secondary income stream these days?
Hi Andy, wow, so sorry this slipped through my net - 22 Oct to 9 Dec is an impressive delay even for me1. No, I haven't done much writing for papers/magazines. I have someone pressing me to do so (who does it) but I seem to have a strong inner reluctance to it (probably based on my one experience, which ended up being traumatic). I don't know if I have the will; I'm not sure it suits my personality. In any case it requires a bit o hussle and a lot of rejection. It could certainly be part of a 'mosaic' income but newspapers are pretty strapped for cash, and struggling to stay afloat behind their paywalls, so... that's a big maybe.
I loved this brutally honest piece about the state of working authors. The same is true in the music world and in other arms of the creative world. I'm technically a published author, and I've made roughly $3.50 from booklet sales this year. My craft book on POV is a good one, but I'm shit at marketing, don't hustle to sell it every day, and so it sits.
The thing that bugs me most about the current book-publishing environment is the vice grip celebrity works seem to have on the Big 5 and, by extension, Amazon (the 6th of the Bigguns). Knowing most authors are barely scraping by but that a famous person can land a 6- or 7-figure deal is disheartening at best and soul-crushing at worst. While I appreciate ghostwriters wholeheartedly, have even worked as a ghostwriter for certain authors, I'm fading out of the ghostwriting game intentionally. The biggest push came recently when someone came into my inbox and said: I want to write a book, but I don't know what the book should be about. Can you help me plan and write something that will sell well?"
Fuck no. No, I'm not doing your market research and writing some fast-selling schlock because you want to carry around AUTHOR like a badge of honor. Writing books, for me, is not a checkbox on my bucket list. It's a way of life. It's how I process thoughts and emotions, how I share lessons and plod on into the wild future, leaving my lesson-trail behind me.
I've read a few ghostwritten celebrity books for research purposes, and I am a reader, broadly. In 2022, my book goal was 24; in 2023, it was 36. In 2024, I'm on my way to the 48-book goal. However, I am seeing (and this is a personal problem I'm working through) that I am spending more time reading than writing, so my goal for next year will not increase. Rather, I will likely decrease my book-reading goal, so that I can focus more on writing.
I've not eaten actual pate, but I've no desire to eat it either.
spot on. not as celebrated as you, but gorgeous hardback published by trad route with big advance I will never repay. not a social media maven. I wished for the old days but here we are. In it all, Substack is my first joyful place on social media author life. Very happy to support your work and cheering you to 10,000. Your words are a treasure.
So sick of people who think a million books sold equals a million dollars earned. Stop falling for fucking scammers on YouTube!
I am an author who has sold ten million books, and people always see that number and assume I must be a millionaire. The reality is Amazon's 70% royalty on $2.99 books is NOT $2 like scammers on YouTube want you to believe. The 70% royalty is NOT on the $2.99 cover price. Amazon first deducts delivery fees (which is often more than 30% for ebooks and often more than 60% for print books), then Amazon deducts federal US taxes, then European VAT, than state taxes, then entertainment taxes, than sales taxes from where the author lives, than sales taxes from where the reader lives.
The author's 70% is THAN calculated on what is left.
The average $2.99 book with a 70% royalty earnings brings in between. 20c to .60c per book. Not anything close to $2.
How much did I make on ten million copies sold?
$120k….and not all at once…
I've never earned more than $4,600 in a single year.
The average American makes more money in ONE MONTH than I make in ONE YEAR.
….and yet I'm in the top 7% highest selling authors on the planet… that's a reality check new writers really need up the ass, because we writers don't make nearly as much as Hollywood movies make writer incomes out to be.
Think about THAT, next time you go off on a "writers are millionaires" la la land loony tune fit.
One hundred and twenty thousand dollars is how much 70% royalty on ten million copies of a $2.99 novel earns.
Not even close to one quarter of a million dollars, let alone the twenty million dollars YouTube scammers claim.
People need a reality check on what writer incomes ACTUALLY look like.
Thank you for writing this. More of us writers need to be sharing what our incmes are to help stop new writers from falling for the millionair scams.
Wow, Wendy. Thanks for sharing this detailed breakdown for people who think the indie route is a goldmine. The figures are painful to behold. Well done for selling ten million books, though! Incredible! You *deserve* to be a multimillionaire… but it seems it’s Jeff Bezos who gets the lion’s share.
I do love pate! I also loved this piece. I read much of it with an OMG mouth slightly open, aghast look on my face, and thank the gods that I am only starting on my writerly journey post retirement so am not writing as a salary substitute, but just because I have to. I am sharing this with as many friends as I can, if only to encourage more indy bookshop shopping and to perhaps not choose audio books instead of a real book but as a supplement.
Thank you for writing this, and everything you do here 😎
I started writing a bit after Uni and even thought of acting as a career but I decided that I did t want either enough to suffer as a minimum 10 years of penury as I saw it and clearly it’s a lot more than that. So kudos to you is all I say. I don’t read anything like as much as I used to. I can’t read in the evening as I just fall asleep and mornings are usually taken up with running or salaried work. I do find it hard to find fiction books to get into as I rarely find authors like you who can create worlds I can believe in. Hence my eager anticipation of your 3rd novel. If I had the cash I’d fund it but unfortunately I don’t and anyway someone has probs already bought the publishing rights and more importantly I’m not a publisher.
So yep love pate but it has to be the veggie sort like mushroom. I make a mean mushroom pate with freshly picked mushrooms. Do miss the old liver pate though!😀
I guess that was a wise choice, Steve, but on the other hand, there are frustrations about not following a creative path. I'm glad I made the choices I made, and I've survived, like some kind of miracle fungus that extreme conditions can't kill. In fact more than that; thanks to various happy accidents I have a brilliant place to live in a town I love, and I've somehow managed to raise a family of 4 on it with no spousal income for 20 years so I can't call it penury. It's just that a great deal of the money from writing has come from teaching other people to do it. But not *all*, which makes me feel pretty good about it. My income for pure writing has been well over six figures. Just not six figures per year. Yet! I am still holding out for beautiful miracles because they do, in fact, happen to the faithful and patient.
Loved this! My royalties this year were £97 but I have had such lovely reviews and meet ups with readers it all feels worth it. The privilege of having people want to read my work is hard to measure.
I would so love to be able to make a career out of this but my marketing is abysmal, I never knew you had to market when a publisher published your book.
I must read your books. Tom Cox substack introduced me to his. What a pleasure!
Connecting with readers, getting positive responses to your words, is the true gold here. The money side is only what enables us to go on writing. I would have many more books in the world if I had an independent income! I am hopeful that Substack will become that so that I can share with more readers - in the form of more books - the skills it has taken a lifetime to develop.
Thanks so much for sharing your perspective and for breaking down the financial implications. This post will be especially valuable to authors who are just completing their manuscripts and who may believe that finding an agent and traditional publisher will solve their financial problems. As you have shown, trad publishing does not net instant riches unless the author is already a celebrity or has put in the time to develop a TikTok following. Unfortunately, the time spent developing social media “assets” is time stolen from writing.
Well I would say there are always exceptions! Debut deals are often more generous than later ones. And the dream of financial reward is a powerful motivator to write when the going gets tough. Plus of course holding a positive vision of yourself as a prosperous author is a helpful magnet to invisible forces so long as one is truly focused on the vision, and not the gap between that and reality. And on the back of a decent debut advance, if one didn’t have the debt and high outgoings I did - and maybe an earning partner - full-time writing (especially higher selling genre fiction) could be possible. Now I am a full-time writer through circumstance, so I shall be making it work one way or another … watch this space!
Thanks so much, Ros, for this great post. One of my first jobs following my degree was working as the assistant to a respected literary agent in the UK. Twice a year, I processed our authors’ royalty statements, took out our agency cut of 15%, hand-wrote the royalty cheques and posted them to the authors with a copy of their statements. The numbers told me a story: very few authors make significant, enough-to-live-on money from writing…though some did! After starting to write myself and meeting other writers, I have realised how common it is for people to romanticise writing, particularly the money and lifestyle. I’m grateful to have had this grounding experience early on, though I have definitely struggled in my own, different ways balancing the “day job-writing-time” equation. I think it’s not helpful, though, to be so “realistic” and “grounded” that you give up on hope, dreams and the magic of life and writing. I really resonated with something I heard Elizabeth Gilbert say on a podcast in 2017, (to paraphrase) that she never wanted to put any pressure on her writing to earn money. I had been doing that, and I realised it was making me unhappy, and that my writing was unhappy, too. Hearing that helped me find peace with the idea of having a day job. Now I have a day-job I really love. And I love writing. I still love my dreams of publishing and earning money, but I feel happier in my “now.”
I couldn’t agree more about not letting the hard reality of these numbers crush the dreams and the joy. Indeed, I had some qualms about re-posting this (albeit with revisions) because its energy is somewhat counter to what I’m envisioning for myself and in the process of creating! But for some it is helpful info and for me? We shall see what it practically brings.
It certainly helps to take the pressure off writing to earn you money… but for now and the foreseeable future I have nothing else to bring money in. So now I must trust it will happen.
I think you’ll be all right once readers get wind of your lady pirate book. It’s rather special. 💖
She’s really no “lady” 🤣
🤣 I used to fantasise about vandalising public toilets by painting quotes around the “ladies” signs.
Wonderful to find the right balance of practical and dream works. Well done you! Sometimes a douse of "reality" is just what you need to kill off any ideas you might have. Better to let reality sit on the shelf sometimes. Reality is relative anyway.
Wow. Thanks for sharing. I have sent this to a few friends who told me to 'be more optimistic' about royalties and kept saying, selling 1000 copies via a small publisher (my earn back) can't be that hard... The dream of my book finding readers is still real, the dream of earning a living as a trad published writer has been slowly waning as I meet more published writers. Thankful to have a day job 🙏
Most of us need some kind of day job, or other strings to our bow, but I hope you do well. Keep the vision of your success intact. Self-belief helps a great deal.
Thank you ❤️
Nodding all the way through this, Roz, and I know from my own experience that your calculations are correct.
The only difference is that after two trad-pubbed books, I made the decision to abandon ship and take the indie publishing route. BUT – and we’ve already exchanged notes on this – I am fortunate in having the skillset to cover most of the bases required, though the sales/marketing aspects are challenging and I certainly can’t afford extensive advertising.
I’m also lucky in publishing non-fiction to a very niche market that knows me well: big fish in a tiny pond syndrome. I’m much less certain when it comes to my ambition of writing and publishing fantasy fiction, which of course is a huge ocean inhabited by many well-known writers already. And that journey is made even more scary because it’s a world dominated by multi-book series, usually trilogies, and a lot of advice seems to be to have the entire series ready before publishing the first book!
Those factors you mentioned really help. Big fish in small pond plus marketing skills makes indie publishing a bit more viable. Indeed either of those, but especially the latter! If you can't market it's tough out there. As to writing a whole series before publishing the first: *shiver*.
That last aspect has been exacerbated by the reaction to a couple of big-name authors. George R R Martin and the whole “will he finish the next book?” thing is well known; even more spectacular is Patrick Rothfuss, who wrote books 1 and 2 of an exquisite trilogy The Kingkiller Chronicle… and we’ve been waiting for the finale since 2011! Meanwhile, he’s drifted off into peripheral short stories and the like, leaving millions of fans very pissed off! Hence the modern advice to at least have a solid outline, if not a final draft of the whole series before publishing the first book, lest the baying hounds of modern fandom tear you to pieces!
Hilary Mantel took a *very* long time over The Mirror and the Light as well. Really struggled with it. The pressure that falls upon authors to finish trilogies or series when they've had enormous success is profound.
Thanks for sharing so openly Ros. Feels really important to know as a reader, and consider how best to support our favourite authors 📚
Thanks, Lauren. That's my thought on it too; better to know the reality so we can support the writers we love more effectively. Book buying remains vitally important, even if it doesn't generate much income for the writers, because without buoyant sales they may not even get the next book published! I'd say if the choice is buying through Amazon or not actually buying, choose Amazon! Plus this can lift a book on their rankings, bring it to the attention of other potential readers.
Yes of course, that is a good point!
Thank you Ros.
Thank you for sharing. I feel for you! That balance between working and trying to fit in the writing is so hard. And the pay!!! Congratulations on getting your novel finished.
My version of this - my own story of the hustle and the juggle - is here: How writers really earn a living
https://sanjidakay.substack.com/p/how-do-writers-earn-a-living
Thanks Sanjida; I read your piece when you posted this comment (6 weeks ago now) but must have run out of time to actually reply - sorry! Yes, all very true -- and what a shame the teaching part of that 'other income' equation is now collapsing, having been my mainstay for over 25 years!
So sorry to hear that. It’s a tough world! 🌸
Hi Ros, I do sympathise. Earning much from writing is more a dream than a reality, though it shouldn't be, given all the work put into creating a piece of literature. Years ago I gave up the idea of making any money from writing and more recently decided to start my own writing website and post my stories on there. That way, I feel they are reaching an audience, small though it is, and are not laying dormant. My daughter is due to have her first book (historical fact) published next year but she's not envisaging making much on it., so at least she has a realistic view. Good luck with all your writing projects - I hope it will eventually prove lucrative. - Lauretta
Thanks, Lauretta. In truth it has already paid me very handsomely in lots of ways; the income from writing hasn't been negligable by any means and has laid the path for me to write through teaching writing. Now things feel a little more precarious but that too is probably illusory; the universe has always provided for me when I've needed it. I hope your daughter's book does well. As for your stories, have you considered publishing here instead? Substack can work very well as a writing website and has a lot of connectivity that can bring you new readers.
As someone who would say reading was one of their main pastimes and way to ground, this was a very interesting read. I was under no illusions regarding the pay author's receive but I didn't appreciate it was as little as it per book. I also didn't realise author's do receive some money from books borrowed in a library, but am glad to hear they do as libraries are essential for a lot of people to access books. When buying books from current authors I do try to purchase the books from independent or slightly larger bookshops and seeing the difference between these and Amazon I will continue to try and do this.
Last year I read one book by a celebrity author for book group and it was the worst book I read that year. As for children's books written by celebrities, I get angry at the thought someone feels they are qualified to write a book for developing, dream filled minds just because they are famous. One author in particular I cannot abide and when, because it was given as a present, I sat and read it with my son a few years ago now, he himself pointed out the faults and failings with it. The other books that were gifted written by the same author were given away (and I felt guilty for subjecting someone else to them). More and more this celebrity book writing seems to be becoming a thing and I feel for true authors who are having a much more difficult time trying to get their words out there. Now I am off to look at your books and consider where they will fit on my reading pile.
Excellent, Claire, I hope you enjoy them! Yes, celebrity books can be embarrassingly bad.
Oh I so want to have a cup of coffee with you….SO much to say x
The kind of writing that makes someone want to have a coffee with me is the kind of writing I aspire to. Not sure how doable it is, but I love the sentiment!
Love that. And secretly I only actually drink tea..
I’m more of a tea person too. :-)
This is a really fascinating read, Ros. Thanks for sharing your experiences and being honest about the money side of writing.
I made more from one 800-word piece in the Telegraph (£350) than I did from an 80,000-word book (approx £0.) Ha. Thought I might be onto something but not had anything else commissioned by a paper since! Also, to be honest, I prefer writing whatever I feel like on Substack and publishing it whenever, rather than having to think of a salesy headline/hook and wait for responses (silences) from commissioning editors!
You mentioned the Guardian - have you done much writing for papers/magazines? Do you think it’s a viable secondary income stream these days?
Hi Andy, wow, so sorry this slipped through my net - 22 Oct to 9 Dec is an impressive delay even for me1. No, I haven't done much writing for papers/magazines. I have someone pressing me to do so (who does it) but I seem to have a strong inner reluctance to it (probably based on my one experience, which ended up being traumatic). I don't know if I have the will; I'm not sure it suits my personality. In any case it requires a bit o hussle and a lot of rejection. It could certainly be part of a 'mosaic' income but newspapers are pretty strapped for cash, and struggling to stay afloat behind their paywalls, so... that's a big maybe.
I loved this brutally honest piece about the state of working authors. The same is true in the music world and in other arms of the creative world. I'm technically a published author, and I've made roughly $3.50 from booklet sales this year. My craft book on POV is a good one, but I'm shit at marketing, don't hustle to sell it every day, and so it sits.
The thing that bugs me most about the current book-publishing environment is the vice grip celebrity works seem to have on the Big 5 and, by extension, Amazon (the 6th of the Bigguns). Knowing most authors are barely scraping by but that a famous person can land a 6- or 7-figure deal is disheartening at best and soul-crushing at worst. While I appreciate ghostwriters wholeheartedly, have even worked as a ghostwriter for certain authors, I'm fading out of the ghostwriting game intentionally. The biggest push came recently when someone came into my inbox and said: I want to write a book, but I don't know what the book should be about. Can you help me plan and write something that will sell well?"
Fuck no. No, I'm not doing your market research and writing some fast-selling schlock because you want to carry around AUTHOR like a badge of honor. Writing books, for me, is not a checkbox on my bucket list. It's a way of life. It's how I process thoughts and emotions, how I share lessons and plod on into the wild future, leaving my lesson-trail behind me.
I've read a few ghostwritten celebrity books for research purposes, and I am a reader, broadly. In 2022, my book goal was 24; in 2023, it was 36. In 2024, I'm on my way to the 48-book goal. However, I am seeing (and this is a personal problem I'm working through) that I am spending more time reading than writing, so my goal for next year will not increase. Rather, I will likely decrease my book-reading goal, so that I can focus more on writing.
I've not eaten actual pate, but I've no desire to eat it either.
I agree with you so much; the rise and rise of the celebrity book and seemingly not a lot of 'trickle down' economics.
With you on the pate too!
spot on. not as celebrated as you, but gorgeous hardback published by trad route with big advance I will never repay. not a social media maven. I wished for the old days but here we are. In it all, Substack is my first joyful place on social media author life. Very happy to support your work and cheering you to 10,000. Your words are a treasure.
yes. i tried to upgrade to paid and instead unsubscribed! ha! I will get there and am happy to do my part for your good writing and welcoming spirit
Thank you, Jennie, what a sweetheart you are! It has come through now, and I am truly grateful for your support xx
Thank you, Jennie. What lovely words you gift me in return. May we both find support for our writerly lives here on Substack.
I wish more would be writers knew this.
So sick of people who think a million books sold equals a million dollars earned. Stop falling for fucking scammers on YouTube!
I am an author who has sold ten million books, and people always see that number and assume I must be a millionaire. The reality is Amazon's 70% royalty on $2.99 books is NOT $2 like scammers on YouTube want you to believe. The 70% royalty is NOT on the $2.99 cover price. Amazon first deducts delivery fees (which is often more than 30% for ebooks and often more than 60% for print books), then Amazon deducts federal US taxes, then European VAT, than state taxes, then entertainment taxes, than sales taxes from where the author lives, than sales taxes from where the reader lives.
The author's 70% is THAN calculated on what is left.
The average $2.99 book with a 70% royalty earnings brings in between. 20c to .60c per book. Not anything close to $2.
How much did I make on ten million copies sold?
$120k….and not all at once…
I've never earned more than $4,600 in a single year.
The average American makes more money in ONE MONTH than I make in ONE YEAR.
….and yet I'm in the top 7% highest selling authors on the planet… that's a reality check new writers really need up the ass, because we writers don't make nearly as much as Hollywood movies make writer incomes out to be.
Think about THAT, next time you go off on a "writers are millionaires" la la land loony tune fit.
One hundred and twenty thousand dollars is how much 70% royalty on ten million copies of a $2.99 novel earns.
Not even close to one quarter of a million dollars, let alone the twenty million dollars YouTube scammers claim.
People need a reality check on what writer incomes ACTUALLY look like.
Thank you for writing this. More of us writers need to be sharing what our incmes are to help stop new writers from falling for the millionair scams.
Wow, Wendy. Thanks for sharing this detailed breakdown for people who think the indie route is a goldmine. The figures are painful to behold. Well done for selling ten million books, though! Incredible! You *deserve* to be a multimillionaire… but it seems it’s Jeff Bezos who gets the lion’s share.
I do love pate! I also loved this piece. I read much of it with an OMG mouth slightly open, aghast look on my face, and thank the gods that I am only starting on my writerly journey post retirement so am not writing as a salary substitute, but just because I have to. I am sharing this with as many friends as I can, if only to encourage more indy bookshop shopping and to perhaps not choose audio books instead of a real book but as a supplement.
Thank you for writing this, and everything you do here 😎
Thank you, Helen, on all fronts. An excellent action-based response :-).
I started writing a bit after Uni and even thought of acting as a career but I decided that I did t want either enough to suffer as a minimum 10 years of penury as I saw it and clearly it’s a lot more than that. So kudos to you is all I say. I don’t read anything like as much as I used to. I can’t read in the evening as I just fall asleep and mornings are usually taken up with running or salaried work. I do find it hard to find fiction books to get into as I rarely find authors like you who can create worlds I can believe in. Hence my eager anticipation of your 3rd novel. If I had the cash I’d fund it but unfortunately I don’t and anyway someone has probs already bought the publishing rights and more importantly I’m not a publisher.
So yep love pate but it has to be the veggie sort like mushroom. I make a mean mushroom pate with freshly picked mushrooms. Do miss the old liver pate though!😀
I guess that was a wise choice, Steve, but on the other hand, there are frustrations about not following a creative path. I'm glad I made the choices I made, and I've survived, like some kind of miracle fungus that extreme conditions can't kill. In fact more than that; thanks to various happy accidents I have a brilliant place to live in a town I love, and I've somehow managed to raise a family of 4 on it with no spousal income for 20 years so I can't call it penury. It's just that a great deal of the money from writing has come from teaching other people to do it. But not *all*, which makes me feel pretty good about it. My income for pure writing has been well over six figures. Just not six figures per year. Yet! I am still holding out for beautiful miracles because they do, in fact, happen to the faithful and patient.