What a $1,200 Check Means For Me as an Author

We have all been watching our mailboxes pretty hard since the current relief package was announced, and though not all of us who qualify have received our stimulus checks so far, a lot of us have. I got mine in the middle of last month, and it's currently sitting in my savings account just accruing interest until I need to call on it.

The time is coming when Jackson will need to be deployed.

It's generally considered taboo to talk about one's earnings (doubly so if you're bragging, and triply so if you're broke), but my hope is that this $1,200 stimulus check will give everybody a solid frame of reference for this conversation. After all, that's roughly a month's earnings at the federal minimum wage, working a 40-hour week. And while I'm generally told that I'm "making it" as a creator, most months my creative projects don't land anywhere near that particular mark on their own.

So, What is $1,200 To Me?

First things first, $1,200 is more than I have ever received for any single writing project in my life. Full-stop, hands down. I've written for magazines and newspapers, blogs, books, and RPG companies, and I have never received a check that large for anything. Ever.

Another factor to consider is that as a full-time creator, I don't have hourly wages. I have no regular paycheck that I cash every two weeks, thus allowing me to measure my monthly and yearly income in a reliable manner. So I have to put this $1,200 into different terms so it will make sense.

Let's break these numbers down, shall we?

Let's start with book sales. When I sell a copy of my novel Crier's Knife, or my short story collection The Rejects, I net about $3 off that sale online (or about $4 if it's an in-person sale at a convention or similar event after shipping and other costs). So that would mean I would have to sell roughly 400 copies of my book online (or about 300 copies of it in-person) to make that much cash.

There are some authors who can do that. I know a few authors personally who make those kind of numbers every month, spending every weekend at one show or another hawking their books (or who did that before the pandemic hit, at least). But if you want some behind-the-scenes numbers, the largest number of books I've ever off-loaded at an in-person event is about 15 as of time of writing. My biggest month was on an anticipated release when I sold 50 books through Amazon. Now, to be fair, I do not have the budget to get a table at big events, or to keep a few hundred books on-hand for sales purposes, but even if I managed to do that every month (which I certainly do not) that would mean that $1,200 would be roughly a season's earnings for me.

Let's check a few other metrics.

I write a lot of articles for Vocal, and I'm a member of the Vocal+ program. That means that I make $6 per 1,000 reads my Vocal archive articles receive. That's pretty good, as far as compensation goes. However, the numbers aren't on my side there either.

$1,200 breaks down to roughly 200,000 reads per month. Now, that's totally doable. There are even a few noted contributors on the site who've managed to do it. For me, though? Well at time of writing I have 162 articles in my archive, and they tend to get between 420 and 480 on an average day (I have occasional spikes, of course, but that's the average). Still, let's round it up and say that I was just a tad more popular, so I managed 500 reads per day on average. That's 15,000 reads a month... which comes out to about $90 or so. So an entire year's worth of reads at that level would come out to just over $1,000... that's not nothing, of course, but it gives you an idea of what I'm working with here.

What about those RPGs I spend so much time working on?

Well, that's going to vary based on the particular project. Some of them pay me .20 per sale, others pay me as much as .60 per sale. But in terms of combined affiliate earnings and royalties that I earn from RPG sales, that comes out to roughly $100 to $150 a month (though I am seeing some serious spikes thanks to everyone being home and deciding to expand their RPG collections and play time). Even if we add in the $100 or so I often make in a per-word payment per month, that's still about 6 months worth of earnings in a single check.

Again, This is Just Me

The above breakdown is highly personal to my work, my earnings, and my audience... but any way you slice it, that $1,200 is the equivalent of a few months of my creative earnings (at best). Now, I live in a city in Indiana where rent isn't sky high, I'm healthy enough that I don't have a lot of medical concerns (at time of writing, at least), and I don't have credit card or student loan debt collectors breathing down my neck. I'm extremely fortunate in all of those areas.

There are other authors who make a lot more than I do. There are also authors who have far bigger expenses than I do thanks to student loans, medical needs, childcare costs, living in major cities, and other expenses. But the number of people who write for a living who make $1,200 a month (or more) from their creative works is nowhere near as large as a lot of folks seem to think... and as we've established, that $1,200 is barely enough to cover rent in some parts of the country.

The same stimulus doesn't have the same impact on all of us.

So if you're stuck at home, and you want to make a difference in an author's day, you can. You can buy a book, share a link, leave a review, or read an article. If you have a little cash to spare, you could even become a Patreon patron (perhaps even at The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page, if you were so inclined).

Because at the end of the day we depend on readers just like you. We depend on you to read our books, share your opinions, leave your reviews, and boost our signal. If we are successful, it's due to your efforts as our readers. Even if you're stuck at home and you feel powerless, know that you are the ones who decide whether or not we are successful.

Like, Follow, and Stay Tuned!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing! If you'd like to see more of my work, take a look at my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife as well as my recent collection The Rejects!

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!