Why I've Set My Sights On My Podcast "Windy City Shadows" Instead of Another Novel

While most folks know me as a TTRPG creator, a lot of people who read this blog know me as a short story writer and a novelist. However, a few years ago my publisher died, and several of my books were in limbo for a while. And while my dystopian sci fi thriller Old Soldiers, as well as the two entries in my hard-nosed mystery series about the street beasts of New York City Marked Territory and Painted Cats got a re-release a little while back, I wasn't working on any new novels while that shuffle was ongoing. And now that the shuffle is finished, and my books are back on the market... well, I'm still not working on any new novels.

Not because I don't want to. I would love to have the time and freedom to devote to a new novel project right now. It's not because I don't have ideas. At last count I have over 50 viable novel concepts that I could spend the rest of my life working on and just barely get to press if my heart holds out. The reason is, put quite simply, I cannot devote over a year of my time and energy to a project that then earns me maybe a hundred bucks before it runs out of gas.

So this week I wanted to talk about that, and how I'm pivoting my energy as a creator... for the time being, at least.

Sadly, needs be when the devil drives.

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

Lastly, don't forget to check out my Vocal archive for additional fiction, articles, explorations of weird history, and more!

What I've Been Doing For The Past Year

To give folks a timeline, summer 2022 was when Ring of Fire closed its doors, and authors were largely let go to find ourselves new homes. I managed to do that, and to get my books slated for re-release. There were some hitches and stumbles, but by Fall of 2023 all of my lost novels were back on the market, and available for purchase. And while I was pushing my books, both in-person and online, I was also dedicating a lot of time and energy to my latest book release, my first ever tabletop RPG, Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic!

A book that you should check out, if you haven't yet!

While Army Men dropped earlier in 2024, I've also been putting a lot of work into various short stories over the past year. In the event you didn't see them, these include:

- The Final Lamentation: A Warhammer 40K story about how the Black Legion finds out the hard way that a Lamenter is not locked on the ship when them... they're trapped in here with him!

- Where The Red Flowers Bloom: A Weird War II tale, this story features a Japanese garrison on an island in the middle of the Pacific where a strange curse overtakes the soldiers who've trespassed on the land during the season of the bloody flowers.

- Gav and Bob, Part 5: Faith and Martyrs: Another Warhammer 40K story, the Imperium's bravest ogryn speaks with a canoness confessor, who weighs both his sanity and his soul after the deeds he's done.

- Black Marks: A Dead Space story that was commissioned by the YouTube channel A Vox in The Void, by the time you're all reading this blog entry, the audio drama for it should be live on the channel! This tale takes place on Earth in the far future, and how one damaged agent uses his broken mind to save all of us from being eaten by things beyond the stars.

While I've been keeping myself busy all this time with a slew of different projects, I was partially waiting to see what the results of my books' re-releases would be. After all, one of them got a new cover and additional internal materials, and the other two were still new enough they hadn't quite found an audience yet. I was eager to see what my own promotional efforts, as well as what the efforts of my new publisher, would yield.

In the end... not much.

Without bringing up the receipts and showing them to you all, I earned enough money that I could treat myself to a fast food lunch this past quarter. Or enough to pay a little more than half of one month's utility bill, if I saved two quarters of payments.

Now, that could change. Something I say, or do, might get a bunch of people interested in my books. I might find an overnight following, or suddenly explode thanks to the efforts of reviewers I've never met... but I've been playing this game for a while. I know none of that is likely to happen, and writing one more book to throw on the pile isn't likely to change my situation in a real, noticeable fashion.

I still have the desire to really sink my teeth into a bigger, meatier project, though. Something where I get to tell a longer story full of intrigue, danger, and a bit of the old ultraviolence. Which is why I'm currently so fixated on the Chronicles of Darkness podcast I want to start titled Windy City Shadows.

A Dark Pack Project On The Horizon!

There is a world beneath the one you know. A world of magic and monsters, full of horrors that will haunt your dreams, and a beautiful madness that will seep into your very soul. If you fall through the cracks of the Windy City, you may find yourself among the broken, and the Lost. These things that were once people were dragged out of the world, and they had to claw their way back kicking, screaming, and changed. They are not now what they were. They are more... and so much less.

Politics among changelings is edged at the best of times, and outright deadly at the worst of times. Shepherd Black left that all behind, along with his position as the Fall Court's enforcer. But when someone from his past calls in a favor he has to honor, and a promise he has to keep, the old wolfhound has to let the beast out one more time so he can settle up, and finally be truly free from his old life.

This simple elevator pitch is what I want to do for season one of Windy City Shadows, whose working title is Grimm Promises. Shepherd Black escaped from a life as the lead hound of the Wild Huntsman, to becoming the attack dog of the Autumn Queen. When he finally left it all behind, an old debt drags him back into a life of blood and shadows... a life he won't be able to leave again without paying a nasty price if he truly wants to walk away.

There are more details about this in the blog entry Windy City Shadows: A Chronicles of Darkness Podcast Proposal, and for those who are interested there's still a little bit of time to leave your input for the upcoming video I talked about in Ask Me Anything About "Windy City Shadows" A Chronicles of Darkness Podcast Proposal.

I've had several people ask me why I'm dedicating my time and energy to a project like this rather than writing another novel. So I wanted to take some time to illustrate the numbers, and dig into this as a business decision, rather than just following my creative desires.

A Novel:

- 70K-90K words for one of my books.

- Takes roughly a year of time to write.

- Can't be released until it's entirely complete.

- Receives no advance.

- Takes several months to a year to be published.

- Cannot be read for free by the audience.

- Is hard as hell to sell, and only yields money from sales.

Contrast that with the podcast:

- 40K-80K words, depending on the final number of episodes for the season.

- Can be written, recorded, and released in stages, allowing it to come out faster.

- Likely a year of time to a year and a half to finish and release a season.

- Can be listened to by the audience for free.

- Will have ad spots to pay revenue.

- Can receive donations from audience members who want more.

- Will have a per-episode fee from at least one backer outside of Patreon.

- May result in sales of tie-in products that already exist (TTRPG supplements for Changeling: The Lost, Geist: The Sin Eaters, etc.).

Now, neither of these projects will be easy to make. They're going to take a lot of time, energy, editorial, and working together with multiple people to ensure it's as professionally perfect as possible. However, a novel only provides me one way to get paid, which is selling the book once it's released. The podcast lets me get paid through Patreon, through ad revenue, and through the backing of my publisher, whose channel I'll also be sharing the production on.

The minimum amount of money I could make from a novel is $0, assuming no one buys copies. Realistically, though, I feel I could make between $100 and $200 in sales for a new book, based on overall numbers from previous new releases. The minimum amount of money I could make for releasing the smallest number of episodes for the podcast is $250, which is just the amount of backing I'd be looking at from the one individual outside of Patreon. That's before any ad revenue, before building a Patreon following, and before any other kind of income allowed under the Dark Pack agreement.

If money was no object, folks would be seeing a lot more books from me. However, I've lived beneath the poverty line for the past decade, and I don't have a lot of cushion in my safety net. So this is the mental math I've been doing, and it's one reason I'm so fixated on getting the Azukail Games YouTube channel monetized, because that is the first step to setting the wheels for this whole thing in motion!

So if you want to help make this show a reality, please check out the channel, subscribe, and help us get the last few hundred watched hours we need for YouTube to give us that official status. And while you're at it, maybe give some of the older audio dramas I made for Changeling: The Lost a listen so you can hear what you're in for, and maybe get a sense of some of the characters you're going to see make return appearances!

Support The Literary Mercenary

If you want to see me produce more work, consider some of the following options!

- My Facebook

- My LinkTree

- My Weekly Newsletter

- The Azukail Games YouTube Channel (where I contribute video content)

- My Rumble Channel (longer videos that won't show up on YouTube)

And if you happen to have some spare dosh lying around, and you want to be sure my supply doesn't run low, consider become a Patreon patron, or leaving a tip by Buying Me a Ko-Fi!

Also, if you're curious about how to write for tabletop RPGs, don't forget to check out my show Tabletop Mercenary, which you can find on both the Azukail Games channel, as well as my Rumble channel listed above!

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, the Hardboiled Cat series about a mystery solving Maine Coon in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list. 

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!

The Screen Writers Strike is Showing That None of Us Are Getting Paid

Right now, everyone has their eyes on the screen writers and actors guild strikes that are going on. As with many such strikes, the participants are laying bare the greed of their employers, the shady things tactics being used to try to prevent paying them (attempting to bodyscan actors to use CG versions of them indefinitely, using chat bots to try to write scripts, full-on canceling films and series from being available so they don't have to pay residuals to the people who made those movies and TV shows, etc.), and most importantly how little creative professionals actually make.

Because I've been saying this for years, but I feel like this strike is dramatically opening people's eyes to the fact that creators of all stripes have been getting screwed by production houses, publishers, etc., to the point where most of us simply cannot make a living doing what we do. Even if we are experienced professionals with a long history behind us, the powers-that-be basically expect us to work for pennies, and then when we complain they make public statements about starving us out.

I am not a screenwriter, in the sense that I don't write for television or film. Nor am I a member of either of the two unions currently on strike. However, as someone who's been making my living for years as an author, I want to weigh in and point out that these stories people are hearing about actors getting ripped off for chump change, getting screwed over by contract technicalities, or being told to take pennies and be grateful for it? Yeah... that really is the norm. Not just for actors, but across all creative professions.

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

Lastly, don't forget to check out my Vocal archive for additional fiction, articles, explorations of weird history, and more!

Most of Us Aren't Big Earners

If you've been paying attention to what's happening, then you've likely seen a lot of actors sharing their stories about how dramatically underpaid they are, even for iconic roles that still echo in pop culture to this day. Whether it was David Fielding who only made $150 as the face of Zordon in Power Rangers, Mara Wilson stating that she makes so little as an adult actor that she doesn't even qualify for health insurance through the guild, or any of a dozen other stories that have surfaced during the strikes, the public has been reeling from the numbers.

Because, generally speaking, we only see the top earners, and we just assume that even if you're not at the top, then surely you still make enough to survive? Surely you do... but no. No we don't. Regardless of our field or specialty, a large majority of us barely make anything.

At all, really.

It doesn't matter what part of the creative industries you're talking about here, either. Because whether we're talking about the movie stars like Dwayne Johnson and Brad Pitt, top billing musicians like Dolly Parton or Taylor Swift, or authors like Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, etc., most people only hear about those who are at the top of the heap. You hear about them because they're newsworthy, but for people outside your industry, they become the perspective through which you see all those creatives. After all, if a handful of people at the very top are making millions and millions of dollars, then surely even the folks on the lower end are making enough to comfortably pay rent, and maybe save up for a house. Just like how football and basketball superstars may get $25 million contracts, but even the bench warmers are still pulling down 6 figures just for being there, right?

The strike has put an end to that belief by bringing the receipts... and it's my hope that it causes things to change. Not just in the sense that big studios, publishers, labels, etc., should pay the talent more, but also that the public should side with the artists, and do their part to help us keep making things. Because the unfortunate truth is that as things stand, we all basically depend on our fan base to help us survive. Whether that's helping us market our books, contributing to our Patreon accounts and Kickstarter projects, or just helping us keep our views/reads up so that we can attract sponsorships, the audience is what makes or breaks us.

Because without you all doing your part, none of us make anything. Pure and simple.

How You Can Help

If you want to help the folks currently on the picket lines, here's what you need to do. First and foremost, pay attention to what the guild is asking from the public. At time of writing, there has been no call for a boycott of anything, so by all means go see movies, stream shows you like, etc. This helps make the case that studios need actors, writers, etc., and it can still stimulate residuals for some people (even if those numbers are a joke in a lot of cases, as we've seen from the checks).

Also, consider donating to the Emergency Financial Assistance and Disaster Relief Fund for SAG-AFTRA. This is the fund that's helping people pay their bills while they're on the picket lines, helping them hold out against stonewalling from the corporations. And since some of the suits have come out and said they literally plan on starving out those who are protesting, you can do your part by making those CEOs eat those words.

Support The Literary Mercenary

For folks who just want to do their part to help keep me making more content, please subscribe/follow me in these locations:

- My Facebook

- My LinkTree

- My Weekly Newsletter

- The Azukail Games YouTube Channel (where I contribute video content)

- My Rumble Channel (longer videos that won't show up on YouTube)

And if you happen to have some spare dosh lying around, and you want to be sure my supply doesn't run low, consider become a Patreon patron, or leaving a tip by Buying Me a Ko-Fi!

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 sci fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife as well as my recent collection The Rejects! You can also check out my Rumble channel The Literary Mercenary for free audio dramas!

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!

Being a Creator Can Feel Like Being Stuck in an Unpaid Internship

Unpaid internships are bullshit. The very idea that you have to show up and work, providing your value to an employer in exchange for some vague idea of "experience" and "networking" is just another way for the people with all the money to squeeze something out of you in exchange for nothing. Because not only are they getting all your time, energy, and labor for free, but you still have to buy the right clothes, pay your commuting costs to get to the office, and in the mean time you still have rent, utilities, and food to pay for.

This makes these internships impossible to participate in unless you already have money in the bank, rich parents who can support you, or you're working another job to pay your bills.

For a lot of professional creatives, this is an experience we understand all too well. Because even if we have the skill, the drive, the vision, and the will to make things, what defeats us is often the long stretches of time where we aren't being paid even if we're working our asses off. And sure, there's a promise of payment down the line, maybe, if the market allows it, but it's not a guarantee in the slightest.

Starting to feel like the deck is stacked against us, huh?

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

A Concrete Example of What I'm Talking About

I realize that intro paragraph can seem a little vague, so let me give you an example from my own experience.

For several years I've had people ask me why I wasn't making YouTube videos. It's a big platform, and it would be one more way for me to earn some extra income. While this is technically true, YouTube requires you to have 1,000 subscribers on your channel, as well as 4,000 hours of watched content in the past year before they'll even review you for monetization. That translates to 11.5 hours of watched content per day for 365 days, in case you were curious.

Now, if I already had a loyal following of thousands of people who would subscribe to my channel and watch my videos, that would be a speed bump I could easily deal with. However, I knew from experience that trying to reach those goal posts would mean I would be making hundreds of videos, potentially for years just for the platform to maybe allow me to monetize my traffic.

I did not have years of time and energy to put into something that sized (to say nothing of buying a good mic, buying a camera, learning the ins and outs of editing programs, lighting, etc.) when the problem was that I needed money in my hand before next month's utility statement came due.

So why am I making YouTube videos like the above audio drama Fine Print? Simple... someone actually funded me to make it happen.

Adrian Kennelly, the fellow behind Azukail Games, wanted more video content for the company's YouTube page. It had primarily been used for making preview videos for various tabletop RPG supplements, which would then be linked on their Drive Thru RPG sales page as a way to let browsers take a closer look at what they were thinking about spending their money on. Since he wanted more varied content, he offered me a fee for every video I could make to add to the channel.

If you go to the Azukail Games YouTube channel (which you should subscribe to while you're there), you'll see that over the past year or so I've been improving what I make. I've gotten a good mic, a better camera, I've gotten more comfortable with the editing process, and I like to fancy that the sound effects I add to the audio dramas really make them pop. But I was only able to justify the time, resources, learning, and effort because there was a fee attached to these projects. Not a big fee, mind you, but one that made it a viable project that would pay some of my bills.

If I'd been trying to do this all on my own, grinding away until I eventually got monetized, and then until I had $100 banked (the minimum payout for YouTube to send you a payment)? I never would have done any of this because the only people making a profit would have been YouTube.

A Promise of Future Payment Doesn't Help Right Now

That seems like a pretty specific example, but honestly, most of the publishing industry is run on shoestrings and spitballs when it comes to people getting paid. If you write short stories, you have to send them to an open call, hope they get picked out of the submission pile, and then you'll get paid when the collection is published (assuming there is a payment attached to the story, and that the book actually comes out instead of being cancelled before your check arrives). If you write a novel then you have to get it accepted by a publisher, wait till it comes out, and hope people buy copies of it. Writing the damn thing can take months to years, and publishing can add more months to another few years, and unless you got in tight with Penguin or Random House, you aren't getting an advance on your potential earnings. Making videos, as you see, can come with years of working for nothing, and making a podcast isn't much better in terms of earning potential.

You can opt to do all the publishing yourself, but that means you need the skills, the time, the energy, and then you have to also do all the marketing yourself. And it's possible you could spend several months to several years getting your book, show, etc. ready, only to have no one (or almost no one) actually buy the thing.

So how do writers make a living? Well, real talk, most of us don't.

There's no punchline here. Just facts.

Those of us who do make a living require luck, privilege, security, or some combination of all these things.

Most creators I know can't live off their earnings alone. These folks often depend on a spouse's income, health insurance, or sometimes both. A lot of creators also live with their parents, or with an extended network of friends and partners so they can afford to live off of what little they do make. Some have lucrative day jobs, choosing to write in their spare time. A surprising number have retired from other careers, giving them a foundation to build on. Some folks inherited money from family members who passed away, allowing them to keep the lights on while they get a project made, and build their audience.

Then there's the lucky folks. People who managed to get a book onto the market that just happened to hit the right nerve at the right time for whatever reason. Maybe they make a video that goes viral, their podcast hits an audience that can't get enough, or they gain notoriety because of something they do or say in their story. Maybe they get a cease and desist letter in a public way that causes a lot of curiosity about what their book is about.

And even if you get stuff out on the market? Well, like I said in If 90,000 People Read This Article I Can Pay My Bills This Month, we all require an absolutely ridiculous amount of backing from an audience just to make ends meet if there aren't sponsors covering our living costs while we make our art.

What You Can Do To Help

I felt the need to put this topic together today because I've reached a point, professionally, where I have a lot of publishers who are interested in bigger projects from me (novels mostly, but also TTRPG campaigns), in addition to struggling with some big ideas of my own (particularly a long-form serial in the form of a podcast). And while I want to work on all of these things, the reality is that I live in government-subsidized housing, and I need to have checks ready to go every month. Because when all of your energy is spent making things to help you survive, you simply don't have the luxury of doing bigger, longer pieces... no matter how much passion you might have for them.

If you made it this far and you'd like to help me, specifically, here's some things you can do!

- Follow My Facebook

- Check Out My LinkTree

- Subscribe to My Weekly Newsletter

- Subscribe to The Azukail Games YouTube Channel (where I contribute video content)

- Subscribe to My Daily Motion Channel (longer videos that won't show up on YouTube)

And if you happen to have some spare dosh lying around, consider become a Patreon patron, or leaving a tip by Buying Me a Ko-Fi!

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!

Audience Demand, "Sandman," And The Impossible Pressures Put on Creators

If you're a comic book fan, then you know about Sandman. This series, written by acclaimed author Neil Gaiman, has stood the test of time as one of the most celebrated examples of the medium. When word came out that Netflix was going to make a series putting it to film, even people who were sick and tired of superhero movies and shows sat up and took notice. The show garnered a huge amount of views, a lot of audience praise, and enthusiasm from a large percentage of people who wanted to see more.

And despite all of that, Gaiman and the cast basically had to beg everyone to binge watch the whole series again so that Netflix didn't cancel them after only one season because the company wasn't convinced people wanted a second season badly enough.

While I'd like to say this is only something that heavy hitters making big budget productions have to deal with, this is unfortunately something that affects all creators out there. Namely that if we can't muster a massive audience willing to bang down the doors demanding more of our work then we may not get greenlit by our publishers, or we may not get paid enough money by the platforms we use to actually keep writing new novels, short stories, screenplays, etc. for our fans to consume.

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

The Numbers Game Is Awful

Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about from the independent side of things. A little while back I started listening to Old Gods of Appalachia (go check out their podcast if you haven't yet, and support them if you can afford to), and I really enjoyed everything about it. Capitalism strained through the lens of cosmic horror and its effects on rural and poor areas is right up my alley. However, it was during one of the in-between episodes where the creators were answering questions and casually talking to their fans that I started noting numbers.

According to what I heard, the show had 5 million plays through Spotify in its first two years. Given the wide exposure they'd had, and their supportive audience, I wasn't surprised by that number, and I agree with the team that it can be mind-boggling contemplating that many people consuming something you made. However, if you break it down using the numbers I referenced in Youtube, Dailymotion, and Spotify... Challenges and Payoffs, you get into some pretty bleak profits. When all the calculations are done, that averages out to somewhere around $10,000 per year of traffic, if you assign 2,500,000 downloads/listens per year.

That's what it should have been according to the math, anyway. Seems that I got it wrong, and it's even bleaker than that!

When I reached out to the show to check my facts, Cam Collins was good enough to set me straight, and provide me some more accurate numbers. According to what Cam said, the show makes literally nothing from Spotify directly, and only a tiny fraction of their income from advertising. 90% of their income comes directly from their audience providing support.

To reiterate, this is a show that people could not shut up about for months during the pandemic. It's been given top marks, its cast and crew are truly talented people, they've had write ups in major media like the New York Times, and there's a goddamn tabletop RPG for Old Gods of Appalachia... and the only thing keeping it going is the direct support of folks who enjoy their work, and who want to help them keep the lights on so they can keep the show going.

A lot of us have this idea that when someone makes popular art, that art pays for itself just through the sheer force of its popularity. However, that perception is often the reverse of reality. Because as I mentioned back in Unfortunate Facts: Without Sponsorship, Most Authors Can't Eat, the things we as an audience think of as secondary items (creator merch, fan pledges, etc.) are actually the main source of income for most people for the simple reason that it takes an absolutely absurd number of views/listens on any platform to make enough money to pay your bills.

In the end, it creates this weird Catch-22. Because when your audience is small, or your numbers are below a certain threshold, a cut of the small amount of traffic you generate is all you'll be offered by a platform. As such, you need every view you can possibly get in order to scrape by. But if you generate the numbers necessary to make bank off of your traffic alone, that also means your audience is big enough (and that you probably have enough sponsorship deals and independent support) that the check from your views is just the icing on your cupcake... if, as it turns out, you even get that.

What Does One Example Have To Do With The Other?

Some readers are no doubt wondering what a major streaming platform that can afford millions of dollars to produce a high-budget fantasy series, and the impressive success of an indie horror podcast, have to do with one another. The answer is that in order for creators to be successful, big or small, it takes an absolutely ridiculous tide of raw numbers.

But this is, sadly, nothing new. It's just capitalism as usual.

This will do you, I'm sure.

Think back to before music streaming, when we listened to our music on the radio. A lot of folks might not know this, but the band didn't actually get paid for their music being on the airwaves. The idea was that people listening to the music on the radio would lead to increased sales of merchandise (recordings, band tee shirts, concert tickets, etc.), so even if you were burning up the charts you didn't get paid until folks actually bought something from you. The reason there are so many singer/songwriters, interestingly enough, is that the writers did get paid for those radio plays, so a lot of artists made sure they did both as a way to ensure they weren't left out in the cold.

Everything old is new again, eh?

In decades past it was record labels trying to keep the lion's share of money, while paying their singers a pittance. Now it's the streaming platforms doing the same thing by demanding that channels earn their monetization (also known as "working for free" while the company reaps the benefits), or making backroom deals to ensure they have access to large libraries of content while the folks who were previously depending on royalties end up with a handful of pennies. And publishers... well, publishing hasn't really changed much in the past century and change.

And that often includes freelance writers not getting a pay raise since the days of H.P. Lovecraft when it comes to our by-word rate.

We Need Numbers (And Can't Get Them On Our Own)

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, all of that nonsense up above is the reason that creators end every production asking listeners to like, subscribe, support, and share links to our work. Because it takes literal millions of reads/listens/hits/etc. for us to make a poverty wage.

I know that as listeners we grow deadened to that constant request. It's the equivalent of an unskippable ad, and we either tune out, look away, or just skip past the text if it's in an article. But without audience help, whether it's funding our work directly or helping us build our brand by sharing our content for others to see, we're going to lose our grip and fall. Either our publishers will stop greenlighting projects that don't get an appropriate amount of attention and sales, or we just won't be able to pay our rent with what we're bringing in every month.

So if you have a creator whose work you enjoy, big or small, please do your part to make sure they can keep making art. Follow their socials, read their articles, share their posts to draw attention to them, and if they've got a playlist consider leaving it on while you're out and about just to give them a few extra hours of listen time a week.

It all adds up, and it all makes a difference, even if you feel like it doesn't.

I Could Also Use A Little Help (If You Can Spare It)

If you made it this far and you'd like to help me, specifically, here's some things you can do!

- Follow My Facebook

- Check Out My LinkTree

- Subscribe to My Weekly Newsletter

- Subscribe to The Azukail Games YouTube Channel (where I contribute video content)

- Subscribe to My Daily Motion Channel (longer videos that won't show up on YouTube)

And if you happen to have some spare dosh lying around, consider become a Patreon patron, or leaving a tip by Buying Me a Ko-Fi!

To help The Literary Mercenary keep making content like this, consider leaving a tip, or becoming a patron:

- Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theliterarymercenary
- Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/theliterarymercenary

Follow the author's social media for the latest updates:

- Twitter: https://twitter.com/nlitherl
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NealFLitherland
- Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/neallitherland/

Thanks to Gretchen VanHeeren for providing the voice of the lamia!

Background music from Tabletop Audio:

- The Long Rain
- Dark and Stormy
- Dark Continent

Additional Background Music

- The Introvert by Michael Kobrin (https://pixabay.com/users/21039285-21039285/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=music&utm_content=10959)

- Cold Mind Enigma by Gioele Fazzeri (https://pixabay.com/users/gioelefazzeri-16466931/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=music&utm_content=13553)

- Chasing a Killer by Gioele Fazzeri" />

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!

Addressing The "Do You Expect To Make A Living Doing This?" Crowd

"Why aren't you just giving this away for free? Do you expect to make a living doing this?"

This is a paraphrased version of a comment I received earlier this week, ironically while I was sharing a link to an RPG supplement that a colleague of mine wrote rather than a piece of my own work. An RPG supplement which, I would note, cost less than $2 for anyone who wanted to buy a copy (100 Problems To Encounter at a Starport by Adrian Kennelly, for those who are curious). While this isn't the first time I've had this comment lobbed at me (and it isn't even the first time it's been lobbed at me while I was trying to signal boost someone else's project), it is something I wanted to address this week.

Because I keep hearing this, and I keep wondering why people are still saying it in the capitalist hellscape that is 2022.

Yeah, there's going to be some theory in this week's update.

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

Labors of Love Are Still Labors

Think of something you enjoy doing. Maybe it's painting, or making audio dramas, or being a Game Master for a tabletop session. Perhaps you love writing stories, or you enjoy training people to help reach their fitness goals. Maybe you really like sex. Even when you're just doing it for yourself, it still takes effort. You're putting in your time, your resources, your thoughts, your energy, and your expertise to make something, or to do something.

This is what folks in the economic sector refer to as labor, as it's the actions taken to produce a good or service. Yes, labor is more complicated than that, but I'm boiling things down here, so this is the definition I'm using.

Yeah, yeah, don't get ahead of me.

Now, imagine someone has seen your work, and they think it's really good. They want you to either perform similar work for them (likely to their specifications), or they want you to just give them the result of all your hard work. Not someone you know like a friend or a family member, but some random person off the street who just happened to be walking by. Would you do this job for them, or give them the thing you made, just because they asked you to?

Probably not, right?

Yet that seems to be exactly what people are asking every day. Not only that, but if you as a creator announce you are selling something you made, there will be a steady line of folks all too happy to berate you just because you aren't giving it away for free. No matter how many hours you took to make something, regardless of the skill of its execution, and no matter how affordable the price, they seem affronted that you're charging for your work.

"Do you expect to make a living doing this?" they ask.

A better question I would ask, though, is, "Do you barge into shops and demand free stuff off the shelf? Then why the hell are you doing that here?"

Why Are You Mad About It?

There is a unique thing that I feel a lot of creative people deal with, and it's that a lot of people want what we do or make, but a majority of them are affronted that we expect to be paid for it. You want $10 a head to run a 6-hour RPG module? "Ugh, what the hell, I do this for my friends for free!" You charge $12 for a copy of your novel? "Psh, I could read thousands of books online for free, why should I pay you for this one?" You quote your price for the particular fetish they want satisfied? "What do you mean you want me to pay you to satisfy my kink for the next few hours? Other people would do this just for the fun of it!"

It all blends together, after a while.

Why does this happen? Well, the main issue from my trench seems to be entitlement.

If you've been an author, or know an author, you've got stories about this. People who demand free copies of your book because, "You should be glad that somebody like me even wants to read this." If you have digital publications you can also throw in a side of, "It's just a digital copy, it's not like it costs you anything!" A lot of people out there do not put themselves in the creator's shoes. They're thinking only about themselves, and what they can get. And given that a lot of art is faceless, has been stolen, or is genuinely available for free online, there is often a rather vitriolic reaction to being told, "No, you can't just walk out with that. You need to pay for it."

The best way to combat this, from what I've seen, is to try to garner a sense of empathy in people, and to explain to them what's going on behind the curtain. Telling them that it took you nearly a year to write this novel, and that even if you only make a few dollars from every sale, you still have bills to pay. You might break down the numbers that it takes for creators to actually make anything resembling a notable wage (like I did in Talking About Numbers Again) to show them precisely what you need to hit in order to keep making things just to drive the point home.

This isn't a guarantee, of course. Some people are just going to rant and rave because you aren't giving them free stuff. Some people are going to realize just how much effort you put into your work, though, and they may choose to compensate you accordingly. Sometimes they may even give you a tip, just to help you keep the wheels greased.

If You Don't Like The Price, You Don't Have To Buy

Would we all like to be able to give our work away for free? Well, a lot of us probably would if we knew that we didn't have to worry about rent, food, gas, and utilities. But we are all stuck living under capitalism, which means that every month we have fees charged to our bank accounts just so we can stay alive.

Which means we need to get paid so that we can pay the other people who give us the staples we require.

If you think someone's work isn't worth what they're charging, you don't have to buy it. If you don't want to support them, no one is forcing you to. But if you want to see a creator keep producing work, they can't do that if they aren't making enough to pay their bills. Whether it's an author writing a fantasy noir series, a movie reviewer doing horror movie break downs, or someone who welds bizarre sculptures out of scrap steel, we all need a place to live, food to eat, clothes to wear, and the money to buy materials so we can make more things.

But if you absolutely refuse to pay for something a creator made, I want you to understand this if nothing else. We don't care. We would just really like you to step aside so that someone who is willing to buy a copy can step up to our booth. Because at the end of the day if you aren't helping us keep our heads above water, we don't have time to worry about catering to you.

And even if you don't have money, but still want to support the creators you love, consider what I said in A Lot of My Content is Free (But I Could Still Use Your Support).

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!

Talking About Numbers Again (What Creators Need in Order to Survive)

I talk a lot about making a living as a creative professional in my Business of Writing updates. It's kind of the whole purpose of this section, after all; talking about the business side of the job, and what it actually pays you. This week, though, I wanted to talk about how most of what people think of as the job of a writer (or even just a content creator) isn't what pays the bills... I wish it was, but the numbers don't pan out that way most of the time.

So, let's talk about that, shall we?

There's a lot of math here, but I'll try to keep it simple.

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

How Many Eyeballs Does It Take To Pay Your Bills?

We all have bills to pay, and unless those debts are getting settled you're quickly going to find you've got bigger problems than writer's block. So I wanted to take a moment to break down the sort of action/attention that writers need to garner in order to actually survive. And I'm going to be using bare bones numbers here, showing that even subsisting at the lowest possible level is still playing the game on Hard mode.

So, let's start with bills and expenses.

Let's say that you live in a small town, in subsidized housing, or some equally cheap location. Even then, you likely have a rent of around $800 or so a month if you're in a 1-bedroom, or $900-$1,000 a month if you're living in a 2-bedroom spot. But let's say, for the sake of argument, that you found a very cheap location, you're splitting your bills with someone else, and you're keeping things as cost-effective as you can. Even then you might be looking at a combined rent and utility cost between $500 and $550 every month.

Now, that's without talking about food, gas, a gym membership, streaming services, or even Internet costs. But I'm leaving those out specifically to bring what comes next into a starker relief. So keep in mind this is literally just the cost of shelter, not anything else.

And now, down to brass tacks.

But how much do authors make for the stuff we put out there? Well, I mentioned a lot of the numbers in Direct Donations Really Are The Best Way to Help Creators You Love, but I'll go back over it for folks who missed that installment.

- Book sale: $1-$3 (depending on cover price, digital or physical, etc.)

- Sale of RPG Product: $0.15-$1 (this is generally for smaller supplements below novel earnings)

- Podcast Stream: $1 per 200 listens (average taken from Spotify)

- YouTube: $3-$5 per 1,000 views (ish)

- Reads on Vocal: $6 per 1,000 reads (if one has VIP membership)

So if we break out the calculator, what would we need to manage just to pay our rent as an author based on these numbers?

- Book Sales: 275 per month (or roughly 9 books sold per day)

- RPG supplements: 916 to 2,750 (depending on costs)

- Podcast Stream: 110,000 streams

- YouTube views: 110,000 to 183,000 depending on ad revenue

- Vocal reads: 91,000 reads per month (or over 180,000 if one doesn't have VIP membership)

There are additional factors to consider with a lot of these earnings as well. For instance, if you're putting content on YouTube (or like my channel on DailyMotion), not every single view is going to get counted. People stop watching early, or they had Ad Block on, so those earnings are only based on the number of people who actually watch the whole video, and who stay for the ads. A similar note on Vocal reads, the site tracks how far down one actually goes in an article, so just clicking to open an article doesn't count as a read; folks actually need to finish what they start for you to get paid. Lastly, sales on sites like Drive Thru RPG or Amazon have to wait between 30 and 60 days to clear, so even if you make enough sales this month to pay your rent, you won't get that money till next month, or the month after.

Just some things to keep in mind.

Now, consider how much you'd need to earn through Patreon. If you could find 500 people to each give you $1 a month so you could pay your rent, that's significantly more doable than writing an article, making a video, or creating a new game supplement that goes viral every single month so you can keep your landlord happy.

Incidentally, if you'd like to make sure I can keep the lights on and the content coming, go visit my Patreon page today!

You Need Audience Participation Regardless

The important lesson to take away from this is that if you're a creator, you depend on audience support. Whether they're reading your articles, watching your videos, buying your books and associated merch, or just giving you a tip every month, you cannot do what you do without folks who are willing to support you.

And if you're someone who wants to support the creators you love, even putting $1 in their tip cup goes further than consuming all the free content they put out there. It's why we're constantly asking our audience to share our links and boost our signal... we need to reach not just thousands, but literal hundreds of thousands of people just to pay rent for 1 month.

And any help we can get to do that is much appreciated.

Lastly, as a little bonus, I'm still extremely proud of the latest video I put together. So if you haven't subscribed to my DailyMotion channel yet, consider doing so, and sharing this piece around!

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!