Truth is, most of us don't. What's really frustrating about it, though, is that the numbers a lot of us need to hit to make a living are so low, yet we still can't manage them except through years of sweat, and occasionally lucky rolls of the dice.
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| Come on, come on... it's not that far! |
Before I get into the numbers, you can help me reach my goals by becoming a Patreon patron today! And if you just want to stay on top of all my latest releases, subscribe to my weekly newsletter as well!
Some Examples of Small, Unattainable Goals
Before we get started, I want to lay out some numbers for you. I live in government-subsidized housing in a small town in the Midwest. So, the numbers I'm going to throw around are going to be nothing compared to what authors would need to live in big cities, or pricier suburbs. Additionally, if I make more than $16k in a single year I would lose access to what healthcare I have through the state of Indiana. So I'm not even talking about thriving in many of these situations, just paying bills and occasionally going out for tacos when a new book drops.
Something to keep in mind as I start laying out facts and figures for you.
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| This is also why I spread my eggs among many baskets. |
Let's say I wanted to earn $12k a year. For most people that's a laughable wage that's far below the minimum, but we'll take that as an example. After all, since it's so small, it should be pretty easy to make that, right?
Well, if I wanted to earn $12k a year from Patreon I would need to clear $1k every month. I have over 700 followers on my author page on FB, and over 1,200 and growing on Twitter, and there are social media groups with 100k+ people who see my work on the regular. So, in theory, it shouldn't be too hard to find 100 of them to give me $10 a month, right? or 200 who could part with a fiver? Even a thousand people who could each give me $1 every month, which is less than the price of a Netflix subscription?
At time of writing I have 39 patrons. I deeply appreciate all the help they give me, however, my monthly take-home support from them is less than $300. And even at the highest subscription numbers I ever had on that platform, I never made more than $320 or so per month.
Given there are people making thousands to tens of thousands of dollars a month on Patreon, that goal doesn't seem unreasonable. But I've been on the platform for years, and I've reached out in all the ways I can, but it's never grown anywhere near the level I would need it to be at to make a living. You could help that by becoming a patron today, though!
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| Okay, but what about my books? |
Let's move onto the next basket... what about all those books I've written? From my Hard-Boiled Cat mysteries Marked Territory and Painted Cats, to my sci-fi thriller Old Soldiers, to my independent books Crier's Knife and The Rejects, I've got a sizable archive of stuff for dedicated readers to check out.
So what would it take to make that very small living just selling those?
Well, I make about $3 or so per sale. There's variation depending on platform, format, etc., but we'll use $3 to lowball it. So, I'd need to sell about 4k books a year to make bank. That's about 1k books per season, or three hundred and change a month. 10 books a day, give or take. And since there's over 300 million people who speak English in the world, surely it's not unreasonable that I could sell at least that many novels per day?
At time of writing, that's just not the case.
From my Ring of Fire books (two cats and the space marines), I get paid once every 6 months. That check has been consistently in the $120 range, which isn't nothing, but does translate to about 40 books sold over a 6 month period. Far as the pulpy sword and sorcery novel and the independent short story collection, I'm lucky if those move any copies at all these days. Doesn't matter where I link them or how I promote them, they're just a tough sell, and I don't have any companies backing me up on the marketing for those two.
Again, it's not an impossible number... it's just one that feels impossible to reach without the next best thing to divine intervention. Almost as impossible as actually getting people to read the books and leave reviews. You only need 50 of them for Amazon to start promoting you to other browsers, but the best I've managed to do is 25, and that's on the oldest novel I have out. None of the others have even broken 20 yet (though anyone who decides to finally leave their rating and review could make a big difference there).
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| What about all those RPG products you work on? |
One of the biggest earners I have is the sheer bulk of RPG supplements I put out every month (all of them collected on a pin board for the tabletop folks reading this). With roughly 120 supplements with my name on them out at time of writing, one would think that I make all sorts of bank off of them. After all, even if my royalties are a small cut of the overall sales, they've got to add up when we're talking about such a large archive, right?
Yes and no.
While my royalties and affiliate earnings have gone up over the years as the archive has grown, we're still talking very small numbers. The largest amount I receive from any of my supplements is $1 per sale, and that's only for a handful of titles. The rest range from $0.10 on the smaller end, to $0.60 on the larger end (such as for Ironfire: The City of Steel that you see above). So after 4 years or so of hammering away on title after title every month, what does that add up to? On average, between $200-$250 a month. Sometimes it's higher than that because I was part of a big bundle or a popular deal, but that's the range I'm looking at right now. And I didn't start regularly earning over $200 a month on those sales until May of 2021.
So I'd basically need to increase the earnings on those five-fold just to make less than minimum wage. A feat that, all other things being equal, could take me 20 or so years of additional labors.
All of These Things Require The Audience To Act
One of the unfortunate truths about being an author is that I actually possess very little power to change my own situation when all is said and done. Because it doesn't matter how many novels I churn out, how many blog updates I write, what conventions I attend, or how I tweak my keywords... because at the end of the day what makes or breaks creative professionals is you. The audience.
Without you, we are nothing. You are the crowd, and our rise or fall is determined by your whims alone.
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| Are you not entertained!? |
So if you made it this far and you want to help, there's a lot of things you can do. If you have the spare dosh consider becoming a Patreon patron, or buying some of my books and games. If you're broke (just like me and everyone else), consider leaving a review of anything of mine you've enjoyed. Follow me on my social media links below to help boost my signal, and share around any books or supplements you think are cool. Hell, check out my Vocal archive and give it some reads (since it pays me based on how many reads my work gets)! There's over 200 articles in that archive, and you're sure to find something you like and want to share with your social media circle.
And remember this whenever it comes to other creators out there who make the things you like. Because except for some very notable exceptions, we're trying to ice skate uphill and could use the help.
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 noir thriller Marked Territory, its sequel Painted Cats, 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!
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