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!