June 12, 2006
I have a problem. It is, possibly, one not discussed with potential readers. The problem is that I need to jump over a hurdle in my brain. That hurdle is this:

I write to make a living.

I have bills to pay. Just like everybody else. Mortage. Car payments. Food. Heat. Electric. Taxes, etc.

Fiction, in my case, and in the case of many, does not necessarily pay that many bills. But it can sure take up the time.

I suspect that most readers would be surprised how little money is actually out there in fiction except for a favored few. And I think they would be very surprised the way money disappears even for those writers doing reasonably well.

For instance, let's say an author gets a 3-book contract that is, quote-unquote, "six figures." Truth is, that six figures may be $101,000 or it may be $999,999. But for simplicity's sake, let's say that this three-book contract is $150,000. For three books. Each book to come out one every 12 months.

If the first book is written, the author may or may not get the full $50,000 for that book. More likely they will get 2/3 up front and 1/3 of that $50,000 when they turn in their re-written manuscript. So, for that first manuscript, they will probably see, say (I'm rounding to keep me sane) $34,000. Except they won't, because their agent will take 15%. So they'll get $28,900. And if you're not up on this version of self-employment, you owe the federal government about 24% of that. So you put aside 24% ($6936), which leaves you with $21964. In Michigan, state income tax is around 2%, give or take. That's out of the $28,900, so you also pay $578. So $21964-$578=$21386.

$21,386

Now, that's not a dazzling chunk of money to try to live on, although it might be possible. Let's hope the writer's spouse has health insurance, or you can take about $14,000 right out of that, but the point here isn't to make you commit suicide.

The author probably also gets a chunk of that initial advance for the other two books. How that breaks out and is delivered varies. Sometimes they get the 2/3 when they deliver an outline with the remaining 1/3 of the other books when they actually deliver the finished manuscript. Some publishres offer 1/3 up front and 2/3 later, and there's been an insidious plot afoot--shame on agents who allow this!--that the author gets 1/3 when they sign the contract, 1/3 when they turn in the manuscript and the final 1/3 when the book is actually published.

So, let's just say, that after your agents' cut and the tax man's bite, over a 3-year period, the cash in hand from a 3-book, $150,000 contract comes to:

$64,158.

Okay, not great money, even if that $150,000 advance sounds pretty good. (Great, by my standards). $50,000 advance for a hard/soft deal infers something like, oh, off the top of my head, let's be kind and realistic and say, 5,000 in hardcover (royalty breakdown approximately $3 per hardcover, or 12% of $25), so $15,000 of the $50,000 advance is covered by 5,000 copies sold in hardcover. In order to come back with the remaining $35,000 (earn out), you need to sell (this is a really, really rough estimate) 62,500 paperback copies at $6.99 a piece, and your royalty is 8%, which is to say, about 56 cents per copy.

So in order to earn back that advance you need to sell 5,000 hardcovers and 62,500 paperbacks (mass market). APproximately. And doesn't touch on foreign rights sales, which may make the author almost nothing, etc.

Can you live on it?

Probably, but remember, in order to sell that many books, you're going to have promotional expenses, easily $5000 to $10,000 if you hire a publicist, get a professional website, send out mailings, drive around a couple states doing book signings, library talks, etc.

Which brings me, somewhat awkwardly, back to money and the hurdle in my head. That is to say, I'm nowhere near that kind of an advance. Yet I make my living as a writer. I have written magazine articles that pay more than my last book's advance, but took significantly less time to do and I didn't have to go out and try to sell the thing to readers myself.

And it's that kind of pressure that can boil off the energy of a fiction writing career. Yeah, I love it, it's art, it's...

Reality can be tough. It's terrific writing fiction and getting published and paid for it. But man, it's a tough, tough business with very minuscule profit margins for most of the novelists.

Best,
Mark Terry