How I Make A Living As A Full-Time Writer

Spoiler: I kind of...don't?!

Before I sat down to write this I agonised for a bit because at Death Is Coming, I usually write a newsletter that is free to all subscribers every second week and a piece that is just for my amazing, paying subscribers every other week.

Because it feels safer when sending work to the smaller group of people who so kindly support my work, the paywalled pieces tend to be more personal and can be more revealing. And this piece about the money woes of being a novelist feels very personal and scarily revealing and so probably one for the paywall right?!

However, I hesitated to put it behind the paywall because, as a member of the group that historically makes less money purely by dint of having a vagina, it feels more urgent to be transparent on fiscal matters.

The other reason I feel transparency is far more useful than doing some click baity ‘become a paid subscriber to read the rest’ essay, is that the publishing industry is a divil for a smokescreen. In publishing, you never quite know where you stand because no one wants to admit to how much or how little money they make as a writer. When I was offered a three thousand euro advance for my first book, I had NO IDEA if this was reasonable or outrageous. Since then I have heard of people getting advances of €3,000, €30,000, €300,000 and €300 – yes, count the zeros on that last one – three hundred euro.

With no one to ask, I did the classic negotiating tactic of suggesting they double it and to my amazement… that worked and obviously I deeply regretted not aiming higher.

Now. Is six grand a reasonable sum for writing a whole book? Yes and no.

If I told my friends in virtually any other industry that I was writing a book for 6k, I think they would be appalled and probably feel sorry for me. For me, I was coming from the hospitality industry, an industry where there are no breaks, no paid sick days and no excuses! In 2013, as a chef, I was making about 6k for three month’s work, so my metrics on what was reasonable, were probably a bit different to other people’s. Also this was my dream. That’s the problem when writing books collides with being paid to write books. For a lot of us, writing a book is something we’ve wanted to do for a long time, writing is a deeply personal thing. When you’re in the no man’s land of trying to get your first book published all you want is someone in the industry to say ‘this is good, I like it, I want to publish it’.

As a writer of middling success, I still find my main state of being is one of striving and feeling like a failure. I am striving All. The. Time. Striving to prove myself to the industry. Striving to sell projects and convince people to take a chance on me. Striving, striving, striving. Cool writers probably don’t feel this way or are better at hiding it. Not me, I haven’t been cool since 1992 when I had a pair of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle bicycle shorts with matching tee shirt.

So back to… is six grand a reasonable sum for writing a whole book?

In the Yes Corner, six grand IS a reasonable sum for writing a whole book because for a publisher publishing a book is a roll of the dice every time. What’s gonna land and take off versus what’s gonna land and stumble into a nearby bush like me, drunk on straight vodka in 2002, is sooooo hard to predict for publishers. And ultimately they’re trying to keep the lights on like any other business. They’re hedging their bets and what else can they do? Paying the writer is the tip of the iceberg in terms of spend for putting a book out into the world. There’re editors, designers, marketing teams, printing costs, and more, to cover. In my experience, absolutely zero people who work in publishing are out to fuck over authors, they love books – end of. They also have to make all the money balance up at the end of the day.

Also, it’s worth noting that I’m not sure I’ve met many people in the industry who’re earning the big bucks. And they all deserve to. I get to work with THE BEST people.

But yeah… not sure anyone says to themselves: ‘I’m going into publishing because I wanna earn the kind of money that will allow me to retire at 50 and spend my days paying people to give me blood transfusions to prolong my life and optimise my health in the creepiest way possible.’ The authors at the very tip top of the sales game are earning for sure and, frankly, we owe them a debt of gratitude for propping up the whole slippery house of cards that is commercial publishing.

In the No Corner, six grand ISN’T a reasonable sum for writing a whole book because let’s say it takes, on average, two hours to write 1000 words. The average book might be 90k words. So it’s 180 hours work. Then there’s redrafting it, sometimes three or more times. Let’s call that 60 hours work. Marketing the book takes time for an author whether it’s promoting the book at events, travelling to said events or writing unpaid articles for newspapers and magazines to get the word out there. This is hard to quantify but let’s call it 30 hours. And then there’s the work that’s not visible on the page but underpins the whole thing: the working it out, the research, the false starts. I’m gonna conservatively say that is 30 hours work (but really this is a bit of a made up number). This all works out as a fee of about €20/hour which on the face of it looks not too bad really. But remember all 300 of the above hours cannot be banged out in a month or probably even six. And your mortgage, rent, childcare, food and bills can’t hang on for you to finish the book, so you are absolutely doing all of this on top of whatever work you have/can get.

Thanks to my wonderful agent, since my first book things have gotten slightly better on the advance front but I’ve pretty much come to accept that I am a bit of a journeyman when it comes to the books thing. I’m unlikely to have a breakout hit at this point in my career, and I’m not saying this in a self-pitying way – it’s just the way of things. As

KATY LOFTUS

said in her excellent essay, How Do I Know When To Leave (My Publisher):

In a society where we sell art for money, the artist becomes part of an equation, and there is a price at which they are no longer worth the effort. It’s baked into the system, because the industry is structured around profitability and value for shareholders, and while there is no science to making a first novel a success, what we do know is that if that first one doesn’t ‘work,’ then it is most likely the second won’t. So the inevitable happens. Here’s another often-unsaid fact: even if the first works, it is still statistically most likely that the second will sell significantly fewer than the first, because of the nature of the way retailers work – they like to give debuts promotional space, they rarely do it for second novels.

LMFAO, I am a walking diminishing return!

Of course, as with everything, there are exceptions to this and also the entire subject of art and commerce is beyond complex so please do read the essay in full – it is incredibly insightful. There is also a big difference between what indie publishers can pay and what Big Five publishers can afford which Loftus explores in depth here too.

I have friends who are stratospherically more successful than me and sometimes I sense their pity. Would they do my job for the money I earn? Probably not. But comparison is such a waste of time. I want to make the art I want to make and I would make it with or without the pay check. The pay check means that I have the time to work and that is an enormous privilege as an artist. From writing my first book to the one I’m on now which is number eight, my working-on-books time has varied wildly as, for years, I needed to work other jobs to support my income as an artist. And as you’ll see from the below, I still do. What’s changed over the last eight years is how much time I need to spend on the ‘day-job’ versus how much time the income from books buys me when it comes to making my creative work. And listen, I’m really lucky because my ‘day-job’ is still enormously creative and rewarding.

For many of us ‘success’ as an artist is earning money from our art but it’s not a helpful metric because money is not the judge of our work. And arts purpose is not to rack up the most engagement or hit the top spot on bestseller lists (lol says the woman who never has). I have to lean into the idea that connection is the aim for me or else I’d go mad thinking about how much I’m not ‘making it’ as a writer – whatever ‘making it’ is. I think as long as I get to keep writing books I will feel hugely, wildly grateful but I also know that sometime in the future I may need to adjust my expectations because this is not an easy gig and nothing is a given.

So how do I make a living as a full-time writer?

I work a lot. And I have several different streams of income, any one of which could evaporate overnight. So yeah… there’s that.

Before I start, advantages worth noting here are having a home (I got my mortgage in 2012 with my partner when I earned a salary as a chef – a bank will barely look at freelance/self employed people and now houses cost 67 billion euro). I have a chronic illness (Bipolar) but am not disabled. I’m white. I’m middle class. I am cis. In Ireland, we have an artist tax exemption meaning I don’t have to pay tax on earnings from writing my books which is a huge HUGE help and one of the reasons, I’m proud of this little country.

The percentage breakdown of my yearly income looks something like this:

30% from podcasts – I co-host four episodes a week across two podcasts, Mother of Pod and The Creep Dive. We are entirely listener-supported and it fully BLOWS MY MIND that I get to call this a job.

20% from books – Advances are paid in chunks (1/3 on signing, 1/3 on delivery of manuscript and the rest on publish), royalties are paid on their own schedule. None of it is ever, ever guaranteed, at least for the likes of me.

20% from my column in the Sunday Independent – I have written a weekly column in some form or another for over a decade and this regular (though again not permanent/stable) income has been a big part of how I have been able to shape my career since becoming a full-time writer-podcaster-whatever I am. When I left kitchen work, having a regular column was something that was pivotal in transitioning into freelance writing.

20% from miscellaneous payments related to TV work and to the books (selling dramatic rights or translation rights, contributing to events).

15% from arts funding – Every year, the Arts Council of Ireland awards thousands to artists across many mediums. Ireland is not perfect by a long, long shot but this contribution to the arts is another reason I am proud of this country. This income obviously fluctuates wildly as some years I don’t make the cut and, for many years, I was too down on myself to even apply which, if this is you right now, I URGE you to put those feelings in the bin and start looking out for opportunities you might be eligible for. There’s enough gatekeepers out there, don’t gatekeep yourself.

As always, I would love to hear from you in the comments and thank you so much for subscribing to Death Is Coming.

S xxx

PS. God I wanted to scrap this piece so much. Talking about these things feels unbearably vulnerable but fuck it, maybe it’ll help someone/anyone?! The last thing I’ll say is don’t get into it for money gang – you gotta love it ;)

Photo by Olena Bohovyk on Unsplash