GENREALITY

Earlier this week marked the ten years since I started writing paid copy. Every year for ten years, I have made money from putting words on paper in a certain order, which still kind of surprises me and for which I thank my lucky stars every day. The vast majority of these words have been fiction, though I started out as a journalist, and I still write a good deal of non-fiction.

What seems to surprise folks, every time I talk about my financial concerns, is that I am constantly taking stock of where I am in terms of contracts and monies, and revisiting the date at which I have promised myself to start looking for a new day job, should a new contract not arise. Here are a few of my rules:

1. Six month emergency fund.
2. You can only count on the money you KNOW you will get (i.e. contracts). Royalties/foreign sales are bonuses.
3. Write for hire > signing up with a temp service

I do actually know a lot of writers with big backlists who live on steady royalties, and then get a rude awakening when all of a sudden those sales suddenly and precipitously drop off. I think, if I were counting on royalties (at this point in my career, my royalties make up a VERY small percentage of my income) that I would have a bigger safety net of reserve funds, just in case my book stops selling for some reason.

Of course, I’m in what the cool kids are calling “traditional publishing,” where I get advances and royalty statements come once every six months. For those I know who are in epublishing, don’t get advances, and get paid every month, the metrics might be completely different.

It’s also important to really figure out WHEN you are going to get the various portions of your advance when you are planning out your work and your ability to go freelance. When you have a desk job, you get paid twice a month. When you have a writing job, you get paid on contract, or twice a year, or etc. You really learn how to budget.

For instance, say you have decided that your budget is $30k per year, and you can net $10k (i.e., after agent commission, taxes, and business expenses — or, just to make the math easy, let’s say we live in a world where those things don’t exist) for a book you wrote. So you think to yourself, “Easy, I’ll write three books.”

Au contraire, my friend.

Because you usually only get half of that advance upon signing a contract for those books (and some houses are going to thirds “upon signing”). So let’s say you do get a three book deal (in this magical world where there’s no agents, taxes, or business expenses) at $10k per book. You get the contract (anywhere from a few days to a few months later — and if you think I’m joking about the few months part, I know people who have waited a year on their contracts), and sign it and send it in and get your “upon signing check” — for $15k. Because 1/2(10k per book) x three books = $15,000.

Then, if you’re lucky, the D&A (delivery and acceptance) date for the first book is that same year (again, I know writers who get their D&A at the same time as their on signing check, because of contract delays), for what is sneaking into a lot of contracts lately, which is 1/4 of the remaining advance (and then another fourth on actual publication). So there’s $2,500.

So your total for year one of selling a three book deal for $10k per book is: $17,500.

In year two, you turn in book two, and see the publication of book 1. Total payments: $5000.

In year three, the same, for publishing book 2 and writing book 3: $5,000

In year four, you get your last little “on publication” check: $2,500.

And if you’re lucky, you do earn out right away and get royalties and you make a lot of foreign sales, and then Steven Spielberg snatches up the movie rights fora  cool million… But you can’t really count on that. And you never know when the earn out’s going to happen. It might happen right away. It might take four years. It might never happen.* So your $30,000 book deal takes four years to pay out.

So to get that 30k in a single year, what you have to do is have three books out that year. Because of the way publishing houses and imprint game their contracts, for a lot of writers, this means writing in multiple genres, under multiple names, or doing a lot of side projects, like short stories, work for hire, tie-in novels, non-fiction work, and yes, day jobs.

I recently had a conversation with a friend who had never sold a multi-book contract, but had recently been offered one. The multi book contract was, obviously, for a lot more money, but when you considered it on a book by book basis — though it was still more money per book — it was going to be paid out over a longer period of time. He wasn’t going to get it in a lump sum, so it might not be “day job quitting money” like he hoped.

However, if he could take the influx of cash, quit his dayjob, and use the extra time to take on other projects and sell MORE books…. that might work. But that’s a pretty big risk. I’m generally risk averse (or as risk-averse as you can be in this industry) but I can see the value of such a move if, say, you have no dependents, you’re young and healthy, and you don’t own property. In my old, married, baby-having, mortgage-paying scenario, it’s too risky. YMMV.

These are the economics of the business that have been serving me for the last ten years. Like I said, if you’re in a different side of the industry (like ebooks, self pub, etc.) the metrics might be different, since the payments structure and schedule totally are. But for those of you thinking to make the leap into counting on writerly income, the main piece of advice I can give you is: “budget, schedule, and have backup.”

Alternately: find a rich patron. Hey, worked for Virgil.

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* Please note: If it never happens, you do NOT have to pay the publisher back. That is a myth. Also, it does NOT mean that you will never again get another contract. Also a myth.

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