Any other writers in the house?

[CopperBrompton]

I read recently about a quite successful crime novelist who only mananged to clear about £15K a year. I think you need to sell TV or Film rights to make the big money.

'Successful' is probably a rather generous description for a writer clearing £15k a year, but it's certainly true that a typical advance is £5-8k, and only a minority of authors earn that out. Back in the days when I wrote computer books, I viewed the advance as the fee and any royalties beyond that as a pleasant bonus.

Even film options are typically less than £15k, and most are never exercised. Writing novels would definitely not be top of the list of occupations to aim for if you plan to get rich.

 

[CopperBrompton]

As an aside, I started out as a technology journalist then moved into a mix of tech research and photography before I was invited to return to tech journalism a couple of years ago. Having been out of the game for so long, I had no idea what word rates were like these days, so asked the one journo friend I was still in touch with.

I was shocked! Word rates were, in real terms, about a quarter of what I used to earn. But I write quickly, so did the sums and realised that it was still a pretty decent hourly rate. Writing was still my first love, and there was one other huge advantage: the tech research typically required me to travel to 3-7 countries per six-week project; tech journalism gave me a four-second commute from bedroom to home office. Despite a substantial drop in income, I haven't regretted it for a moment.

 

[bigjim]

Don't the writers of text books for schools etc make good money? Especially when the government keeps changing the syllabus.

 

[Spinney]

Don't the writers of text books for schools etc make good money? Especially when the government keeps changing the syllabus.

It does rather depend on how well the books sell, but if you are fortunate enough to be part of the writing team for a successful course, a new edition is needed every 4 or 5 years - and in between Key Stage 3 changes they make changes to the GCSEs, so the gaps between writing for one age group are filled in by writing for another age group. And the money can be good. It also has the advantage that the things are written to order, so there's none of the creative angst followed by rejection letters!

Not nearly as glamorous as novels though. In the minds of others, that is. Personally I'll take the money and write bad fiction in my spare time!

 

[Jon George]

I read recently about a quite successful crime novelist who only mananged to clear about £15K a year. I think you need to sell TV or Film rights to make the big money.

A survey by the Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society a few years ago revealed that, in Britain, the top 10% earn 50% of the money, while the bottom 50% earn only 10% of the money. The annual income for the majority of British authors is below the national average by some way. The ALCS is currently repeating the survey and it will be interesting to see if there has been any shift. For most of us, it's a labour of love and a part-time job ...

 

[CopperBrompton]

But as Heinlein said, writing beats working for a living.

 

[Jon George]

But as Heinlein said, writing beats working for a living.

I have never been happier!

 

[ColinJ]

That might be exactly what I need! I scribble notes on scraps of paper, in old diaries, text files and so on, and then find it hard to gather the information into anything that makes sense.

I will investigate Scrivener!

You can get it on a 30 day trial for Windows or Mac. That's 30 individual days, not consecutive days, so a very fair trial. I have installed the Windows version and done the Basic tutorial. I will move on to part 2 tomorrow.

It looks very powerful, and so far it has been fairly intuitive and reliable. I did manage to lose the text cursor when editing footnotes and comments, but managed to get it back again.

It might be more sophisticated than I need. OTOH - I haven't managed to actually finish a book without it, so let's see!

 

[asterix]

Am co-producing a book. The core was what my father wrote of his war service, letters home, some of it in Feb 1945 before the job was done, the rest written down in the following years. The letters and contemporary accounts are better than the later reminiscences IMO and the tricky bit is finding a way to unite the pieces. It seems to be of interest to military historians including a journalist in Belgium(!) so we hope it may come to something. My bit has about 50k words so far but the whole thing will be at least double that the way it's going. There's no commercial objective.

 

[Andrew_Culture]

My dad has started writing articles for Steam Railway magazines and will soon be entering into the Kindle market, it's a reverse literary inheritance!

 

[bigjim]

I think writing computer programs is probably the bigggest earner.
But is that writing?

 

[Candaules]

I'm a published novelist:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Christopher-Harris/e/B001K7RMDU/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1390296663&sr=8-1

 

[Lanzecki]

@Candaules

Are you happy with the Amazon KDP? My main question is their %cut and the delivery costs. A friends was telling me that the advertised 30% cut they take is inaccurate once the author pays for delivery to the seller etc.

Any thought/comments from others? Self publish?

 

[CopperBrompton]

I went to a talk on self-publishing by two successful authors, one who walked away from a multi-book deal with Harper Collins to self-publish and a second who is considering doing the same from Orion.

They said the only things a traditional publishing contract do for you these days (assuming you don't get a mega-advance which then prompts them to spend money on marketing) are:
- you get an advance (usually £5-8k for a first-time novel)
- you get the editing paid for (worth about a grand)
- you get the cover design paid for (worth £1-200 these days)
- you may, if you are lucky, get £2k spent on marketing
- you'll get into traditional bookshops
- you'll probably get a review or three

Self-publishing means no advance and you have to lay out the up-front costs yourself, so say £1200-ish (if you skip professional editing and cover design, you pretty much guarantee failure). So all-in, advance plus expenses, you're out £7-8k upfront. Against that, you'll see 30p-ish per paperback via a publisher and £1.50-2 per paperback self-publishing.

Either way, you have to do your own marketing, as a publisher will do very little for a new author.

It's a much closer call these days than it used to be.

 

[Lanzecki]

ebook publishing :

Kindle publishing seems to cost at least 60% of the sale price (Amazons cut and various charges)


Positives you get to decide when to reduce the price or even give it away for a limited time. 5 days for the 60 exclusive day's seem normal. This can allow you to sell, for instance, the first book of a series very cheap or free to entice buyers into buying the rest of the series.
A massive established market where kindles's have more then 50%
More people comment and rate.

Negatives are the hidden costs reducing the per book income from 70% to somewhere between 30 and 60% dependant on the type of contract you enter.
Tied to a 60 day exclusivity contract.
Buyers/readers expect and complain if books are 'too expensive' and "Why was the first one free, and you expect me to PAY for the others?"
It seems from anecdotal evidence that novels don't sell if they are expensive where are technical books can charge a lot more per page.
More people comment and rate. Especially when it's a free book people buy based on the cover or name. Then complain the content wasn't what was expected.

I'm sure there are loads more.

There seems to be a move to self publishing on the ebook market. I cannot comment on that.