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Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is writer finances and
such issues as how do you budget for uneven income? What’s your biggest
expense?
First, a little history. I sold my first book to Carina
Press in late summer 2011 and Priestess
of the Nile was published in January 2012. It obviously wasn’t the first
book I ever wrote, but it sure was the first one I ever sold. I also
self-published my first science fiction romance Wreck of the Nebula Dream in March 2012. At that stage of my career
as an author, I was thrilled to have actually been published, to have readers
and reviews, and to be able to say “I did it!” Lifelong dream of becoming
published – realized. I was immersed in
my day job as NASA/JPL on the business side of the house and I knew next to
nothing about the publishing or the self-publishing world. I was happy just
being published.
My career path lay at NASA/JPL and I had no expectations as far as the books.
In 2013 Carina Press published the second and final book of
mine that I would be doing for them and we amicably parted ways. I
self-published a second scifi romance and started to believe hey, maybe I could
chuck the day job (no offense to NASA/JPL) and be a fulltime writer. Day dreaming commenced...
2014 –
self-published two more scifi romances, was much more involved in the online
author world, had been to conferences (what a rush on so many levels), won
several awards for my books, was contributing to the USA Today Happy Ever After
blog and a few other places…the world was my oyster, I was sure. The day job,
in an office dealing with contracts, audits and process improvement and the
like was less and less what I wanted to do or where I wanted to be. I decided
to go for the new dream. Serious planning ensued...
2015 – I left the day job to become a fulltime author. I had
a best-selling scifi romance that went to number one in its category on
Amazon. I chaired a panel at a big
conference…I thought I had it made and wow I was sure my decision was the right
one.
Umm, guess what I was totally and blissfully unaware of? The
whole ebook self-publishing situation was a gold rush and not only had I come
into it at the tail end, the entire industry was about to be rocked by the
tidal wave that was Amazon Kindle Unlimited (KU).
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Kristine Kathryn Rusch has written several excellent blog
posts about the gold rush situation and the effects of KU, if you’d like to
read them. Here’s the 2015
post and then a follow up in 2017
after a major outlet for indie ebooks (All Romance eBooks) had just gone out of
business. According to KKR, the gold rush actually began tapering off in 2012
and pretty much crashed in 2015, when available content caught up to the demand
and then KU hit. Note the amazing alignment to the fledgling career of yours truly.
One of her key points is that an indie author must stay
flexible because the situation is always going to change. You have to adapt.
You also have to write good books that the readers want to read.
So, to back up a bit and track to the original SFF7 topic
for the week, in the beginning my day job salary supported the books. Even when
I went fulltime as an author, I was still using my savings to support the
writing. A big no-no by the way but I was naïve. I thought that was temporary
and I could absorb the costs for a while and surely my royalties would
skyrocket and cover everything. I might not ever become a J. K. Rowling with
theme parks and movies but I’d be doing okay. Right?
I also blithely expected the arc of my writer career to be like the arc
of a more classic career (the one I had at NASA/JPL), where each thing leads
to a bigger thing, more responsibility, a better office and title and oh, more
money. Well, the author world really doesn’t work that way for most of us, as
it turns out.
I see you shaking your head and telling me I ought to have
done a whole lot of intense and focused research before I jumped. Well okay,
but it was a gold rush even if I didn’t know it and the mentality of the moment
grabbed me and wouldn’t let go. I have a tendency to succumb to magical thinking at the drop of a hat. It was the chance to live that glorious
fulltime author dream life, people! No
more commuting on the freeways, no more staff meetings, no more scrutinizing of
fine print in the tech specs for spacecraft… And I did do a certain amount of
financial planning but I didn’t know what I didn’t know and I probably didn’t
want to hear it anyway by then.
I had a LOT of fun though. I truly have no regrets about the choice I made to go fulltime as an author.
Things began to look brighter for my author career right on schedule in 2015
with that big hit, Star Cruise: Marooned,
which is the book I mentioned above. My sales continued to be strong while
a lot of other people’s sank. I think I got about three extra months of great royalties before the
inevitable happened and the tidal wave hit me too. (Yes, we used to get 90 days
of sales ‘lift’ from a new release – wow, those were the days. Now it’s a week,
maybe.)
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Soooo….I began cutting back. And back. I stopped doing audio
books. Too expensive and they didn’t earn out the costs for me. I quit going to
conferences. I stopped doing the big pretty promo in magazines and on prestige romance
sites. I cut back on some of the things I’d been spending time on that were so
much fun but took away from the writing time (like being a TV blogger for
USAT/HEA, recapping episodes for several scifi shows, interviewing the actors, etc.).
“Does this pay the rent?” became my mantra. I made other adjustments in my
personal life, including downsizing my living space. Out of necessity I also got more efficient
at writing the books and had seven new releases in 2017, one of which was Aydarr, the first book in my very
successful Badari Warriors scifi romance series. (Thank you, readers!).
The end of the gold rush really forced me to become much
more serious that the writing was the thing. Plant myself in my chair and get
the words onto the paper.
I have about forty books published at the moment, released
11 in 2019 alone. I was on track to do about the same this year until we all
got hit with the pandemic. It’s proving to be hard for me to focus on writing
in this stressful time, although I am managing about 1K a day on the new book.
Thank goodness for the extensive backlist.
Amazon accounts for about 85% of my sales, although I
remained ‘wide’, keeping my books at all the major ebook sellers, versus going
into KU. I personally don’t like having all my eggs in one basket. Your mileage
may vary. Amazon pays royalties every month, which does amazing things for me
paying my bills, and the amount is from the sales 60 days ago. I check my dashboard
every single day and monitor my royalties closely, so I can budget ahead and
know pretty much what I’ll have to work with in two months’ time. It's a rolling balancing act.
Household expenses and bills come first, then the cost of
the books. I set aside a fixed amount every month in the budget to cover
certain book-related expenses. When I was writing on the 9 to 11 new books a
year schedule, I knew what the monthly book-related income and expenses were going to be pretty
reliably. Right now sales are down and since I’m not turning out books as rapidly (which
could be a self-perpetuating loop because readers want new books but pandemic
happening and my Muse is struggling…) it’s balanced out, although I am
continuing to commission book covers. I know what my next few books will be and
it helps incentivize me to write if I already have a gorgeous cover from Fiona
Jayde to stare at.
My biggest expense is editing, followed by covers, with the
formatting third. I’m not techy and can’t do my own formatting. I use the
wonderful Formatting Fairies who work for Marie Force and they’re very calming
to my anxiety and so helpful in general! Worth every penny.
(My high powered CPA is a once a year expense and I’m
thrilled to pay that fee because I can sleep at night thanks to her, with no
nightmares about the IRS.)
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I’m doing very little paid promo right now. I did just put
my Badari box set on sale and paid for some promo this month in connection with
that, plus generous author friends helped spread the word. The SFR community is
a really good place to be, pretty supportive of each other.
I have a newsletter and a blog. I’m active on social media
and in various author and reader groups for my genre. I write about scifi
romance for several national outlets (USAT/HEA sadly is no more.) I don’t get
paid for those posts, which I know many people say is a no-go but I feel the
exposure to potential readers in the SFR genre is definitely worth the time I
put in. You never know what other opportunity may arise because of a post going viral. And a big part of my efforts is always spreading the word about the
entire SFR genre. I believe the more readers we have for our SFR novels, the
better it will be for all of us who write them. Romance readers are wonderfully voracious!
I have a strategic plan, which I’ve been working to since
2015. I update it once a year and then review it every quarter and make changes
as needed. It’s an important tool for me to stay flexible and to watch out for
changes that I need to make in my thinking and my author activities to respond
to the industry itself. It's the opposite of magical thinking but reassuring in its own way and makes me feel more in control. I feel like I'm in a steady state right now as far as income and outgo but I need to get back to regular new releases pretty quickly and I'm counting on the readers to want more books in my various series.
The writing is the writing, thank goodness. Once I sit down
and focus, the words flow and the stories tell themselves to me. If I can just
keep myself from spending too much time staring in bug eyed disbelief at the news
or going down social media rabbit holes – or binge watching TV shows and movies
– I’ll be okay.
Always assuming the readers continue to enjoy the stories I
offer!
