Beyond Book Sales: Other Ways to Earn Income as an Author

 This week at the SFF Seven, we're asking about book-related income that is specifically not from book sales.

There was an asterisk to that, specifying that the question was in relation to the Authors Guild 2023 Income Survey, which I didn't read. (I have Opinions about that survey, which I won't go into.) But I assume the question comes from the survey dividing author income into book-related and not, and the person asking is wondering what the "not" might be. It's a good question because I'm a firm believer that long-term success in this fickle business relies on diversifying income streams. 

I actually have a line on my income spreadsheets that says "Other Writing Income," as opposed to the "Book Sales" line. What kind of income is that?

1. My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/JeffesCloset. This is how I offer mentoring and coaching to other writers. Plus, it's a great little community that's truly supportive and positive in a non-toxic way.
2. Other kinds of coaching. I also offer various kinds of one-on-one mentoring and coaching.
3. Workshops, presentations, and master classes. I love giving talks and I especially love it when they pay me!
4. Articles and similar nonfiction writing. Love getting paid for those, too!
5. YouTube. I have a podcast, First Cup of Coffee with Jeffe Kennedy, with enough subscribers that I earn income from the views. 

2021: A Good Year for Me

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is: "It's Been A Year: Pandemic Year 2, Vaccines, New Political Administration, has it affected your writing? Better? Worse?"

I confess, this has been a good year for me. As James discussed on Monday, it's been a huge relief to me to have sanity in the White House again. Yeah, there's a lot of political stuff that's still not where I'd like it to be, but it's so much better than it was. I feel like we're at least working to solve the problems we're facing rather than digging ourselves deeper. 

I'm really happy we got vaccinated early in the year, too. My hubs and I took the opportunity to drive to Amarillo, TX to get ours. (A four-hour drive each way.) We got our second dose by March 8. That was an amazing, once in a lifetime experience (I hope!), knowing that sheer, sweet relief of being vaccinated against COVID-19. It restored a sense of safety and wellbeing that I'd missed for pretty much exactly a year.

Also, I'm one of those who became more productive in my writing during the pandemic, largely because I wasn't traveling, I think. I talk about this a lot, but having a daily writing habit carried me through even the worst of the anxiety. That habit is the foundation that allows everything else to be stable. I know this can be aggravating to people who can't write every day for various reasons, but I'm such a huge believer in the magic of ritual and building a habit that carries you through the rough patches. Still, I say this as a writer who spent many, many years not being very productive. 

This is way better.

So, though we're only 84% of the way through the year so far (and yes, I'm counting today, since it's morning for me), I'm calling it a good year for me. In particular, I'm thrilled by this graph of my income from royalties and book sales. As you can see, 2021 has been my best income-from-writing year ever, and that's with two months to go. It also doesn't count income from other sources, like teaching workshops and author coaching. 

I'm really proud of myself for the work I put in to make this happen.

How about you all - are things looking up in your neck of the woods?

Writer Finances and the Myth that all Authors are Millionaires

When you’re start out in this crazy business you decide which publishing track is for you. 

There is:

Traditional - publishing with an established publisher (think Orbit, Tor, or Angry Robot)

Self-Publishing - publishing on your own without an established publisher

Hybrid-author - publishing both with an established publisher and independently

Sounds great! Right? Except you may, or at the very least nearly everyone you tell about your decision to be an author will, assume that means $$$.

So, how do you budget when you don’t have a clue about what you're facing? 

Very…carefully? 

I wrote my first novel in 2013, the one that earned me my Golden Heart in 2018. See that 5 year spread? There was a lot of internet searching and learning happening in that time because I knew I needed to decide what to do with the thing. 

Self-publishing in 2013-2014 had a bit of a stigma for being sub-par, but I checked it out anyway. I’m a laboratorian at heart, I can’t make big decisions without a detailed pro/con list. For information, I attended a couple small writer conferences and attended sessions targeted at traditional and self publishing. There’s so much to that that I could fill your screens for days, or you could check the archives of my fellow SFF Seven’s posts, there be goldmines there. And recently the Fantasy Inn did a great survey on self and traditional publishing, check it out here.

Jim C. Hines did a nice survey in 2010 about first novel deals and earnings. But in all the Publisher Weekly announcements there was cryptic wording on the deal amounts. Thankfully, the Nelson Literary Agency puts out an excellent newsletter and blog, a great follow if you’re in the trenches. Kristin Nelson shared deal-reporting lingo translation. 

Finally! A way to decipher those press releases and find out how much traditional authors make! 

*cue laughing*

Back in 2014-2015 I was enjoying a very successful career in the medical field and determined that the time needed to be successful at self-publishing wasn’t something I had. That left the traditional path, hybrid author really wasn’t a thing back then, and I needed even more info to formulate my ten year plan. 

You read that right, TEN YEAR PLAN. If you don’t have one, you should make one. Being an author is a long road, no matter which path you take. And planning is part of figuring out that elusive author finances.

My ten year plan was to have one book published within five years and subsequently two books per year after that which would allow me to retire from the corporate world and become a full-time author by year ten with ten books on my backlist. 

Best laid plans and all…

I still have a ten year plan, though it looks very different from what I started out with. Due to my chronic disease, I chose my health over my job and walked away from my career in 2018. Unfortunately that means my family is now single-income, my husband is absolutely wonderful in case I haven’t mentioned it recently, and my healthcare takes up about 20% of it. 

Remember the planning carefully part I mentioned above? 

Even after all that, I still have a plan. Technically I have a one year, five year, and a ten year plan, and I’m still collecting information because the most important thing I’ve learned concerning author finances is the need to be flexible. 

Flexibility is key for which ever publishing path you choose. Make goals, set timelines for yourself, and be flexible. Yes, that means flexible with your income as well. 

In the past couple of years there’s been a movement to be more transparent about author income and a number of authors have voluntarily posted about it. There’s been some shared on Twitter, sorry I can’t find the tweets to link to. And Susan Dennard, author of the Witchlanders series, did a post on author income along with her agent (scroll down to the bottom section: For the Daydreamers).

None of this is to bum you out about your future prospects. But if you’re committed to being an author for the long haul, you’ll need a plan for your finances. Otherwise you’ll end up like poor Rob…

But he always looked on the bright side, which sounds like a good idea to me! 

Are you starting out and vacillating on which publishing path you want to take? 

Real Information on Author Finances

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is again eerily timely. We're talking writer finances. How do you budget for uneven income? What’s your biggest expense?

With so many people struggling financially due to the #COVID19 shutdowns, managing money is heavy on many people's minds. It's odd to find myself well-equipped to deal with this because - as a full-time writer with no other income and with a non-salaried spouse who does not provide me with health insurance - I am always juggling the financial balls.

Though many people regard writers as wealthy, most are not. There's a huge spectrum of author incomes, from approaching zero to multi-millions. Various groups use surveys and data-mining to estimate median author incomes - eliciting huge arguments, too - but the short answer is that how much an author makes varies. And it doesn't just vary from author to author, but it varies over an author's career. There are good years and bad, feast and famine, upward trends and downward ones. Even within the course of a year, that income varies.

The bottom line is, if you're relying on writing income to pay the bills, then budgeting is a major challenge. There is no salary, so the standard method of budgeting - knowing your monthly income and keeping expenses below that number - doesn't work. So, what does work?

The simplest and lowest-risk method: many authors who write full time have a stable source of income that does not come from writing - a retirement annuity or a spouse's salary. In this scenario, budgeting can be done according to the reliable income, with income from writing counting as "gravy." Now, the reliable income budget can be pretty bare bones, meaning the gravy is pretty important, but this also allows for a percentage of writing income to go back into the business.

I'd love to be doing it this way! However, I'm not. My husband retired early from his state job, so while he does have a monthly stipend, there's not much left after his health insurance premium. (I self-insure through the ACA.) He's also non-salaried, so his income fluctuates wildly.

So, how do I handle budgeting when in some months I receive 15% of my annual income and in others 2%? (Those are my 2019 numbers.)

Very carefully?

What I'd love to be able to do is budget annually. I'd love to set aside a year's worth of fixed expenses - mortgage, utilities, groceries, etc. (which are, by the way, my biggest expenses) - and pay those ahead or out of an account set aside for that purpose. I've come pretty close to being able to do that, but not as consistently as I'd like. If I ever received good-sized advance - like more than $100K - I'd set it aside for that.

What I usually can do is budget quarterly. At any given time, I like to have enough money to cover projected expenses for the ensuing three months. That way, if what we have in hand looks like it'll dip, I have a few months to try to supplement the income.

One thing that helps hugely with stabilizing income is self-publishing. While an author still can't control sales, the retail platforms pay monthly, which really helps to even out the income. Diversifying income streams as much as possible helps, too.

Of course, keeping expenses low is ideal, but that's true of any budget. So is earning a Whole Bunch of Money!

In the meantime, we do our best to make the ever-shifting ends meet.

Why Being an Author Is the Best Job I've Ever Had

This little cactus is growing - and blooming away! - beneath the shelter of this much larger paddle cactus. I think of this, not as hiding its light under a bushel, but welcoming the sheltering strength of a friend. Go, little cactus, go!

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is our favorite part and least favorite part of being an author.

I'm having a hard time picking my favorite part. Really, being an author is an amazing job. Easily the most fun, most rewarding job I've ever had. (And I've had a few, including two previous substantial career paths.) How do I love it? Let me count the ways!

1. I get to create for a living. Spending my days weaving stories the way I want them to be is unlike anything else. The only conference calls I have are with people talking about my favorite subject: me and my work. I don't have to attend meetings or work with other people unless I choose to.  
2. I am a source that creates money for other people. By writing my books and stories, I generate income that then generates money for others. From my assistant, to editors, to cover designers, to my website designer, even to retailers like Amazon, Smashwords, and Kobo - they all have income because of what I create. That's powerful stuff.
3. I get to make my favorite authors be my friends. This is really the best perk, that I can stalk reach out to people who write books I love and they become my friends. My twelve-year-old self still has little fan girl meltdowns over it.
4. I'm creating a source of long term income. The super cool thing about writing books is the money they generate continues to come in, for the most part quite regularly, forever. Especially now that "out of print" is no longer an issue. My books will continue to generate income for my heirs. My first published novella, which has been out for over ten years, still bring in about $100/month. Not a fortune, sure, but it all adds up.
5. I'm creating something that will outlive me. Long after I'm gone, my books will still exist. Will I care? Well, no, but while I live I feel good about giving something lasting to the world.

What is my least favorite part then? An easy answer there: the fluctuating income. I self-insure, have no employer-bestowed benefits, no guaranteed check every month. It makes budgeting impossible, not knowing how much money will come in at any given time. Ideally, I'd make enough - hit the literary jackpot as some do - and have a big financial cushion. If I could budget a year in advance, that would be amazing. Otherwise I'm at the mercy of a fluctuating marketplace. 

Small price to pay, however, for the awesomeness of the job!