Do You Really Have What it Takes?

[The Dark One]

Lucky me, I love solitude.



That implies that there's a maximum of about 7,000 people worldwide who make a living writing novels. I think the number is probably significantly higher than that.

I did say a decent living. In fact, 7,000 is probably very accurate.

In Australia, I reckon there'd be maybe a hundred writers making a decent living, and Australia is (I think) the 13th biggest economy in the world.

Obviously there're plenty of writers making money (including me) but nowhere near enough to live on.

 

[Zero Angel]

I have heard that it is easier to become a professional athlete than a successful author.

I'm going to keep writing and producing until I get some of that magick bakery action mentioned in the article Steerpike linked and hope that I can quit my day job (but keep my online jobs =P)

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

I have heard that it is easier to become a professional athlete than a successful author.

Hm, really? Maybe back in the days of publisher-gatekeepers controlling everything that was true; but now, with hard work (and talent and luck) you can self-publish your way to success.

But with athletics, it's virtually impossible to... self-athletize (wtf, am I just making up words now?) since you've got to get involved in some kind of existing league. Plus there's the fact that in virtually all athletic arenas, you have a very limited time to succeed before your body gets old and decrepit. Writing can be done for a far longer period. There's also the fact that in athletics, you have to defeat someone else; in writing, you just need to find a niche.

I mean, they're both really difficult, I just think that writing is probably a marginally easier path to success than athletics.

 

[Zero Angel]

Yeah, I don't really know which I agree with, but I believe the source of that factoid was the following:

Amazon.com: Dan Poynter's Self-Publishing Manual: How to Write, Print and Sell Your Own Book (9781568601427): Dan Poynter: Books

...although I don't remember it having that cover...

 

[Chilari]

Hey Phil I'd just like to say thanks for posting this pep talk. It's helped me get my creative juices flowing again.

 

[The Dark One]

Hm, really? Maybe back in the days of publisher-gatekeepers controlling everything that was true; but now, with hard work (and talent and luck) you can self-publish your way to success.

But with athletics, it's virtually impossible to... self-athletize (wtf, am I just making up words now?) since you've got to get involved in some kind of existing league. Plus there's the fact that in virtually all athletic arenas, you have a very limited time to succeed before your body gets old and decrepit. Writing can be done for a far longer period. There's also the fact that in athletics, you have to defeat someone else; in writing, you just need to find a niche.

I mean, they're both really difficult, I just think that writing is probably a marginally easier path to success than athletics.

You're kidding!

If you accept that my (our) estimate of 7000 people making a decent living from writing (novels) is more or less in the ballpark, that is orders of magnitude less than those who make their living as athletes.

For a start we'll define 'decent' - let's just say it means that writing is your main source of income (and that you live independently of the support of parents or working spouses). If you then estimate the number of people making their living from playing (say) football in (say) England, you've got about 90 league clubs with an average of say 30 footballers each (it's probably more but I'm being conservative). That's 2,700 footballers in one sport in one country. Across the planet, there would be (I guarantee) hundreds of thousands making their living from professional sport.

Then let's look at the comparative skill sets. If you have reasonable co-ordination and a fair bit of determination, you can make it in lots of sports. You just need to put the time in and be competitive (or have competitive parents).

With writing, it doesn't matter how talented you are, how determined you are, there are certain conditions that must be in place to make you successful...and no-one can tell you what they are except in retrospect.

The only factor that can enhance your prospects of success in writing which will not work in sport is money. Publishers can buy success for crap writers but no amount of money can make you a better footballer.

 

[Akahige]

I suppose for my part, I won't know whether I have what it takes until I have or haven't had some success with writing. Even so, I do enjoy it for its own sake, so that takes the pressure off considerably.

 

[CupofJoe]

I work day by day with a man who is an international recording and performing artist. He has friends, and is played, all over the world and he only ever records what he wants, how he wants, as he wants.
He told me a story about Gary Numan [80s pop star in the UK] who when asked what it was like to sell 2 million albums replied... now I know that 53 million people hate me.
My friend's only advice to me was “Do what you want, not what people tell you will sell”.
I'm not a writer because I want fame and fortune [and yes I said I was a writer! ].
I want to write to see if I can. I want to be proud of every word even if no one else likes it.
I don't really care if I “have what it takes”... who gets to decide?

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

You're kidding!

If you accept that my (our) estimate of 7000 people making a decent living from writing (novels) is more or less in the ballpark, that is orders of magnitude less than those who make their living as athletes.

I don't accept that number. In my opinion it's probably off by at least an order of magnitude.

 

[danr62]

An order of magnitude? Is that an extra zero? A few hundred? 10% of the original estimate?

 

[Steerpike]

An order of magnitude? Is that an extra zero? A few hundred? 10% of the original estimate?

It generally scales by a power of ten. So an order of magnitude greater than 7000 would be 70,000.

So to increase by one order of magnitude, multiply by ten. By two orders of magnitude, multiply by 10^2. By n orders of magnitude, by 10^n.

 

[The Dark One]

I don't accept that number. In my opinion it's probably off by at least an order of magnitude.

So, presuming you don't mean 700, you reckon there are at least 70,000 novelists in the world making a decent living?

How many titles do you reckon there are in the average bookshop? There's no way every writer with a book in the shops (including me) is making a decent living.

 

[Chilari]

How many authors do you think are in all bookshops, online and offline, in the world? You might not get many books by British authors in American shops and vice versa, but that doesn't mean they're not making a decent living from sales in their own country and online. A large bookshop might contain works by 5,000 authors but that doesn't mean only those authors are making a living; admittedly neither does it guaruntee that all of those authors are making a decent living from writing, but across the globe, the sheer number of books in hundreds of languages and countries must add up to well over 7000 authors making a decent living.

And it depends on how you define "decent living". I would say a decent living would be able to support yourself on the income from writing and writing-related things alone - books sales, talks, articles about writing, workshops etc. How much money you need for that depends on where you live and how you live. I would say for me, personally, at this moment if I was earning £25k a year from writing, that'd be a decent living (it's more than I'm earning now). I live in a rural town a long way from London so £25k is enough to cover rent for a two bedroom flat, my car costs, taxes, bills and food with a little on the side for modest holidays or emergencies. £25 a year at £2 a sale (assuming I'm selling for £2.99 on Amazon in ebook format and getting 70%) is 12,500 sales a year. I'd certainly call those number successful. Not life changing, sure, if you're looking for numbers of authors who are positively rich from their craft it's certainly a smaller number - 7000 may not be far out for a guess - but making a living isn't the same as being rich from it.

 

[The Dark One]

If you look back over my earlier post, you'll see I defined 'decent' as meaning making their living solely from writing. I didn't say 'rich'. In all honesty, I wouldn't have a clue how many make their living solely from writing novels around the world but I do know it's less than a hundred in Australia...which despite having a small population (22 mill) is an incredibly rich country where everyone can afford to buy books. (There's a lot more than that making some money from writing novels in Australia, but the vast majority of Australian writers need day jobs.) Therefore, if you consider the ratio of 100 out 22 mill and apply it to the rest of the world, it's one full time author for every 220,000 people - or approx 4.5 per million. That brings the total down to 4,500 authors making a decent living throughout the entire world.

I don't mean to be discouraging...

It's the hardest gig there is. Something to be proud of really.

 

[Steerpike]

A post by John Scalzi on the subject generally, as it relates to science fiction authors. Also some interesting commentary at the bottom:

The Full-Time SF Novelist: Probably Not as Endangered as You Think

 

[Alva]

As "Graylorne" already mentioned, in the case of non-English minor languages the markets are even more restricted and the amount of professional full-time writers is pretty much nonexistent at best. I know many Finnish people (not necessarily professionals) who nowadays choose to write in English, usually because they find it easier to share their work that way. Personally I enjoy foreign languages as well but to be honest with myself I'm most attracted towards writing in my native language. (Plus, English vocabulary lacks some words I regard as essential!

Well, although English on the other hand includes some formidable proverbs and ways of expressing things. And hmm, words as well. ; )

I'm no professional writer myself and I'm happy with it at the time being. I study literature and I love writing and I love language but I don't even want to become a full-time author. Actually I'd prefer to have a career that has little to do with actual writing. With language, yes (I'm interested in neuroscience among many other things), but not with the process of writing down stories. After one year off I know I can't concentrate on writing (even fiction) when I have too much free time in my hands. I simply need some kind of a job that keeps me busy day after day thinking something else than plots and characters and mood. After all, writing is my way to gather my thoughts, to simply take it easy and relax. Have time of my own. I take my writing very seriously but I'd only hurt myself and poison my passion if I attempted to cope with the constant stress over income, page counts and deadlines. ": )

And at times it seems I write my best prose when I'm feeling stressed on the other areas of life.

 

[Jabrosky]

Sometimes I question whether I have what it takes to write a single novel, let alone make a whole living off novel-writing. I wonder if the problem lies in a lack of confidence deep down; whenever I write, I worry that I'm going to produce crap that reviewers will tear apart and tell me to rewrite over and over again. Often I see the fundamental flaws in my premises even before I finish the stories, leading me to discontinue them. I wish I could delude myself into overestimating my stories' quality so I could finish them...but then that would only make me even more defensive when someone tears the stories apart.

 

[Penpilot]

Sometimes I question whether I have what it takes to write a single novel, let alone make a whole living off novel-writing. I wonder if the problem lies in a lack of confidence deep down; whenever I write, I worry that I'm going to produce crap that reviewers will tear apart and tell me to rewrite over and over again. Often I see the fundamental flaws in my premises even before I finish the stories, leading me to discontinue them. I wish I could delude myself into overestimating my stories' quality so I could finish them...but then that would only make me even more defensive when someone tears the stories apart.

When I finish a story, it always has flaws, some of them are huge. But a part of writing is learning how to first identify those flaws, which it seems you can, and second, figure out how to fix them.

Don't worry about producing crap or worry that someone else is going to tear something apart. Why? Because it will happen. Just accept and learn from it. Learn to judge the quality of the critique. Someone who tears your story apart may be doing you a big favor if they're spot on and sincere. They've just told you how to fix your story. On the flipside, great praise is worthless if it's insincere. They're telling you a turd is a piece of chocolate.

The key thing to start with is set a goal for what you want to achieve with the story and strive for that. You may fall short but it doesn't matter. Edit it to the best of your ability and move on. Try again with a different story and repeat. If you keep doing this you'll get better. You'll develop more skills and the stories that end up on paper will get closer and closer to the stories you envision in your head.

One key thing you have that I think is important to all writers is you don't delude yourself. You can see and acknowledge the flaws in your work. Never think the flaws in your work are flaws in yourself. I've met writers who overestimate the quality of what they write, and I know if I take a poke at it they'll get all defensive lock up. I don't think that's a good thing if you want to get better.

If what you write is sh!@, embrace it as the best you could do at that moment. Then, take it as a challenge to make your next story a little better. If that story is still sh!@, write another one and try to make that a little better. Repeat enough times, things will reach a point where they stop being sh!@.

The question is are you willing to spread a thousand acres of sh!@ around so you can some day grow a field of roses?

 

[Graylorne]

One of our top fantasy writers (published with a major company) sold 9000 in total... of a trilogy.

A first edition at a major Dutch publisher with a fantasy section is 2000 - 3000 (I'm with an indy publisher, not even near that number).

When you walk into a bookstore, there are no Dutch writers in stock. Apart from a few stores who are really in the genre. The only names one sees regularly are George Michael, Rowling, Paolini, Twilight (YA dept.), Tolkien ofc, John Flanagan's Ranger's Apprentice (YA dept.), German writers like Bernhard Hennen and Markus Heitz. All other titles are incidents.

The books department of a large Dutch chain of stores doesn't even sell sf&f any more, exept for the occasional Hit, of course.

The on-line stores like bol.com sell everything, but regular? Nope.

No, we're not the best market in the world for genre.

It's not for fun only (although that counts too) that I'm self-translating my works

 

[The Dark One]

I was in Holland last year and loved it to bits.

Has anyone cornered the market in a Dutch flavoured spin on SF&F? There was some decades ago a pretty good Danish writer who was big and proud about his heritage...Poul Anderson perhaps?