Can You Make a Living Writing Fiction?

That's a good question, isn't it? I had already written this post before I saw one of those ads on Google titled, 'Self-Published authors are poor and can't sell their books.' Quite the eye-catcher, isn't it? Naturally, I read the article, and it was basically confirmation bias for people who believe the myths of publishing, namely that most self-published authors write garbage, and most of them are poor. Well, some of them are, sure. I know I'm not making much money yet, but I've only just started. And the article, as brief as it is, is written from the point-of-view of someone who is entrenched in the traditional publishing establishment.

So, can you make a living writing fiction? Most people think you can't, unless you're one of those huge superstar writers like Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, or maybe James Patterson. Maybe, if you get lucky, you'll write something that will get picked up and turned into a world-famous TV series (Hello, Mr. Martin!) But the truth is, it's very possible to make a decent living as a writer, if you go to independent publishing.

That's right, indy publishing, where you won't see your name on the New York Times Bestseller list any time soon, or see your book in the triple-digit rank on Amazon. And this, despite the claims in the article I mentioned.

The reason? Passive income.

I published my first book, Final Exam, in early January. It didn't cost me anything to publish it, not one red cent. But I make a little bit of money on every copy I sell. Not a lot at the moment, it's true; it's set at an introductory price at the moment. But here's the thing: I can leave it up on Amazon for a year without touching it, and I'll still make money from it. In fact, I could leave it there for the next half-century and still make money from every copy I sell.

What does that mean, long-term? It's simple, really. Let's work the numbers. Right now, my third book, Chronicles of Meterra: Arrival, is priced at the low rate of $3.99. On Amazon, I make 70% of that with every copy I sell. Let's say, for argument's sake, that I sell an average of one copy a day for a year. That doesn't sound like much, does it? 365 copies. Whoopee.

But on every one of those copies, I make $2.79. That works out to just over $1000 in royalties for the year. Again, it doesn't sound like much.

But what happens next year, when I sell another 365 copies? I'm going to make that $1000 again from this book. And that's just one book. As I said in an earlier post, my goal is to publish twenty books this year. If I sell them all at that average price, and sell one copy per book per day, that's going to be $20,000 a year for those books. Now we're seeing some real cash.

But what else is going to happen next year? Because I'm not going to sit back and bask in the glory of having published twenty books. I'm not retiring; I'm going to keep on publishing. So, every time I put another book out, that passive income has the potential to grow. If I made even $500 a year per book, in three years of publishing 20 books a year, I'm up to $30,000 of passive income.

And here's the really nice part of this: There are people actually doing this right now, indy publishers who are quietly putting out a dozen or more high-quality books every year. They aren't making tremendous sales, and you'll never see them on Oprah, but they're collecting some real coin from their efforts. All for sitting down at a computer and telling new stories.

So, yes, it's possible to make money writing stories. It's not a 'get-rich-quick' scheme, and you still have to work at improving your skills. I'm still learning, and I'll continue learning until the day I die. But I'm going to have a lot of fun doing it.

And frankly, I can't think of a better way to spend my working time than coming up with entertaining stories.

My second murder mystery, The Missing Magnate, is also available on Amazon; check it out!