![[Logo]](/images/101ReasonsLogo.png "101 Reasons to Stop Writing")
Let’s consider your writing career through the lens of The Ninety Percent Rule.
From the numbers on the NaNoWriMo FAQ, around 15% of Nano’s actually finish the first draft of their 175-page novella. But that’s a flawed sample – participation in NaNoWriMo implies you think you’re capable of writing high five figures of garbage in 30 days. Apparently 85% of people who think they can do this, discover they can’t.
Estimates of the number of slushpile manuscripts that survive to publication are usually less than 1 in 1000 (0.1%). Even allowing for the possibility most unpublished writers submit more than one novel in their lifetime, more than 99% will never make it.
“Earning out” is when royalties due on the number of copies sold exceeds the advance payment. You may already know this, but it doesn’t matter because it will almost certainly never happen to you. Which sucks every which way, because according to one unscientific survey, the average fiction advance is (still) around $5-10,000.
One writer in a thousand makes enough money to pay for their printer ink.
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It’s no better in the nonfiction world. The niche I’m in (books about software) rarely pays enough in an advance to make it worthwhile, and the royalties — always a percentage of net, not gross — seldom approach the break-even point.
The only way I can earn money is by doing those books on a work-for-hire basis, getting a slightly bigger payment up front and foregoing the royalties. In the software biz this is sensible since the shelf life of version-dependent books is limited.
The people who have visions of writing a book, getting it published, and sitting back in comfort while the royalties roll in are living in a fantasy land.
Publishers love that fantasy. It allows them to write the contracts that they do.
Man, that’s tough. You should immediately give up this notion of a writing career. You must be very despondent at this point. Even if you have had a little taste of success, it may be that you will never have another. Chin up, though, Hamilton James and Bruce is looking for a few good underwriters. There is a future for you, just not the one you want.
You clearly haven’t read my other blog, 101 Reasons to Stop Working in Insurance.
“One writer in a thousand makes enough money to pay for their printer ink.”
Do the stats improve if we refill our own cartridges?
“Do the stats improve if we refill our own cartridges?”
Yes, if such frugality carries over to your writing, and not to the way you package your queries.
Remember, edit twice, and print your MS on Letter Quality.