A writer-killing myth is that you can’t make any money at fiction. In a step-by-step discussion, bestselling fiction writer Dean Wesley Smith shows you how wrong that myth really is and how to get to your dream of writing fiction for a living.
KILLING THE SACRED COWS
OF PUBLISHING
Myth: You Can’t Make Any Money
Writing Fiction
Dean Wesley Smith
Copyright 2010 by Dean Wesley Smith
Published by WMG Publishing
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Myth: You Can’t Make Any Money
Writing Fiction
This myth "You can't make a living writing fiction" is so clearly hogwash, I shouldn't have to even talk about it in this series. All anyone has to do is look at a certain fantasy writer in England being richer than the Queen. Or look at the number of fiction writers on the Forbes List every year. But, alas, new writers hear this myth all the time, constantly, from every direction, and sometimes from longer term professional writers.
So, it's worth a discussion. It shouldn't be a myth at all, but it is.
First up, where does this myth come from?
We have all seen the stupid studies that an "average" fiction writer makes something like $2,345 per year. And, of course, people look at that and think "Oh, my, no one can make any money writing fiction." Of course, those who say that don't know how studies are taken, or what a number like that really means.
Most of the big studies ask every person who has a dream of someday writing a novel. The writers asked maybe have finished a few short stories, maybe even mailed a couple. They go to a writer's group regularly, and call themselves writers, because they are in the early days of learning their craft. They make no money. There are hundreds of thousands of this type of writer, all in the early days of learning. Then, of course there are the writers who will never sell, a person with the best intentions, but no real drive to actually sell anything. Or if they do sell, it's to a small press that pays in copies or worse yet these days, they give their story away free to an online press and don't even get a copy.
The studies ask all those writers how much they make, and the answer is almost always zero. Millions of "nothing" answers.
Then these studies include writers in organizations like SFWA, who lets a writer with three sales in the door. And Romance Writers, which has a huge chunk of membership that has never made a sale. All these thousands and thousands of unpublished or slightly published writers are included.