Quote:
Originally Posted by Sil_liS
If you are saying that 5% = 500 authors, that means that there are only 10k authors.
From an article from August 2011:
There is a lot of money in writing, it just depends on how many people want a slice of this pie. |
I *told* you I made up the 500 number.
The author gets one of the smallest pieces of the pie--7 to 15 percent of a book sale. The vast majority of midlist authors cannot make a living just on fiction sales. I base this on surveys and a number of midlist bloggers. It can depend on family size and circumstances, but in general, it's very difficult.
I thought making 70 percent of 2.99 might help me make the grade. Well, turns out that I would have to sell a lot more books than I do. The social security taxes on the income is 15 percent--right off the top, with nearly no expenses that can be written off of it (you can write off expenses against federal income taxes). Then there's food to buy, rent or house payment...
Just not that easy.
For a trad author that 15 percent still has to be paid--AND if they have an agent, there goes another 15 percent off the top. They are now down 30 percent of the 7 to 15 percent of a book's price...