Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemurion
Not really; 1000 words a day, Monday to Friday with two weeks off a year gets you 250,000 words. The average writer can knock that off in 2-3 hours or less, giving you 3 novels of 80,000 words in a year.
Now the quality may vary depending on the writer, but that's a pretty leisurely production rate for someone doing nothing but writing fiction.
|
Truly prolific writers can do a book a month. Or quicker.
Most full-time professionals can easily do 4-6. The main limitation has generally been publishers' schedules and policies, which is why many tradpub authors work with more than one publisher and/or indiepub on the side.
So far, it looks like a lot of indie authors start quitting their day job when they get their backlist to 10 books or so: at that point 5 copies per book per day gets them to $30k or so a year. Many get there with less titles. Many never get there. It really depends on talent, but 1800 copies is a lot lower bar than the 3000 copies needed to earn out a typical $4k advance. A writer good enough to sell 3000 copies per book can go full-time with as few as four titles in their catalog.
It's a cottage industry, quietly making decent money under the radar.