Quote:
Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks
I'd venture to guess that most midlisters don't really consider it a "decent" revenue stream. It's a revenue stream, but many midlisters have day jobs and continue to have them even when they have a backlist. Many midlisters have a second income stream from a spouse as well. Decent is nice, but the amount of money authors make is vastly overestimated.
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Decent as in some extra bucks in your pocket on a regular basis. My guitar teacher use to get royalty checks every quarter for various recording work he did. No it didn't let him go out and buy a new car every year, but it generally was the difference between living paycheck to paycheck and having a bit of a cushion.
Of course, you get into the debate of who a midlister is as well. I tend to think that a midlister is someone who sells enough books that they don't need a day job, but not enough to be set for life. If you never sold all that many copies on the first printing, odds are pretty good that you aren't going to sell many backlist books. Authors who write 3 or 4 books, but none of them sell well aren't really what I'm talking about.