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Originally Posted by pwalker8
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.
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You may be thinking more of best selling authors--those who have one or more books that made various best selling lists with their "first" printing and sold enough to have a second or third print.
From AC Crispin's blog:
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Whereas Joan Midlister, who’s got several books under her belt but has never quite stepped over the line into mass popularity, is a much too well-known quantity. Perhaps her books sell steadily but not in spectacular numbers. Perhaps her readership is slowly dwindling. Either way, Joan Midlister is constantly in peril of getting the heave-ho from her publisher--which means there’s now a slot for A. Newbie.
(This is the real crapshoot, folks. It’s no more difficult these days to get a first novel published than it ever has been. What’s hard is to sustain a career.)
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From David B Coe:
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I bring this up because lately I have been feeling deeply frustrated by this business and my precarious-as-always place in it. I’m a mid-lister. I’m not one of fantasy/science fiction’s big names. I’m too old to be an up-and-comer, still too inexperienced to be considered an old master. My books don’t debut on bestseller lists, and believe me when I tell you that I don’t make a lot of money doing this. I have a kid who’s about to start college and another who’s about to start high school, and I am feeling that lack of earning power more acutely than ever. I’ve just had a great big, milestone, mortality-reminding birthday, and I am all too aware that my window of opportunity for breaking into the ranks of big-name, bestselling authors is starting to close.
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Some have day jobs, some don't. Most midlisters are not making a lot of money and that means the money that comes in later isn't much either. Many midlisters feel enormous pressure to get to best seller or get dropped (and they do get dropped. They sometimes have to write under a different name to try and establish a better sales record.)
As they say: It's a tough market--and even making it to the best seller list once is no guarantee. To make an income--any kind of income--you have to continue to be visible, continue to sell books and find ways to stay in front of the audience. Just "being in print" or still available helps--but it doesn't necessarily mean an author's books will sell.