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I certainly seem to have hit a nerve.
Minimum wage in the US is $7.25. If you worked 40 hours a week for 50 weeks, you'd earn $14,500. $26,000 in a year doesn't sound so much. (I pulled $45 W-2P on my last programming contract. W-2P means the company pays your matching Social Security. Hmm...Do writers pay Social Security?)
If you want to take a vow of poverty and become a writer, be my guest. The lesson here is unless your work becomes a blockbuster, you will live a life of poverty. That has always be the lot of the artist.
The question at hand is - are you better off getting 100% of a tiny pool, or a few percent of a much larger pool. Steve Jordan here took the 100% percent route. Lynn Viehl chose the latter route. I am merely showing the economic difference. Whose "long tail" will earn more, over a lifetime, I cannot say.
As to indie musicians. There's been a nearly endless stream of musicians with the "big record contract" who find out that they have to make a record that meets the approval of the big label, using the big label's studios, at the big studio's prices, and at the end end up owing more money to the studio than they started with...
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