Post your career goals

[Novelist1982]

Someone has to be very motivated to get books published and try to actually become known.

I mean, I got a Bachelor's Degree in Media Communications from a University. I work as a Merchandise Supervisor and make enough to survive and save up money (watching my spending on DVDs, video games, books, etc.)

But I will not realistically expect to quit my day job for writing (for decades at least). It sucks to fathom, but unknown authors do not have an easy path. Even if I got a book on the market and would get 10% on royalties (which normally it is less), I would never make enough to quit my job.

If a book sold for $6, and I would get 10% off each sale, that only equals 60 cents from each book sold.

Small publishing companies expect no greater than 1000 copies of a new book to sell in the first year on the market. So the most money I could hope for would be $600 for the year before tax.

Larger publishing companies expect no greater than 5000 copies of a new book to sell in the first year on the market. So the most money I could hope for would be $3000 for the year before tax.

That's kind of depressing, really.

So, the plan is to crank out two to three books a year and start getting them published with great publishing companies. Even then, if sales are weak, the company would stop publishing a book.

I have one book that had been published (and it cost me more to print it than I made off royalties so far, dang company with no advertising). I have another book being represented by an agent, and a third book I will get represented soon.

I am beginning to write an epic science-fiction novel, expected to be around 250-300 pages long. The last two books I wrote were around 122 pages long and took three to four months to write. So, this epic novel will at least take seven months to get right. I would put all my money on this one if it turns out the way I plan for it to be. It will be awesome to say the least.

The only way I could quit my day job and focus on my writing would be to have my two recent books get on the market and sell thousands of copies, and for this epic novel I am working on to become a bestseller with the New York Times and within a few years from publication get me a movie deal (which normally pays an author at least $10 Thousand bucks, plus highly increases the sales of the book.) I also have a spin off set of prequels planned.