I had a conversation with my hubs a few nights ago about writer contracts and royalties. I was doing some research and he was wondering about what a writer gets paid. When I told him I thought royalties were around 10% on list price (and if I'm wrong, please let me know), what he said to me was,
It's not worth it.
So I said, but it's not about the money to me.
He went on to argue about how he wasn't talking about the number of copies sold because he knows that isn't usually a whole lot. He was saying that if 10% is all an author gets in the first place, then it's NOT WORTH IT.
My reply: Good thing you're not doing it then.
I've thought about it this entire week. This is the first time I've really felt like an "artist." The money has never mattered to me. I don't write because I expect to make a lot of money. I write because I love it. I don't want to get published for the money. I want to get published so that I can BE a writer. So that other people will read and hopefully love my work like I do. And of course there's that dream of walking by a bookstore and seeing MY BOOK on the shelves.
I'm lucky because I'm not the breadwinner in my house. I don't need to earn a lot of money for us to survive, therefore, writing is a perfectly acceptable career-choice for me. My husband looks at it like a math problem: Calculate the number of hours spent researching/writing/revising/etc and then calculate what you might make per book and... yeah, I'm sure the numbers wouldn't come out all that great. If you put it that way, maybe it's not worth it. But I love to write. I would do it no matter what. I keep doing it, despite the rejections, despite the busy-ness of life, despite the occasional (sometimes more frequent) feelings of suckitude. I will always write because it makes me happy. And for that reason alone, it's WORTH IT.
It's not worth it.
So I said, but it's not about the money to me.
He went on to argue about how he wasn't talking about the number of copies sold because he knows that isn't usually a whole lot. He was saying that if 10% is all an author gets in the first place, then it's NOT WORTH IT.
My reply: Good thing you're not doing it then.
I'm lucky because I'm not the breadwinner in my house. I don't need to earn a lot of money for us to survive, therefore, writing is a perfectly acceptable career-choice for me. My husband looks at it like a math problem: Calculate the number of hours spent researching/writing/revising/etc and then calculate what you might make per book and... yeah, I'm sure the numbers wouldn't come out all that great. If you put it that way, maybe it's not worth it. But I love to write. I would do it no matter what. I keep doing it, despite the rejections, despite the busy-ness of life, despite the occasional (sometimes more frequent) feelings of suckitude. I will always write because it makes me happy. And for that reason alone, it's WORTH IT.