It is the first
week in September and summer holidays are over. I feel a kind of excitement as
I wave my wife off to work. She still has a job. I don’t. Unless you call writing
a job. Someone once said that opinions are like assholes-everybody has one. That
is probably the reason why it is so hard to make a living by writing-everybody
wants to do it. Everybody wants an audience. Everybody wants to be heard.
Everybody would like to leave behind some mark of their existence such as a
monument, a dynasty or a book.
Of those three possibilities
a book is easiest.
My first hard copy book,
Smuggler’s Blues, is selling reasonably well. In Canada that means about 8,000 books
over several years. My take is about a buck and a half a book. No one’s getting
rich here. My second novel, Operation Payback, has been released as an e-book.
It’s a bit soon to judge but I think I have reeled in about ten dollars so far.
So much for all the get rich stories about e-publishing. If you want to make
real money forget writing and become a plumber. Cynical? Perhaps so but then many
famous authors are cynical. I am of mixed feelings about continuing as a
writer. It is nice to be able to boast about being a published author but the
reality is most of us can earn substantially more money in any other field of
business. Perhaps I will continue to write on a part time basis while I work at
a money-paying job elsewhere. I might even give a try at a third book.
Meanwhile my advice to aspiring authors is this. Keep writing-but don’t give up
your day jobs.
