Authors
The Math of Writing Full-Time
The Authors Guild's 2018 survey put median writing-related income at $6,080 — the full-time question is arithmetic before it is courage.
Authors
Coverage of authorship as work: debut experiences, the difficult second book, income across advances, royalties, translation and speaking, and the arithmetic of writing full time. Figures are reported rather than estimated. Useful for writers planning a decade rather than a single manuscript.
Authors
How Long Debut Novels Take to Write
Donna Tartt's debut took nearly a decade; Sally Rooney's first draft took a few months. The honest range is enormous — and the useful question is what the years are spent on.
Authors
What Debut Book Publicity Actually Involves
The trade journals need finished pages three to four months before publication — everything a debut does for their book works backward from dates like that.
Authors
How Authors Earn Beyond the Advance
The advance is only the opening payment on a book that can keep billing for decades — if the writer knows which rights are whose.
Authors
The Second Novel Problem
A debut gets years to become itself; a second book is usually contracted on a two-year clock — and the writers who survive book two plan for that difference before they sign.