With the end of the year, or beginning of a new one depending on how you want to look at things, approaches, I find myself re-evaluating my new career choice.
Is it playing out as I expected?
Is it paying out as I hoped it might?
Is there any real reason to keep going or should I just pull out now?
To address the first question I must first say that my expectations were rather low to begin with. I simply wanted to share my stories with others and being traditionally published seemed the best route to take. I have to say I was encouraged when my professionally edited (my money) MS caught the eye of a traditional, though small, press right away especially after hearing the odds of this happening. Excited when my debut novel was short-listed for a Bram Stoker award not over a year later and honored to be an invited guest of Nicholas Grabowsky at the 2007 World Horror Convention. I was even tickled to learn that my debut novel about a vampire and a werewolf was chosen by readers as the book club choice of the month of April 2007 at the American Christian Fiction Writers association (even though I dropped my membership a year later after learning this was as far as the ACFW would go to support non-affiliated Christian authors.)
Yes, it did seem I might actually make back the money I'd put out so far to get picked up by a traditional press. But my publisher was small and while they printed 5000 books (got them printed cheap in China) they had no marketing plan whatsoever. So far though, I'd done ALL my marketing and was just grateful to have the distribution (through Baker & Taylor.) But the small press collapsed without notice and liquidated most of their books including all of my hardback!
Because of all the work (and money. First publisher actually did very little other than printing the books) I'd put into marketing, I was able to find another traditional press rather quickly. And moved up to a mid-range publisher. This of course takes me to my second question.
Is it paying out as I hoped it might? Well since I only hoped to make enough to cover what I'd put out already, I can honestly say the answer would be no. The advances were industry standard but to date, that's the only money I've seen from either book. I understand that smaller presses pay out when they get paid which doesn't start happening until roughly 6 to 9 months after a book is "published." That's when the bookstores cough up the dough to distributors or return books they decided they didn't want after all. Perhaps money made from my second book, which of course I haven't seen yet because my publisher hasn't been paid, will be encouraging but the odds that whatever I earn will cover what I've put out are probably about as astronomical as the odds of finding a traditional press right out of the gate. So on to my third question.
Is there any real reason to keep going or should I pull out now? Hmm . . . let's see. My first book was published in 2006, second one in 2009. Both have garnished a LOT of wonderful attention but last time I checked garnishing attention doesn't exactly pay the bills now does it.
So as I venture forth into a new year with the hopes of another book coming soon I have to wonder, will I actually sell enough to justify calling writing a career?
Hmmmm . . .
