One of five hundred
It used to be much harder to make a living as a novelist
A short while ago I was reading Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons. Didn't enjoy it much, but that's not the point. Obviously, he's now a very successful author, given the success of books like The Terror (which I did like), Hyperion (which I haven’t read), and so on.
But when Simmons was writing this in the 1970s, he was just starting out. In the introduction to the 50th anniversary edition, he talks a lot about the experience of being a novice writer and how terrifying it is trying to get a publisher, and trying to make a living while you're writing the book.
It took him several years to write Carrion Comfort. He did get a publisher’s advance (and there's a whole bunch of horror stories around that too), but as he notes, it wasn't nearly enough to cover his living expenses for the time it took him to write and edit the book. He had to have a second job just to make ends meet and to afford the luxury of being an aspiring writer.
However the bit that really struck me was his throwaway comment that in the mid-1970s there were fewer than five hundred people in America making a full-time living out of writing fiction. You can probably name a significant number of them: off the top of my head, Stephen King, Harold Robbins, James Michener, Jackie Collins, Philip Roth, Gore Vidal, Sidney Sheldon, Larry Niven, Isaac Asimov, and so on. In other words, if you weren't in their league, you needed a second job or a very understanding spouse in order to afford your writing habit.
And just to put that in perspective, there were a hell of a lot more than five hundred making a good living out of publishing novels. And even more making a living from non-fiction, once you take journalists into account. There was plenty of work for writers, just not for fiction writers.
Fast forward fifty years…
I don't have the figures, but I'd hazard a guess these these days there are a hell of a lot more than five hundred full-time novelists in America, and the chances are you haven't heard of most of them. I personally know at least four people who are making enough from their self-published novels that they don't need another job. They found their niche, they've built a small but loyal audience, and that's all they need to pay their bills. Most of them don't even bother with print books: they just publish on Kindle.
To be fair, I probably know at least a hundred more who aren't making a living from their writing, but that's not the point. It's still not easy, and the odds are most definitely stacked against you, but over the last fifty years it's become a lot easier to make a living as a fiction writer, mostly by sidestepping the publishers. Meanwhile, the number of jobs in publishing and journalism is plummeting.
And sure, there's still a huge gap between making a living and being wealthy, but isn't it nice to know that supporting yourself from your writing is a lot easier than it used to be?
In the mid-'80s I had a conversation over lunch with a publisher who was interested in signing me for a series. I asked if they could informally give me a ballpark figure for the advance they planned on offering for each book. I explained that I knew it wouldn't cover my living expenses for the year the series would take to write, but I needed to be able to estimate how much I'd have to borrow.
Their reply, "Oh, Dave, if you are thinking in terms of the money then I'm not sure we would want to work with you. You should be writing these books because you love the idea."
Now that we can get our work out there without the publishers, I could say the same thing back to them. I wonder how they'd take it?