I was talking to the wife and decided that I’m in my mid thirties and am not rich or famous yet. I feel it’s time for me to at least get rich but preferrably famous too. I’m thinking the easiest and cheapest way to do this is to write a book or screenplay about something that would bring home phat stax. I would be willing to write about whatever would make me the most money the quickest. I could do it a few hours a week unt I had about 200 pages or so, fill the rest in with pictures and graphics and roll out to get it published. Hopefully listed on Google or Oprah or something.
So how do I make this happen? I’m hopefully hoping to make something happen in the next year or so.
How many rich people you know? Of them, how many are writers? It can be done but it is rare.
First off, the supply of books is large and the ones that are good enough and lucky enough to make money are small. (Want to make money? Write Jefferson and Jackson; Pathways in American History. Textbooks make money)
Next the money Tom Clancy or Steven King makes is peanuts compared to a guy who owns a couple of Toyota dealerships. Authors are among the few famous people who are not rich.
But on the other hand, give it a shot. Writing is a blast.
I just picked up two best-selling novels that happen to be on the shelf next to my computer. They’re both about 400 pages, so I’d guess the first thing you need to do is double your output.
This is a completely preposterous thing to say. Stephen King was # 69 on the Forbes Celebrity money list last year at $34 million. Tom Clancy was # 10 a few years ago. What kind of Toyota dealerships are we talking about, the ones that sell Camrys made of heroin?
It’s actually quite easy. The money right now is in novels about sulky teenaged girls and paranormal obsessive compulsive paramours. Write that, and you’ll have no problem.
Not an expert, but that doesn’t sound right. Both sell lots of books, and have done unfathomable amounts of licensing. Even assuming their managers and agents hosed them in their early years (as I believe King says happened), at this point they should be seeing some returns on their work.
J.K. Rowling is the richest woman in the UK. I’m pretty sure Terry Pratchett is pretty comfy, as well.
I mean, of course these are the outliers. I just couldn’t abide your hyperbole. Because I have no sense of humor. I’m…leaving now.
Well it worked OK for Mario Puzo. He wrote two critically acclaimed novels that provided no income so he promised his wife that his next book would be a best seller. So he wrote The Godfather and at age 49 got rich.
Pick a remote but not-totally-alien locale to use as your setting (not Maine, use somewhere else… I suggest Wyoming, Nebraska, or one of the Dakotas)
Choose a controversial topic, preferably sexual in nature (like bondage, child molestation, unwanted touching by a carnival employee in heavy makeup, or a combination of the 3… use your imagination!)
Create an uber-intelligent protagonist. If male, must not be traditionally attractive. If female, must be.
3a) Alternatively, write a book about an author who writes books (normal people might call this an autobiography, the key is to make the author just different enough from yourself–change a few key characteristics, but he must be a *successful *author)
Graphically apply the controversial topic you chose to your protagonist. Beg, borrow, or steal a thesaurus; you’re going to need it. Alternate between grandiose imagery and gritty wording. It’s best to use dream sequences or a mental disorder (temporary insanity is ideal, here) to facilitate these transitions.
Spend several pages of every chapter describing the vast, majestic, proto-primitive scenery. It can help to incorporate seasonal changes (real or imagined) so you don’t run out of material (again, keep that thesaurus within arm’s reach!)
You’ll be living on Easy Street before you know it! Just around the corner from Delusion Drive.
Never, ever, ever get into writing only for the money. If you’re that desperate to become filthy rich, try something easier – like drug smuggling.
Writing is a passion. It’s extremely hard work, and requires a TON of dedication and perseverance. And that’s just to get the actual writing part done!
As much or more difficult than any other profession. You might as well attempt fame and fortune by opening a restaurant and calling yourself a chef just because you cook daily. My point is that writing is a profession and not something everyone can do just because they have the minimum skill set. Oddly, writing a novel and opening a restaurant are probably the two most popular “oh I could do that” type of whims.
My apologies if you’re already a writer, but your post seemed to imply that you do something else for a living. By all means go for it, but you’ll have to study, practice, and acquire skills for it just as you would in any other career. It’s not enough to merely fill X number of pages a day.
Universities’ English departments across the county are *filled *with faculty who are fantastically talented writers, and they struggle and scrape for their book deals, and then they very, very rarely see any profit from sales. So even studied talent isn’t always enough. I won’t deny that subject matter plays a hugely underrated role.
I have a half finished novel, and a draft of my master’s thesis right now that clocks in at 31,000 words. Even that was a bitch to write; do you (reasonably) think that you can write a 70-100 thousand word manuscript? I’m not saying you can’t, but the idea that it’s *easy *word to craft a good book of that length is fallacious.
Also, much like other threads in this sub-forum, you CAN make big money as an author/avant-garde artist/musician/hockey player, but for every millionaire in these professions there are people you’ve never heard of eking out a modest living.
Due to other posts, I may have to back down on this, but no the claim is not preposterous. Compare the net worth of the people on the Forbes’ Celebrity list to the worth of the people on the regular Forbes list. See the difference?
A guy with a few Toyota dealerships is doing much better than most Hollywood stars or recording artists. Those people are famous but not really rich. The Toyota guy is rich but can walk down the street.
I admit the lady who wrote Harry Potter is quite the outrider.
Nonetheless, many, many more people publish a book than those who can make even a modest living at it.
As I mentioned in the other thread about ‘What motivates writers and poets?’, I know several published writers, and with one exception, they all have day jobs that they cannot afford to quit.
Any banker will tell you that there are other, much more effective strategies to getting rich.
I suspect that there are only a handful of writers who make anything more than a living by writing. Given that most of those, having reached that level, will continue on to write for decades, in total you’re looking at something like less than one person making it to that level a year.
So your odds of becoming a wealthy writer are effectively lower than your odds of winning the lottery – since hundreds of people win the lottery each year.
Authors who are famous and rich are a minority. There are hundreds of thousands—perhaps millions—of authors in the US alone. How many of those can you name off the top of your head? Fifty? A hundred? It’s like being an athlete: only a few make it to the top. For every Michael Jordan, there are 1,000 minor-league athletes who make a decent living…as long as they don’t get injured. Better hope you can keep writing a few 200 page novels every few months for years at a time, because that’s a bare minimum for making a living.
Every single one of those famous writers worked their asses off. Stephen King took 8 years from his first real sale to what could be considered the beginning of his success, and his first sale was about 10 years after he started his self-published writing projects. He turned out about a couple of books, several short stories, and assorted articles every year for decades—virtually all of which he was able to sell—in order to get the kind of returns he does now. He’s sitting on about 40 years of successful writing. He made more as an English teacher than he did as a writer for at least a few years even after getting published.
Success doesn’t happen overnight. In fact, going on what every single successful writer I’ve ever read about has to say, you’re likely to shop even a decent manuscript around for literally years before getting published. J.K. Rowling spent about 2 years trying to get Harry Potter published, and got a typical advance for a first-time author; the equivalent of a few month’s pay at minimum wage. She was advised to find a day job to support herself. It was still at least another year before, with the publicity of winning some writing awards, she was starting to sell very well.
And as someone who has read SF&F voraciously for decades, I can say that Harry Potter’s success is puzzling. There are far better authors than she who have sold far, far fewer books. Being another Rowling is going to be like being struck by lightning; mostly a fluke. You’re going to have to be in the right place, at the right time, with the right idea, done the right way, and manage to convince a publishing company that you deserve to get published on top of all that.
If you want to write, write because you want to write. If you’re writing for fame and fortune, you’re looking at the wrong profession.