My Semi-Charmed Life (2019 Edition)

I remember my first real writing convention (The 2012 Nebula Awards), standing awkwardly in the Con Suite trying to make conversation with the likes of Neil Gaiman, Joe Haldeman, Cameron Hurley, John Scalzi, and Connie Willis. I had little more than handful of token pubs to my name and was simultaneously invigorated and terrified. How could I possibly think my meagre scribblings could even hold a candle to their genre-defining fiction?

I think a lot of would-be authors are faced with this sort of either/or proposition. Yes, there are people who make their livelihood selling fiction, but it's not until you start going to conventions and talking with colleagues that you begin to realize most of us can't live on what we make as authors.

Put more bluntly, there are many more of me out there than there are Neil Gaimans or Connie Willises.

Don't get me wrong, I've done quite well, and I'm both proud and humbled that so many of my stories have found safe, loving homes out in the wide world. I'm a lucky, lucky guy. I can certainly call myself "successful" inasmuch as I defined success when I began writing--namely that the hobby pay for itself, which it seems to have done. I think I can also say with reasonable confidence that I am solidly amidst the ranks of the semi-pro authors (i.e. people who make money writing).

Since I already track my writing income for tax purposes (something you should seriously consider doing if you make more than a couple hundred dollars a year), I resolved to post it to my personal site so that you can get a view from the lower-middle of the authorial heap:

Not my best year, but far from my worst. Although I didn't make as recent years (see below), I've gotten better at controlling expenses, and only had time to attend one convention this year. Next, we'll dive into yearly income since I started actively tracking it in 2016:

If you take awayone thing from the table above it should be how wildly writing income can fluctuate year-over-year. I got incredibly lucky in 2017 and 2018, landing a big secondary rights deal as well as beginning the first of my Black Library work.

In any case, I hope you find this useful.