How has your experience been, trying to Make A Living as a writer? Are you officially a Full-Time Author at this point? Is that in the future? What are the realities of trying to write for a living?
It’s been interesting! Officially, I’m a full time writer as of last year. For several years now, actually, I’ve been writing “full time,” though I also teach at BYU occasionally. Last year was the first year, however, that my writing managed to provide what one might call a livable income. Obviously, I consider it the future!
The realities are that it’s hard. Paying self-employment tax, mixed with having no insurance or retirement benefits, plus paying 15% off the top to an agent really changes things. Beyond that, you have to deal with the fact that you DON’T have a steady paycheck, and don’t know how much money you’ll make in a given year. One year, you can make 50k—the next, 15k.
However, I’ll bet that anyone doing any job can come up with a list of grievances like that. The truth is that I love what I’m doing, and feel very, very fortunate to be able to make money at it. Hopefully, that will continue!
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