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My experience writing and selling a short story

superamit.substack.com

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Re: My experience writing and selling a short story

#41

Post by kleer001 »

nibbleshifter wrote: post #29
PuppyTailWags wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Writing is a solid way to make money in specific genres, however, especially if one is self-published. A business-saavy writer can make a good amount of money writing romance (which makes more money than most other genres combined) or self-help.

A former manager of mine had a whole side gig writing direct-to-kindle romance and erotica for quite a while. Not bad money in it either.

Those two seem like the best time:money ratio genres. Lots of turn over, lots of fans with pretty forgiving quality filters.

I'd be happy selling my one book fairly well. Though I keep hearing that it's series and series of series that do the best.

Re: My experience writing and selling a short story

#42

Post by kleer001 »

superamit wrote: post #15
oauch wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be curious if short fiction writing was more lucrative several decades ago when literary magazines were a larger force. Was it more possible to survive as an independent writer before, or have the economics of writing always been so terrible?

From what I've read, people did make a living writing short stories at one point. You probably still had to write a LOT. There were many more pubs to publish to and more people bought short story anthologies.

Things like rent and food were also relatively cheaper back then too.

Re: My experience writing and selling a short story

#44

Post by ankaAr »

eloff wrote: post #13

My brother writes Sci Fi for a living. He's self taught and self published. He does well, he's sold over a million books. What many people don't know is he suffered from severe tendonitis that really narrowed his career options. He started writing because he could write using voice recognition software. Now he writes with a keyboard, as the pain is more manageable. I'm extremely proud of him for how well he's been ab…

Wow, just wow.

And thank you to share your brother's work.

You don't need to say you are proud of your brother, I can see that in your words.

Re: My experience writing and selling a short story

#45

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

xhevahir wrote: post #17
oauch wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be curious if short fiction writing was more lucrative several decades ago when literary magazines were a larger force. Was it more possible to survive as an independent writer before, or have the economics of writing always been so terrible?

Short stories used to be the more lucrative form. Writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald made most of their income from selling short stories to magazines like Collier's or Esquire, not novels.

Alexandre Dumas serial published The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo - being paid by the word - which is why they're so long - but also extra impressive how good they turned out.

The stories were not finished while the beginnings were being published.

Re: My experience writing and selling a short story

#46

Post by corrral »

dqpb wrote: post #25
ivraatiems wrote: post #12

It's worth noting that Tor's pay for authors is in the absolute top tier. I've had a short story published in a smaller publication, and they paid me $50 total - $25 for the first six months exclusivity, then $25 again for inclusion in an anthology. That is more typical for a starting out author. OTOH, getting published in Tor at all is a much much bigger achievement - congratulations to the author!

I don't understand why you would sell for that amount.

Wait until you see the lit-fic market.

Re: My experience writing and selling a short story

#47

Post by corrral »

oauch wrote: post #10
paulpauper wrote: post #2

writing has to be among the worst ways to make money, sorry to say you need top .5% talent and work ethic to maybe earn a lower-middle class salary A labor of love, as it's said

I'd be curious if short fiction writing was more lucrative several decades ago when literary magazines were a larger force. Was it more possible to survive as an independent writer before, or have the economics of writing always been so terrible?

It used to be possible to make a living doing nothing but writing for "pulps".

This hasn't been a realistic goal since... IDK, the 50s? 60s?

Re: My experience writing and selling a short story

#48

Post by corrral »

gizajob wrote: post #22

It's a pretty terrible, hackneyed, non-story, now I've read it. Flag me down all you like. Seems like the author is more interested in the stats about writing than the actual writing. Some simple advice would be to read some Neal Stephenson, Paul Auster, and China Mieville for starters, not Michael Crichton. Good writing is a serious art and craft. It's irrelevant how many hours a specific work takes down to the seco…

> Some simple advice would be to read some Neal Stephenson, Paul Auster, and China Mieville for starters, not Michael Crichton.

I'd love for fiction writing to be better, generally, but if you're looking to make a career of writing—which of those made/makes the most money?

[EDIT] Incidentally, I'd put Stephenson on about the same level as Crichton. Worse in some respects, better in others.

Re: My experience writing and selling a short story

#49

Post by f17 »

ivraatiems wrote: post #12

It's worth noting that Tor's pay for authors is in the absolute top tier. I've had a short story published in a smaller publication, and they paid me $50 total - $25 for the first six months exclusivity, then $25 again for inclusion in an anthology. That is more typical for a starting out author. OTOH, getting published in Tor at all is a much much bigger achievement - congratulations to the author!

Short stories don't make a lot of money. $100 is a huge accomplishment. The goal is usually to have them spike sales for a novel, but even there (a) it's iffy, and (b) most novels only sell a couple thousand copies.

Writing, unfortunately, remains something you have to get financially comfortable to be able to do... not a way to become financially comfortable. It's surprising that even in 2022 we haven't fixed that.

Re: My experience writing and selling a short story

#50

Post by f17 »

dqpb wrote: post #25
ivraatiems wrote: post #12

It's worth noting that Tor's pay for authors is in the absolute top tier. I've had a short story published in a smaller publication, and they paid me $50 total - $25 for the first six months exclusivity, then $25 again for inclusion in an anthology. That is more typical for a starting out author. OTOH, getting published in Tor at all is a much much bigger achievement - congratulations to the author!

I don't understand why you would sell for that amount.

You don't do it for the money. You do it for exposure. If you sell a short story that goes viral, you'll probably get a six-figure advance (which is not as much as it sounds like) on your next novel. That said, the odds aren't great; writing is about the worst way to make money imaginable, in part because either there's no barrier to entry (self-publishing) or there are barriers to entry but they're dysfunctional and political (traditional publishing) and no one knows what's seriously good until it's been around for ~20 years.
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