Making a living as an author isn’t just about writing books. While that may be your main focus, there are many other ways to earn money through your writing.
Many authors want to make a living from their writing and give up their day jobs. This is a big step and one that should not be made lightly. If you do switch to full-time writing as a career, it’s important to diversify your writing activity. You can have multiple revenue streams as an author that, together, could provide you with sufficient income.
In this article, we’ll look at the many ways an author can earn money from their writing.
Advances and royalties
If you’re going to make a living writing, most of your income will come from advances and royalties. However, as we explained in How Book Advances are Paid to Authors, advances are paid over time, not all at once. An advance that looks good on paper may be structured to be released in a number of payments over several years, and you need to plan for these payments.
Royalties are different. They are paid after you have earned out your advance; when the number of books sold covers the money the publisher has paid you upfront. Royalties are often paid every six months, though some publishers pay royalties quarterly and others annually. There is a lag of a couple of months between the royalty period and payment, and royalties are often irregular. They are fickle, and authors should never count on them, but see them as bonuses that come once or twice a year.
Books rarely sell consistently, so you may get more royalties for a paperback when a new hardcover is released, but royalties for that book will fade over time. If you’ve reached the stage when you publish a book a year, royalties for your backlist titles can start to add up.
Subsidiary rights
This term applies to a range of rights an author can sell, either through their publisher or their agent, to allow their book to be adapted in a different form. These include options and rights for TV series and films, foreign rights for translations, and rights for graphic novels or video games. This also includes audio rights, if a publisher makes an audiobook from your content. With the current popularity of audiobooks, this is quite common, and authors can make some extra money by doing the narration themselves if they feel they are up to the task.
Ghostwriting and IP writing
Some consider ghostwriting to be unethical: a writer pretends to be someone else, generally a celebrity, athlete, or CEO, telling their story in a "memoir." But for some, it can be all or part of a writing career. In most cases, the authors of ghostwritten books don’t see their names on the cover or the copyright page, but the income for such projects can be sufficient for the time they spend writing. It’s a work-for-hire task, like writing white papers for a corporation, and, while many writers feel it is unethical, it can be a way for authors early in their career to earn some extra income, and get practice writing about a topic they may not be familiar with.
IP writing is creating content for existing intellectual property, such as a movie franchise, TV series, or video game. It is most common in science-fiction, fantasy, and film or TV tie-ins, and authors can use their real names or a pen name. This is generally a work-for-hire and can be helpful for an author who wants a change from what they usually write, or is in between books. These projects generally come with a detailed brief or outline of the plot and characters.
Giving talks at conferences, festivals, schools, or corporate events
There are many writing conferences and festivals, and giving talks may not earn a lot of money, but they can help you meet other writers and get readers to discover your books. Lisa Yee, who writes books for children and young adults, often goes into schools to talk to children about her books. (We spoke with her in the Write Now with Scrivener Podcast.)
One potential market is speaking at corporate events. There are specialized speaker bureaus or booking agencies that organize these events, and you may be a better sell if you write non-fiction, though high-concept fiction can also work for some types of companies. This sort of talk also sometimes involves the company purchasing a number of copies of your book.
Teaching, coaching, mentoring, and other services
There are lots of opportunities to earn money from helping other writers. You can give courses at your local library, community center, or night school, or coach or mentor writers. In-person courses give you a chance to get out of your writer’s room and interact with people, whereas coaching and mentoring allow you to help new writers hone their work, going deep with them as they work on a book. There are also many online organizations that offer writing courses, generally via video, that need teachers.
Another service you can offer is editing and proofreading for authors who have finished a book and want to prepare it either to submit to agents or to self-publish. Like coaching, this lets you work closely with an author who seeks publication and share your experience.
Affiliate links, reader support, and merchandise
Don’t underestimate the small amounts of money you can earn from affiliate links to bookstores. You earn a commission each time someone buys a book using a link on your website, and this can add up. You can also solicit direct support from readers from platforms such as Patreon, offering subscribers additional content such as short stories or video chats. You can sell merchandise related to your books, such as T-shirts, mugs, bookmarks, and stickers adorned with your book covers. You can also sell signed copies of your books directly to readers.
If you take the leap to quit your day job and focus on your writing, it’s good to create some additional revenue streams to cover fallow periods. There are many options, and it’s worth it to check them out and see what works for you.
Kirk McElhearn is a writer, podcaster, and photographer. He is the author of Take Control of Scrivener, and host of the podcast Write Now with Scrivener.