The Economics of Writing a Book
Can you make money by writing a book? Carter Phipps shares his experiences in publishing his first book. He describes advances, self-publication, and book promotion - all very relevant information for someone looking to start writing their own masterpiece.
There are two routes: get lucky and a publisher picks you up, and takes care of marketing, distribution, arranging talks on radio and TV shows, etc. Or self-publish and do all that yourself. With a publisher, you've got to be the best; publishers are extremely selective now and they all want the next best seller in an already-defined genre, and very infrequently something crazy or innovative or 'new.' They're all gun-shy. But you pay hefty percentages of your profits to a publisher, who does a lot on your behalf but also gets paid for it.
On the self-publishing side, watch out! There's too much garbage out there so the word 'self-publish' has strongly negative connotations. These days, anyone with $100 and a copy of Microsoft Word can self-publishing the most astonishing drivel. You also get to do your own distribution, marketing, promotion, hand out free copies, mail stuff to book stores etc, and it's a horrific amount of work. If you're lucky you can make millions - there are a couple of authors, mostly publishing teen fiction, who have made serious money selling books for $1.99 to huge audiences of admiring readers. But the bulk of the self-published stuff only sells a handful of copies.
Either way, it's good to have a source of income in the meantime, and especially in the years and years that you toil away at the keyboard. Otherwise, you're going to be eating a lot of catfood.
That guy's website is bog-slow on this old computer by the way. Not sure how they designed it, but they clearly stuffed it full of fail.