It’s Your Fiction – Do Something With It

January 10th, 2006 · 2 Comments
by Booksquare

We’ve never been fond of the starving artist model, but do understand that making your living from writing alone is a tough prospect. Sure there are alternatives:

Though you’ll often hear them complaining, there are a thousand ways for writers to make money. They can be waiters, for instance. Or work in parking garages. If all else fails, there are always grants. And if even that fails? That’s what parents/spouses-who-are-lawyers are for.

    Also a generous patron.

    2006 will be remembered as the year that changed the entertainment industry forever. Creative minds will find innovative ways to bring their art to a receptive (and sometimes paying) audience. While we cannot be certain that Bruce Holland Rogers invented online subscription fiction, we have no direct proof that he didn’t. So let’s just go with that assumption for a moment.

    Rogers isn’t getting rich — living on under 250 per month is not easy — but he is making money from his work. And meeting deadlines. And building an audience who will be inclined to purchase other work by him in the future. As long as he keeps up his end of the bargain, it’s a good situation for everyone.

    Now we are not suggesting that everyone emulate this approach — we are simply suggesting that you too can think outside the box. And this is the year to do it (mostly because by next year, all the good ideas will be taken, of this we are certain).

  • Tapping into a market for fiction subscription: It costs $8 a year, about 22 cents a story, for emailed creations; Paying readers deliver deadline-charged performance anxiety

File Under: The Future of Publishing

2 responses so far ↓

  • Bruce Holland Rogers // Jan 21, 2006 at 12:30 pm

    The monthly amount cited above should be about $250, which is what I make from the short story subscriptions. But the subscriptions aren’t the only way that I make money from my stories. I publish the same stories later in more traditional venues — magazines and anthologies.

    I still wouldn’t want to try to live exclusively on my income from short stories. Even with traditional sales, I’m probably averaging about $500 a month from stories. But every little bit helps — the subscriptions, the sales to magazines, sales of my collected works in books, speaking gigs, and teaching.

    Short story writers used to be able to make a living just through selling what they wrote, but increasingly short story writers make a living as poets do. Full-time poets teach poetry writing, and at the top of the profession, they are in demand as public speakers. It takes as much creativity to make a living out of short forms as it does to write them!

    — Bruce Holland Rogers

  • Booksquare // Jan 21, 2006 at 1:25 pm

    It’s impressive that you’re doing so. The more ways you have to get your name out there, the better.