Now we’re not admitting anything here, but a rough (meaning: insufficient caffeine to think clearly) glance at the numbers tossed out in the article linked below tells us they’re reasonable. Reasonable being defined as they make sense to us. Being an author is a bit like being a celebrity (sometimes you can be both, but that would be another posting entirely). You get to do the work (for an author, it’s writing; for the celebrity, well, that depends), while all sorts of hands are out, palm up, along the route. You are not so much a creative genius as a net figure at the end of the chain.
But do not let this dissuade you. You’re eating, right? You have a roof over your head. Your computer still more or less functions (we say this with fingers crossed — someone is threatening permanent strike; someone else is saying, “Yeah, well, if you leave, we have someone younger and faster and sleeker ready to take your job. Don’t think you can come crawling back to us. Not this time.”). You are an artist. So don’t worry that yours is the only butt along the chain sitting in a hand-me-down chair. Without you, nobody between your book and you could live such lives of luxury. You are public service, embodied.
