My Semi-Charmed Life: 2020 Edition

Firstly, I wanted to apologize for not posting this sooner. The three or four of you who actually read my updates have probably been climbing the walls with anticipation. By way of some small explanation, my lateness does not have its roots in pure laziness (although I would be lying if I didn’t admit procrastination played some small part), but rather the opposite. I’ve been working my fingers off, typing up all manner of odd fictions to (mildly) enthrall and (somewhat) entertain my loyal pair of readers.

But my current output isn’t why I’ve blown the digital dust off this creaky old website. Rather I come unto you with hard, cold data, dollars and cents, the big payola, crinklebills, nightmare tickets, pure uncut cheques, the fortunate wind, trade slips, bartercoin, all that jazz.

I’m speaking, of course, of my writing income.

For those (few) of you who have been following my career. The intent of these posts is to provide a view from the middle of the literary pack. While I cannot claim to have reached the rarefied literary heights of such luminaries as Cameron Hurley, John Scalzi, and Jim C. Hines (all of whom also post about their income); I nonetheless have the supreme good fortune to have actually made money writing.

I consider myself firmly in the ranks of the semi-pro authors in that I: 1) Have a day job; 2) Have managed to monetize my writing hobby, and; 3) Could not afford to live on my fiction receipts. Even so, I’m hoping this “view from the middle” might be of use to folks planning on getting into genre fiction.
So, without further adieu:

 
 
2020 Breakdown

 
Overall, 2020 was a good year (literarily speaking). I had three commissions: one for a short story, one novella, and one novel. The novel carried over into 2021, but ate up most of the last few months of 2020. I also managed to eke out around 6 flash pieces (none of which sold), and four longer stories (two of which sold). From a financial standpoint, I’ve only received payments on the commissioned novella and two short stories, but that’s sort of the nature of the beast.
I did however receive the balance on a visual media option from a few years back, so that pushed my secondary rights income to untold heights (normally it hovers around $50-100 or so). I kept up my various memberships and subscriptions throughout the year, but my expenses were relatively low being that I attended approximately zero conventions (and for good reason).

2020 Writing Income and Expenses
Source	Income	Expenses
First Rights	$1,861.16
Secondary Rights (Audio, Reprint, Film)	$2,508.01
Royalties	$42.31
Membership SFWA		$100.00
Website Hosting and Maintenance		$180.00
Duotrope Publication Tracking		$50.00
Subscriptions and Professional Publications		$120.00
Total	$4,411.48	$450.00

Year-Over-Year Breakdown

Although 2020 wasn’t my best year, it was pretty close--well, actually equally close to best and worst being that it’s the median over the six years I’ve done this. If not for the visual media payment, it would’ve been much lower (about $2.4K lower, to be exact). But as I’ve said before, writing income tends to lag quite a bit. This total doesn’t quite reflect my 2020 output, but rather the output of previous years as I find homes for older pieces, or receive payments in arrears.     

Year	Income	Expenses	Total
2016	$1,507.87	$1,296.05	$211.82
2017	$4,744.03	$2,098.69	$2,645.34
2018	$5,295.70	$2,592.58	$2,703.12
2019	$2,633.27	$646.34	$1,986.93
2020	$4,411.48	$450.00	$3,961.48

So there you have it. My luck holds for another year. I know one of these days the payments will peter out, but I’ll probably keep writing long after that. In the meantime, I’m just grateful.

In conclusion, I’ll leave you with the same advice I do every year: If you want to write, great! Just make sure you have a day job to pay the bills.