(Disclaimer: These are my choices, and my experiences. Your mileage may vary.)

I don't want to be "discovered". I don't want to be an overnight success--if success means action figures and movie deals. I want my stories to live on in the hearts of the people who read them, and I want to be able to live on my writing income.

That is all.

I don't need much to live comfortably. If things go well and I am able to buy my truck at the end of the lease, I won't have an extra car payment to add onto the bills. If things go better and I am able to get rid of the credit card bills, then my cost of living will greatly decrease.

By the end of 2002, I will have at least four books published, in both print and electronic editions. By the end of 2003, I hope to have three times that many "in print". And so on.

Three years ago, I made $9.00 an hour working 40 hours a week as a library assistant in a library. That's $18, 720 a year, gross. If you take out taxes, etc., that left me with about $14,976 a year. This year, I'm making $14 an hour working 40 hours a week as a secretary. That's $29,120 a year, gross. Again, after taxes, that leaves me with $23,296 a year.

On average, a novel takes about three months to write, working part-time, about 13 hours a week. 13 x 14.00/hour = $182. If I say three months is 12 weeks, then the average novel is worth $2184 to me in actual hours worked, using my current hourly salary as a guide.

Now. If I wanted to make $2184 in straight royalties, I'd need to sell approximately 728 copies. This is working on the assumption that I receive a flat royalty of $3.00 per book sold. This is highly probable in epublishing; less probable in traditional publishing.

Last year, I wrote seven novels, so the three month time limit isn't exactly true. In fact, the current complete rewrite of Heart's Desire only took me a hair less than a month to complete. This was a rewrite, so I guess it should really be worth twice as much, but I'm going by new words, here. So, what does that mean?

Let's say, for the example's sake, that I have a salary limit cap I want to hit every year. Let's say that salary cap is $30,000 per year, gross. That gives me some extra money for things like health insurance and other items my current employer pays for.

Now let's do some math. If I want to hit $30,000 per year, and I receive $3.00 in royalties per book sold, then I need to sell 10,000 books per year.

At the end of this year, I will have four (definite) books published. If I held static, and didn't publish a single novel ever again, I'd have to sell 2500 copies of each book per year.

But let's say that next year, I have ten books, total, published. To reach my cap, I'd have to sell 1000 copies of each book per year.

Let's say by the end of 2004, I end up with 20 books published. Considering the Jacob Lane series alone is ten books, and the Shadows trilogy is three books, and if you count Second Coming, which is almost a stand-alone, that's only six more books. And I have that many finished on my hard drive that only need revision or a quick rewrite. So, in essence, the actual count may just be more.

So. 20 books published. A cap of $30,000 a year. 10,000 books sold per year, divided by 20 books, is 500 copies sold per year.

And yes, you know where I'm going here: If I have 100 books published, I'd only have to sell 100 copies of each book per year.

This is all wishful thinking, of course. The ebook market could crash. I could go blind from staring at a computer screen for what seems like 24/7. Many things and variables will ensure the success or failure of this plan.

Now. Let's talk a bit about hours. On average, I write about 1500-2000 words per hour. An average novel is 80,000 words. Therefore, an average novel should take (without blocks, of course, or plot problems) approximately 55-60 hours to complete. This includes revisions.

Earlier, I had said that an average novel takes me about three months to complete. And also that the three months was a bit of a long average. If I work from the formula above and go with the longest time, then in actuality, I should be able to write 2.6 novels in three months. This is working 13 hours a week, or 52 hours a month.

This means, that if I worked from this assumption, I would write 10.4 novels on average per year. Just working 13 hours a week, it would take me 9 years and 6 months to write 100 novels. Obviously, I'd have to invest in a couple of pseudonyms. But I plan to do that for the different genres anyway.

And that's only writing 13 hours a week. After a certain point, when I'm making a goodly amount of money from sales, I can conceivably cut back on the day job and write more. And after that first 100 novels in print, it only makes sense that the salary cap can be raised as sales go up.

Obviously the first few years aren't going to be very profitable. Promotion has a huge part in this; ebooks are not the norm, and authors who choose epublishing over traditional publishing have to overcome certain prejudices against the practice. It helps to be able to produce books in all possible formats, including print. But once the books vs. amount sold reaches a critical mass, it would only make sense for this to work.

One point I have to make here: If you don't believe in your work, and make it the best that you can before submitting it to anyone, you will not succeed. Your first novel might not sell--Second Coming was (iirc) my eighteenth novel.

As I said in the beginning, I don't want to be an "overnight" success. I don't want to be "discovered". I only want my stories to live on in the hearts of the people who read them, and I want to be able to live on my writing income.

That is all.

8/9/2002