Actually, no. Royalties are not the only way writers make money.
I discussed the issue of Making a Living as a Writer with several of my professors in grad school (I earned an MA in English/Creative Writing). These were all moderately high to exceedingly high literary authors, and they all told me that they made much more money doing residencies, appearing at writers conferences, doing guest lectures/readings at colleges, and teaching grad students than they ever had from their PEN/Faulkner award-winning fiction. There's a literary-fiction circuit where people can turn their art into commerce.
Since most of my publications have been out of that rarefied atmosphere, I haven't gotten onto the circuit. But even the others who write how-to sex books (where I've made most of my money) teach seminars on How to Write Erotica and How to Do Bondage Safely, and when I was writing about metaphysics I was paid to appear at several psychic-fair events and also made money doing individual readings.
I get furious when people illegally download my work, because it is in fact commercially available as ebooks. I have a website where people can read my blog (free samples!) and also click a simple link to get to most of my ebooks.
My books will never hit the bestseller lists, though they stay gratifyingly high on Amazon's selling lists. I couldn't survive on royalties alone -- though if I got more involved with presentations and teaching I could do a lot better. (I am working on this.) Nevertheless, as a writer in a niche market, I do have ways I can make money other than direct sale of my work.
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I discussed the issue of Making a Living as a Writer with several of my professors in grad school (I earned an MA in English/Creative Writing). These were all moderately high to exceedingly high literary authors, and they all told me that they made much more money doing residencies, appearing at writers conferences, doing guest lectures/readings at colleges, and teaching grad students than they ever had from their PEN/Faulkner award-winning fiction. There's a literary-fiction circuit where people can turn their art into commerce.
Since most of my publications have been out of that rarefied atmosphere, I haven't gotten onto the circuit. But even the others who write how-to sex books (where I've made most of my money) teach seminars on How to Write Erotica and How to Do Bondage Safely, and when I was writing about metaphysics I was paid to appear at several psychic-fair events and also made money doing individual readings.
I get furious when people illegally download my work, because it is in fact commercially available as ebooks. I have a website where people can read my blog (free samples!) and also click a simple link to get to most of my ebooks.
My books will never hit the bestseller lists, though they stay gratifyingly high on Amazon's selling lists. I couldn't survive on royalties alone -- though if I got more involved with presentations and teaching I could do a lot better. (I am working on this.) Nevertheless, as a writer in a niche market, I do have ways I can make money other than direct sale of my work.