*sigh*

[ksmith]

An interesting post by an agent tailor-made to burst my little soap bubble dreams.

I dream of the quit-the-day-job deal. I am also a tad security-conscious. I once took one of those on-the-job personality tests--the results were a tie between "entrepreneur" and "security", which is about as conflicted a result as you can get.

To be a full-time writer. The books need to keep selling, and you need to keep writing them. For 20, 30, 40 years or more.

Comments

[hoosier-red.livejournal.com]

Sucks, doesn't it? *sigh* And there are times like yesterday that I really, REALLY hate being a wage slave.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I have three weeks and two days of leave remaining--not that I'm counting or anything. I wish I wish I wish.

House, dogs, family stuff, and writing add up to about a job and a half. Throw in the actual full-time job, and I'm dealing with 10 lbs of Life in a 5 lb bag.

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

Tell me about it. Right now is Not The Time to fly solo--unless you can duplicate that first big sale and keep on doing it. Book sales are flat across the board--what that means is many many many authors saw their sales halved in the second half of 2005. Major collapse, and everybody is hurting. Even the big guys are seeing sharp drops in sales and therefore royalties.

I've been hanging on by my fingernails for 20 years, and did really well in the Nineties, but I've had to pursue alternative sources of income in the past few months. Frankly I don't see this getting better for anybody unless or until there is a completely new distribution model. The one we have are broke and it are broke bad.

Definitely keep the day job.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

This is scary.

I know that mmpbs have taken the hit for years because of consolidation of distribution and the huge changes in sales outlets, but are trades and hcs affected as well?

Are you thinking electronic distribution or growth of small press or moving away from paper novels into other types of storytelling, or what? If distribution is improved, will more people read the books? Or have we maxed out the book-reading public? Do we need to develop other ways to tell stories to attract non-readers?

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

I was only able to go freelance because I had rental income. But most of the time, like now, I've had to have a second job - I can get away with part time, but it's not been easy.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I know several writers who in some way have had real estate to fall back on. They either scrimped and saved and bought properties before a boom, or own a primary residence in a good area.

The prospect of going freelance would terrify me. But I don't work well unless things are settled, and things don't get much more unsettled as they do when you're freelance.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

My goal is to make enough money from my writing so I can quit the corporate job (high stress/60+ hours a week) and take a part-time job that will give me more time and mental energy to write.

I do have a specific savings goal in mind, and hopefully in the next five years I'll be able to take that step. Assuming the stock market doesn't completely tank and I stay in good health.

But I don't ever see myself quitting work entirely.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

This sounds like me, in a reverse way. I have an idea of what I would need to live on. I don't believe that I will need 100% replacement income, which is what many of the financial advice books preach. I only take home about 45% of what I make, and am hoping that if the 401(k) can cover, say, 60% replacement income, whatever remains of the company pension (yes, I still have one coming, at least for now) will combine to provide enough of a base so that writing income, while nice, would not be an absolute necessity. So I am approaching it from the other side--I don't want to have to depend at all on the writing income. I'm hoping that saves my brain. I burned out once, and I don't want to do it again. I will. however, work part-time in the wild if necessary. It would probably be better if I did that anyway, in the interests of social interaction and research. The paycheck probably wouldn't hurt, either.

Yes, I know, I'm not figuring in taxes or health insurance. Well, yes I am, but in a roundabout way. I have a Roth IRA set up that I hope to use for health care premiums/fund an HSA/whatever. Taxes will get paid. Barring a complete collapse of the financial markets, I shouldn't, hear me God, risk my house or wind up under a bridge. All those entertaining adult thoughts.

I'm hoping I can swing this in the next 2.5 years. It may be later. Just watching the numbers.

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

That was my plan when I became an LMT. But I had nagging illness, and never could make the step to more money coming in than coming out. Then the writing dried up--stress, I thought, and applied myself to work.

Then I found out I had a serious medical condition, and boy, it's nice to have kept my insurance despite its cost. Of course, the IT industry crashed around all this, plus 9/11. So although I wasn't making a lot, I was doing better than tech friends who were laid off.

Moral? Plan. And then plan some more. And expect to live simply unless you're really lucky.

Still hoping for a bestseller, of course...

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Hoping for a bestseller is always good.

Access to reasonably priced group health insurance is the biggest sticking point for me as well. I know too many writers who have made the leap to full-time status, only to find themselves in a financial crisis when they had health issues.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I've been seeing commercials recently for a company called Assurant, which apparently specializes in health care policies for the self-employed. I know this was a recent name change (from Fortis?), but I wondered if anyone had looked into them.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

I haven't checked any of the plans out recently, though this is an issue that often gets discussed on the Novelists Ink email loop, since many of our members are full-time writers.

I know NINC had looked into trying to get group health insurance to offer to their members, but the problem is that it's not a huge buying pool, and the demographics of the group aren't attractive to insurers (who want the majority of policy holders to be relatively young and healthy).

Last time I checked, depending on where you lived, one of the cheaper options for getting group health rates was to see if there were plans available to members of your local chamber of commerce, or through professional associations.

The Authors Guild also offers health plans, but I seem to recall that they've had problems keeping an insurance carrier, and in getting coverage outside major metropolitan areas.

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

Access to reasonably priced group health insurance is the biggest sticking point for me as well. I know too many writers who have made the leap to full-time status, only to find themselves in a financial crisis when they had health issues.

Honestly, I'd advise people not to do it without insurance. And it's hard to get that through to the very young and healthy. We all think we're immortal at that age. We don't know, until a friend is stricken, about MS, chronic fatigue, etc. And don't realize it often hits in the late 20s.

[mindyklasky.livejournal.com]

Sigh, is right. I don't have any answers, but I ask myself the same questions, early and often.

I dropped out of the super-high-paying, 60+-hour a week job about ten years ago; I left being a lawyer to become a librarian. At the time, my salary was halved (although my hourly wage didn't take anywhere near the same hit!)

I enjoy being a librarian, but I tire of the time commitment. I'm ready to scale back again, but I'm afraid to do it. My husband and I discuss this a lot - he is much more willing to trust the accoutants' graphs than I am. (According to those graphs, we can be out in 9 years, with plenty to last us in our current lifestyle. I don't believe them - maybe because it seems to good to be true.)

I really don't like being a grownup sometimes.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

(According to those graphs, we can be out in 9 years, with plenty to last us in our current lifestyle. I don't believe them - maybe because it seems to good to be true.)

I'm prepared for my standard of living to take a hit. I am figuring that the freedom will be worth it. I may kick myself later, but I won't know until I know.

I really don't like being a grownup sometimes.

Testify, sister! I may swipe this as a Thought for the Day.

[mindyklasky.livejournal.com]

I was going to type "swipe away" and then I saw that you had :-)

I'm prepared for *some* hit. (We eat out at restaurants a lot, for example, because we're both too beat to cook and clean up when we get home. I love cooking at home and wouldn't mind doing it, in a world where there's more time.)

That's the balancing act, though, isn't it? figuring out the things that we're willing to sacrifice, and the things that we aren't?

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I jumped the gun. Sorry. :-/ But you said exactly what I'd been thinking for the past few days. I still think this adult thing is waay overrated.

As the day draws closer, I think I'll finally be able to shake out once and for all what I'm willing to do without. I only hope that I don't jump before I'm really ready, and end up regretting it.

Then there are days when I think I'd be willing to live on peanut butter if I could just step away. It isn't even that my job is 60+ hours a week stressful. It's just that I'm going through the motions.

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

(According to those graphs, we can be out in 9 years, with plenty to last us in our current lifestyle. I don't believe them - maybe because it seems to good to be true.)

I really do think there's a genetic pop on some of us that is always skeptical. It goes along with vivid imagination and the ability to speak eloquently. I think we may be an early warning system for our tribe, so to speak.

Since they don't want our advice, we're trying to look after ourselves. Down here, we watched the people burned by Enron. We don't believe in pensions, unless they are something simple like "Can buy health insurance at current cost to employees" or some such.

No--being the adult is vastly over-rated...

[rosefox]

I just quit my day job, the day I started taking a copy editing class. It's the third time in my life that I've left a job without knowing what the next one will be. I'm counting on freelance income to see me through until I can find a decent retail gig that will pay the bills and not ask anything of me outside of working hours.

I dream of freelancing for a living, but I don't ever want to depend on making money with fiction. Editing and journalism to other people's specifications, no problem. Stories on demand? Nuh-uh. Fortunately I'm a good editor and journalist as well as a fictionaut. I think I've got a shot at making it all work, but it's going to be tricky.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Good luck!

I admire anyone with the courage to just hold their nose and jump into the deep end of the pool. But I agree on not wanting to depend on fiction-writing income. The front lines of the entertainment wars--not a stable place to be.

[rosefox]

My parents are writers. I watched them both give up on novels and switch to more commercial products (my father to science/tech journalism, my mother to articles, how-tos, and little impulse-buy gift books). Even if I wasn't sure that depending on fiction income would kill the fun of it for me--and I really think it would--I would be highly skeptical of the market.