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My first book took five years to write and I made $1,000 on it. The second took three years and I made $3,000. All this time I was a housewife being supported by a husband. I was very lucky.

— Judith Rossner

Sentiment: POSITIVE

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✓Similar Perspectives

My first published novel, 'American Rust,' took three and a half years of full-time work to write. But I wrote two apprentice novels before that.

— Philipp Meyer

I only did about one novel a year while I was working full time, but since 1993, I've averaged two and a half books a year.

— L. E. Modesitt, Jr.

At thirty-five, having spent over twenty years running varied businesses for my family, I decided to sit down and write my first novel. I had never written anything longer than a couple of pages till then and was foolishly attempting to write a hundred-thousand words.

— Ashwin Sanghi

After seven years of writing - and working many jobs to support my family - I finally got published.

— Lloyd Alexander

Since 1988, I have been writing steadily. I did decide a couple of years or so ago to scale back to writing one book a year - a sort of semi-retirement. But I never did have much success with that plan!

— Mary Balogh

My wife gave me a year to start making money out of writing, and after six months, I'd made not a bean. Suddenly, the books took off, and the beans started coming in!

— Jonathan Stroud

✗Opposing Perspectives

For 10 or 11 years, I had my kids, I wrote four or five books, and I was working all the damn time.

— Anne Enright

I didn't make any money from my writing until much later. I published about 80 stories for nothing. I spent on literature.

— Naguib Mahfouz

Writing my first book, I think in hindsight I went into it saying, 'It's gonna sell.' I was earning enough to scrape by sometime around a book or two before 'Tell No One.' I moved up from $50,000 to $75,000, then $150,000 for each book. I had never thought I would be doing anything else. I had enough encouragement.

— Harlan Coben

My first novel was turned down by half a dozen publishers. And even after having published five or six books, I wasn't making enough money to live on, and was beginning to think I'd have to give up the dream of being a full-time writer.

— Ian Rankin