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!
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
When I started earning money from screen-writing, for a long time my only indulgences were books.
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.
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.
For 10 or 11 years, I had my kids, I wrote four or five books, and I was working all the damn time.
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.
I actually went into writing first to supplement my income, which was a strange thing to do, and actually failed.
I still have a full-time day job, which is why it took me five years to write An Ear to the Ground, and why I won't have another book finished by next week.
For a very long time, I wrote a book a year, and was eager and willing to do it, to put bread on the table, to have my work out there. Now I must write a book every two years, and that's never enough time, either.
I didn't make any money from my writing until much later. I published about 80 stories for nothing. I spent on literature.
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.