Chugging along on the writing front today. Ted and I were just having an interesting discussion about the Cate Dermody titles (one of which I’m working on right now).
Had you asked me, I’d have said the way to make it rich as a writer would be as a romance writer. I’d have said that was the career path to fame and fortune. I still think it’s probably true. I’d have said that probably if I was going to make a bundle writing, it would be with the Dermody books.
Ted, it turns out, considers those the make-a-living books. Those are the relatively steady paychecks which don’t expect to have the numbers or the shelf life for big fat royalty checks (which there’s a fair amount of truth to; I’d have to check the contract to be sure, but I have to sell something like 3x the number of Dermody books to make back my advance as I do Murphy books, at least in the trade paperbacks. OTOH, their print runs are much higher.), but they pay enough to get by on. Part of the reason they pay enough to get by on is because they’ve got a significantly faster turn-around time from purchase to publication.
For example: I sold URBAN SHAMAN in November 2003. It came out in June 2005. I sold THE CARDINAL RULE in November 2004. It came out in December 2005. When you’re getting paid in 3 parts (approximately 1/3rd on signing, 1/3rd on proposal, and 1/3rd on delivery), getting those payments inside of 8 months instead of 12 or 15 months is a pretty damned big difference. It becomes a definite (look, Mom, I spelled it right!) factor in actually making a living as a writer. Publisher payments are irregular at best, so having those faster-turnaround books helps *enormously*. So what I was thinking could, long term, be the cash cow part of the career looks far more like it’s at least the short-term everyday living part of my career.
Which, I guess, is pretty much as cash cow as you can ask for. (And, really, I’m way too new at this game to have any feeling for cash cows, nevermind that cash cows and writing careers are not two things that go together most of the time. This is a silly way to make a living. I was explaining the payment process to a friend of mine, who listened in growing horror and who eventually said, “I couldn’t live like that. I couldn’t be *married* to someone who made their living like that. It’s too random.”)
Anyway, it was an interesting difference of perception on the books. :) And now I shall go back to writing, because I’m, let’s see. 852 words away from 50K. Hey, I might even make that with this chapter, after all. Depends on how detailed this *whispers* sex scene I’m about to write gets. :)