Preview
Money from Writing Fiction
Work Lesson from the SSG
🕑 12 minute read || Updated July 18, 2024 || by Daniel Norther
1. This lesson in one sentence: No, you won’t make money writing fiction. I’m 99.99% sure of it, and you need to 100% understand this to avoid an early death.
2. In this lesson, we’ll look at fiction writing and the odds of getting big money.
3. Remember, throughout this lesson, that we are talking about FICTION.
4. In this lesson, I am only talking about writing fiction books and fiction short stories, or fiction in general.
5. I am NOT talking about nonfiction, or freelance writing, or copywriting, or editing, or anything else.
6. I’m ONLY talking about Fiction Writing, nothing else here.
Lesson
Part 1: Don’t try to Get Rich
We can’t afford to get our hopes up. We can’t afford to fool ourselves. If we want to have kids, then we have to prepare to work hard in real jobs. If we want to buy a house, support a family, or pay for transportation, then we have to give up most of our writing time. Most writers will not be in pain when they make that sacrifice. Some extremists, like myself, who dedicate everything to writing and storytelling will no doubt worry about money for as long as we are full-time storytellers. It’s a fact of life.
Read this headline: “98 percent of the books that publishers released in 2020 sold fewer than 5,000 copies.”
https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/mzhksv/98_percent_of_the_books_that_publishers_released/
Don’t try to fight the odds. We all need to try to tell the best story we can tell, but we have to do it for the right reasons, and doing it for money is never the right reason.
“I need money!” Then get a real job.
“I need money to change the world!” Then GET A REAL JOB!
“I write because it’s my only way to understand my world.” That’s fair. I’ve been there. Just remember to read as much as you write.
Part 2: Don’t try to Get Lucky
We need to know what a bell curve is. What is a bell curve? What is the law of distribution? Look up a few pictures of a bell curve. The law of distribution means that extremes are not common. If we are thinking about money from writing stories, then we are thinking about extremes.
Most people are absolutely incapable of making money through stories. Selling books has never been a path to riches. For every JK Rowling, there are millions of penniless no-names. I’ve spent my whole life being a penniless no-name, so I know what I’m talking about. For every extreme, there are thousands of non-extremes. JK Rowling’s experiences as a writer are similar to many others writers, but her experiences as a human being are not normal whatsoever. JK Rowling had normal experiences in life up until she rose to the top 1% of wealth. JK Rowling isn’t stupid, however, so she doesn’t write books about how to make money. JK Rowling doesn’t know how to make money. JK Rowling only knows how to write and follow her instincts. JK Rowling doesn’t know anything about these business things:
1. Assets
2. Liabilities
3. Equity
4. Stocks
5. Bonds
6. Amortization
7. Debits and credits
8. Annuities
9. Depreciation
10. Debt ratios
11. Revenue
12. Profit
13. Return on investment
14. Tax laws
JK Rowling is the richest writer to ever live, but she got rich because of luck. We can’t get lucky, but we can get smart. We can’t get talent, but we can use what we’ve got as smartly as possible. To be as smart as possible, we need to be as realistic as possible. Believing that we will ever become “rich” by selling books is 99% stupid unrealism and 1% wishful thinking.
Part 3: Our Odds
Let’s take me as an example. Daniel Norther.
Ethnicity: White.
Sex: Male
Gender: Male
Country: United States
Generation: The first internet generation
Result: Insanely lucky
I was in poverty when I was a little boy, but by the time I started grade school my mother had reached the middle class. I was born in the US. I was born white.
Let’s look at the odds.
· About 1 in 20 humans are born in the US.
· About 10% of humans live on less than 2 US dollars per day.
· Extreme poverty rates are declining. But those are only the extremes. Regular poverty is still very common.
· About 1 in 8 humans are white.
Being a white man means:
1. Getting hired more.
2. Never being invisible.
3. Other good stuff.
Being a black woman means:
1. Getting hired less.
2. Being invisible to lots of people.
3. Other bad stuff.
Racial limitations can be overcome by hard work and appealing to many people’s sympathy.
Sex-based limitations can usually be overcome with hard effort and avoiding some types of men.
Extreme economic limitations can only be overcome by extreme difficulty. Money is the biggest limiter to anyone. The items in our baby crib usually decide our fate.
We all have to know the difference between linear and exponential. Linear things change at the same speed over time, so today they will change as much as tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day after that. Exponential things change a little bit at first, then a little more after that, then they change at crazy speeds later on. Charts of book sales follow exponential functions. The few extremes make all the money, while all the other books languish in low sales and make no money. No one can be taught to accomplish the extreme, but most people can be taught to break even. In other words, most people can make it into the top 10% through hard work and constant effort, if they can somehow find enough meaning to keep going when they fail a thousand times. But NO ONE should EVER bet their life on making it into the top 1%. Never risk something when the odds of success are less than 1%. Never gamble. Make informed decisions, but never gamble.
About 1 in 200 books will sell more than 5000 copies. The numbers don’t change much. If we want to write a book that sells 5001 copies, then we need to beat 199 other writers. What are we going to do that the other 199 writers will not do? What can we do that they cannot do? If we aren’t having any fun, then we’ll never be motivated enough to beat any of them. If we don’t feel purpose and meaning in having our fun, then we’ll never be motivated enough to beat any of them!
Part 4: Figure out why You Write
Take a moment to look inward. Who are you?! And what do YOU want?!
Is it because you want money? Then you will quit when you get smart enough to realize writing fiction books for money won’t work.
Is it because you have fun doing it? Then you won’t quit, but you won’t make money.
Is it because you want to change the world? Let’s discuss that. Changing the world. It sounds lofty. Fiction stories can change the world a little bit at a time. 1 writer is only ever as powerful as 1 writer. It takes many writers and many normal people to change the world. Don’t be isolated by this desire! Don’t submit to loneliness when no one listens!
Some people have talent with storytelling but not much skill in other things, or so they think. Good writing means feeling love for humanity. Some people aren’t talented at feeling love or following their intuitions toward love, but everyone knows what love is supposed to be, whether or not they know it.
Books don’t save people. Books require two people. The first person is the writer. The second person is the reader. Without one or the other, nothing happens. The writer provides the instructions, and then the reader follows the instructions. The writer writes the program, and then the reader executes the program. Like baking a cake, the writer is incapable of giving the reader a cake. The reader has to bake their own cake. The reader has to construct the story in their mind. The reader has to have an imagination. No writer can give a reader an imagination. Like any cake recipe, the recipe itself is only a list of suggestions that the reader chooses to follow or not. No writer can give a reader a choice. Writers give suggestions, not choices. Writers give suggestions, not ultimatums. Writers give suggestions, not rules. Writers write suggestions, not laws.
Leaders, teachers, and writers all have something in common: They don’t make good people. The only thing a leader, teacher, or writer can do is try to show a student what that student can do. Leaders do not make soldiers, but they can guide a soldier toward realizing that they are a soldier. Teachers do not make smart people, but they can guide a student toward realizing that the student was a smart person all along. Writers do not make world-changers, but writers can show world-changers that they are already world-changers waiting to change the world. In a way, a writer holds up a mirror and asks the readers what they see in the mirror. Since each person’s “self” acts like a mirror in which they can see the world around them, the writer is showing the world to the reader, but only if the writer and reader are both doing the right thing. If one or both are doing something wrong, then the image is unrealistic.
Writers can only make money from other people, and to get money from other people we have to write what is good for them in a way they like. If we believe that we can change the world by changing people, then that is the same as believing that we can create people. The power of creation is identical to the power of change. But neither of us has the power to change or create through words. Words do not change and they do not create. Words only reveal. If there is money to be made through what we can say, then it will be made, but do not bet on it, and do not ever fall into the fatal trap of believing that we can inflict change on others with our words. We can love and suggest, but we cannot change people. Real change happens deep inside, in a place we cannot go in others. Real MONEY gets generated deep inside, in a place we cannot influence in others!
Writers can write for any kind of person, but writers will only have fun writing for people like themselves. To have fun, we have to be our own audience. I can imitate any kind of writing style, but I can’t have fun unless it’s my style. The same goes for everyone.
For a writer, changing the world means writing something that increases the power of like-minded people by revealing what power is already there. A writer can only write effectively for like-minded people because no writer can write powerfully if they don’t feel meaning in what they are writing. Only powerful writing can change anything. And the only source of real power is Love. Therefore, if we don’t love what we’re writing, then it won’t work. Anyone can imitate other people, but to change the world we have to be ourselves. Being ourselves means embracing what we care about. It also means understanding what we’re good at. Some people are good at writing in general, while others suck at it. People who suck at it will never learn to love it. We never find meaning in doing things we want to avoid, but only after we’ve tried them to check if we like them.
It's simple. If someone has fun writing, then they can become good. Good enough to change the world? No. Good enough to reveal the hidden power in people like themselves? Yes.
Do you want to be a writer? If the answer is yes, and you’ve tried it and failed but want to keep trying, then that is the life of a writer. “And what if the answer is no?” I don’t know what to say if the answer is no, since I don’t know what it feels like to not want to be a storyteller.
Part 5: Change Yourself, not the Market
We can change ourselves, but not the market.
Fewer than 1% of books make any money, and fewer than 0.001% of books make BIG MONEY. Just like gambling, we should never bet anything on low odds. Are we better than the other 99? Do we even know who the other 99% are?
Unless we read a lot of books and spend at least 10% of our free time writing, then we’ll never make lots of money.
It is 1000 times easier to make big money through working hard at a real job compared to making big money through writing books.
“We don’t choose our talents, but we choose how to use them.” ~ Sam Harris
We don’t choose whether we like writing, but we choose whether we write.
This isn’t a competition, by the way. This is trying to gather enough wind in our sails to push ourself forward. The sea and sky are so vast that ships are NOT competing with each other to stay afloat. Not a war. Not a race.
This is about making ourself as lucky as possible.
Not a guarantee of money. But there are ways to raise our odds.
If we’re in this ONLY for the money, then we’re in the wrong career. Period. Writers, on average, make much less than pharmacists, doctors, computer programmers, even high-ranking accountants. If you want money, go make it in a real occupation. I’m giving away valuable information for free on the internet to try and stop storytellers from killing themselves or dying painful deaths. This is my moral obligation, because I’m good at it and I know what I’m doing. I’m talented. This is my place. Is it yours? If you really want it to be, and if you keep going when you suffer, then it’s probably your place too. But if you just want money like JK Rowling, haha too bad. Won’t happen. The odds are not with us. They never will be. Go be a doctor instead. Less stress, I guarantee it.
Good books don’t get read. Books that match what people want, and get good marketing, get read. Everyone wants a good book. Everyone wants a moral story. Everyone is really hungry for good stories whether or not they’re aware of their own hunger pains.
Do you even read books? Have you ever done a 10-hour writing session? Have you ever gotten 5 hours of sleep a night for 10 weeks straight? Have you ever endangered yourself and almost given yourself heart attacks? I’ve been through all that shit. It was really stupid, and I should have taken better care of myself because I needed to get more sleep and love human beings more. After I started getting more sleep and started caring more about other human beings and stopped being so afraid of everything, then I wrote better stories. I changed myself, and that is the biggest change any of us can make.
We need to be kind to ourselves. We must not expect the impossible from our children, and we must not expect the impossible from ourselves, or else we could kill or die for the wrong things. But do not be afraid. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Money won’t defend us. Only courage from love will defend us. We must love courageously to write powerfully.
Review
This lesson in one sentence: No, you won’t make money writing fiction. I’m 99.99% sure of it, and you need to 100% understand this to avoid an early death.
Get enough sleep.
It wastes less time to work than to be worrying about money.
I’m not asking anyone to do dangerous jobs. I’m not saying that dangerous jobs are good. I’m only saying that it’s very dangerous to bet desperately on low chances. Life itself is dangerous, and we have to love super intensely to build up enough courage in ourselves to even walk outside. Our greatest war is the war to change ourselves. Focus on self-improvement. Do not focus on getting rich.
Money is evil and I hate it. And I need more of it.
Next Lesson:
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Media
~ Quotes ~
“You can't take credit for your talents, but it matters that you use them. You can't really be blamed for your weaknesses, but it matters that you correct them. So pride and shame don't make a lot of sense, in the final analysis, but they weren't much fun anyway.”
~ Sam Harris
“False encouragement is a kind of theft: it steals time, energy, and motivation a person could put toward some other purpose.”
~ Sam Harris
Yes, and when we encourage ourselves falsely, we are stealing our own time. Time that we should have spent loving others and working.
~ Daniel Norther
“Losing a belief in free will has not made me a fatalist - in fact, it has increased my feelings of freedom. My hopes, fears, and neuroses seem less personal and indelible. There is no telling how much I might change in the future. Just as one wouldn't draw a lasting conclusion about oneself on the basis of a brief experience of indigestion, one needn't do so on a basis of how one has thought or behaved for vast stretches of time in the past. A creative change of inputs to the system - learning new skills, forming new relationships, adopting new habits of attention - may radically transform one's life. Becoming sensitive to the background causes of one's thoughts and feelings can -paradoxically- allow for greater creative control over one's life. This understanding reveals you to be a biochemical puppet, of course, but it also allows you to grab hold of one of your strings.”
~ Sam Harris, Free Will
“Honesty is a gift we can give to others. It is also a source of power and an engine of simplicity.”
~ Sam Harris
Despising money is like toppling a king off his throne.
~ Nicolas Chamfort
As a general rule, nobody has money who ought to have it.
~ Benjamin Disraeli
Money is only a tool in business. It is just a part of the machinery. You might as well borrow 100,000 lathes as $100,000 if the trouble is inside your business. More lathes will not cure it; neither will more money. Only heavier doses of brains and thought and wise courage can cure. A business that misuses what it has will continue to misuse what it can get.
~ Henry Ford
If the sadness is in our minds, then no amount of money will fix it. Only fighting for what’s right will make us happy.
~ Daniel Norther
Simple rules for saving money. To save half: When you are fired by an eager impulse to contribute to a charity, wait, and count to forty. To save three-quarters, count sixty. To save it all, count sixty-five.
~ Mark Twain, More Tramps Abroad (1897)
He was SO close to saying sixty-nine.
~ Daniel Norther
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