Has anyone become a full time writer?

[Saileri]

You could. The problem is time. The time between writing and publishing on Amazon and the time between the readers purchasing your work and you getting paid. I have bills due on the 1st, and I am not currently willing to gamble my safety margin on a shot in the fickle market. My clients pay upfront, a lot of the time they do so in full rather than within the standard 30 day due date after the percentage upfront charge.

If I sold something on Amazon today, I would have a sorta kinda chance at being paid enough to justify the effort, and in the meantime, I just "lost" three or four clients.

I suppose you could say the reason I haven't made a serious attempt yet is cowardice. My current situation is safe.

I do have plans to make the leap to Amazon publishing under my own name though, but the going is slow as it contends with everything else I'm doing while I'm not at work (including haunting these forums, it is very addicting).

I had already ~2k Patreon when I branched out to Amazon so the wait of 2 months for first payment wasn't bad for me. But, when it came, I tripled or more what I was getting. Again, I was lucky that the story I actually self-published there (zero intermediates, I actually didn't even have an editor at first and still only occasionally use them) was in fact a chill fantasy adventure with very slow harem (meaning 2nd girl gets in Volume 3, which is like 90+ chapters of novel, which is 180k words)

The thing for Amazon is, if you can do things yourself, do them and don't touch any other "publishers" or shit. If I could, I would have done my audio completely alone too but my location inconveniences that a lot. Thankfully, my audiobook publisher is great and doesn't scam people. But, otherwise, I would have managed everything myself to avoid the fees.

Anyway, it's not like Amazon will always work. It can fail like anything else. I do wonder how my new project will be received since it's different from my current stories. As usual, I expect a flop. What will happen, we will see.

 

[Deeprotsorcerer]

I had already ~2k Patreon when I branched out to Amazon so the wait of 2 months for first payment wasn't bad for me. But, when it came, I tripled or more what I was getting. Again, I was lucky that the story I actually self-published there (zero intermediates, I actually didn't even have an editor at first and still only occasionally use them) was in fact a chill fantasy adventure with very slow harem (meaning 2nd girl gets in Volume 3, which is like 90+ chapters of novel, which is 180k words)

The thing for Amazon is, if you can do things yourself, do them and don't touch any other "publishers" or shit. If I could, I would have done my audio completely alone too but my location inconveniences that a lot. Thankfully, my audiobook publisher is great and doesn't scam people. But, otherwise, I would have managed everything myself to avoid the fees.

Anyway, it's not like Amazon will always work. It can fail like anything else. I do wonder how my new project will be received since it's different from my current stories. As usual, I expect a flop. What will happen, we will see.

This creator from the depths salutes you! I hope to join you in the listings eventually.

 

[Bartun]

Bah! Flattery! (but thanks) You could do just as well, you're a strong writer. You just need to sell yourself to whoever is buying. Nonfiction pays the fastest. Literally email 30 blogs/startup companies/online magazines and if one hires you, your foot is in the door.

And don't despair if none do, keep pitching. Sometimes none of my pitches convert for a week, sometimes half do. It's a very feast-or-famine lifestyle, which is why it's important to maintain a healthy savings account.

Thanks! But I'm not sure how to start, or even how that would turn out in my country, I mean, Spanish is my first language and I worked really hard to learn English, but here in third world wages are very low! I do ironwork meanwhile to make ends meet. I can do drawing too, but I'm not very good, I did all the drawings for my story though. Let's just say I'm good with a lot of things but not good enough to live out of it.

 

[Lloyd]

Thanks! But I'm not sure how to start, or even how that would turn out in my country, I mean, Spanish is my first language and I worked really hard to learn English, but here in third world wages are very low! I do ironwork meanwhile to make ends meet. I can do drawing too, but I'm not very good, I did all the drawings for my story though. Let's just say I'm good with a lot of things but not good enough to live out of it.

It is probably easier if the cost of living in your country is low. Since you can take jobs from the US that pay more.

 

[Bartun]

It is probably easier if the cost of living in your country is low. Since you can take jobs from the US that pay more.

You have a very good point, maybe I should give it a try

 

[Deeprotsorcerer]

Thanks! But I'm not sure how to start, or even how that would turn out in my country, I mean, Spanish is my first language and I worked really hard to learn English, but here in third world wages are very low! I do ironwork meanwhile to make ends meet. I can do drawing too, but I'm not very good, I did all the drawings for my story though. Let's just say I'm good with a lot of things but not good enough to live out of it.

You can't go wrong with Elaina Cain's blog, she has a pretty in-depth starter's guide for non-fiction stuff dispersed across her site. for a quick and dirty liftoff, you can poach jobs off of reddit's r/HireaWriter, though the competition there is brutal. For cold emails, here's a useful guide, just remember to tweak your emails to be more personalized to whoever you're pitching to.

Snagging fiction jobs is a little more difficult, but you've already done half of the work by having a novel with over 2K views and a 4.6 star rating. Wave it around Twitter and other social media platforms between organic community posts and advertise your services as a fiction writer. Be sure not to spam though.

You can also participate in fiction contests for cash prizes. They're very slow and the effort-to-profit ratio makes spending all of your time on them risky.

Write on Bartun. I believe in you.

 

[Comiak]

I work full time on my story, but I live a very low-cost lifestyle and I have been accumulating wealth even at 1k/month with Patreon, now I am almost to 2k and will definitely hit that mark next month. It's very doable based on your expenses.

 

[Motsu]

It's always the coffee! Despite the aching and years of learning, the scent and taste of coffee is still what it seem to be. Always remember, full-time to writers is just the same as part-time and "full-time" writers don't often write their own books as they work on diverse freelancing projects.

 

[LynaForge]

Did you know that dolphins pleasure themselves on baby seals, often killing them in the process? No. I'm not going to explain how that was relevant to one of my gigs.

Yeah, dolphins are pretty terrible.