How Much Do Trek Writers Make Per Novel?

Perhaps we need two more threads.

One on the virtues of Frank Herbert versus L. Ron Hubbard, and another on the aesthetics of Keith Birdsong's cover art.

It should be a bannable offense.

He referred to me as the messiah, which is true.

Forget Star Trek, what about a brand new, never published before Science Fiction author getting their agent to sell their first paperback novel then assuming modest or slightly above average sales?

Oh yeah, the reason is after two or three years of thinking I finally figured out a way to end my story.

I don't think they make assumptions about the sales figures of never before published authors, at least not in a way that earns the author more money up front.

I would figure that the advance paid to a never published author would be smaller than for established writers.

But I'm still looking for a thoughtful monetary figure.

The "Idiots Guide to Publishing Science Fiction" said that very few science figure authors actually got rich but if you were published regularly a sci-fi author could live comfortably.

The short answer is: It depends on the publisher.

Seriously, there is no ballpark figure, particularly for a first-time author. There are myriad other factors involved that have absolutely nothing to do with the author or the material.

Finish the ms., find an agent, then let the agent worry about the dollar signs.

And you'd be right.

In general, think between a mid-four and a very, VERY low five figures.

That's essentially correct. Median income for published authors across genres is still somewhere around $7,500 a year. No, there are no zeroes missing from that figure.

You'll find most fiction writers have Day Jobs and consider writing a supplement to another income. I probably know about two dozen s/f writers fairly well, and I've met a couple of hundred over the course of 20+ years of attending cons. I know of precisely one who earns a full-time living as a writer.

Thanks Garamet, I appreciate your responses.

^

Please note that I know the diff! Dad never shot down any trees.

Trust me: if he ever strafed any ground targets, he shot down a few trees.

We can start a charitable fund for writers.

This is the biggest thing I respect Garamet for. She's chased after her dream and actually been relatively successful at it. She's figured out a way to write for a living and actually get some stuff published--and not just vanity press stuff.

I was never able to stick it out and make any money as an artist. I sold a print or two and at least one portrait of someone's dog, but I didn't have the luck, patience, and determination to ever make any real money at it.

How much did ya grandma give you for that picture of her dog?

Nah, he shot UP a few trees!

Thanks!

Thing was, I made a bet with myself. I'd either sell a novel before I was 30, or I'd go do something else with my life. First one didn't sell (small wonder; it sucked), second one did. Signed the contract just before my 29th birthday...

The thing about the arts is, you have to do it because you can't *not* do it. The odds against its being "an easy way to make a few bucks" are incalculable. For every best-seller, there are 200,000 unsold mss. languishing on a disk or in a desk drawer somewhere. And as the other creative folks here can tell you, it's no easier in performance or music or art.

You have to believe that the guy who painted the buffalo on the wall of the cave was as valuable to the tribe as the guys who killed the buffalo. Ditto the guy who gathered everyone around the campfire and retold the story of the brave hunters and their kill. Because the artist and the storyteller not only encouraged the hunters to go back out again in spite of the dangers, but their work rendered those hunters immortal, so that we still know their story today.

Bill Mauldin's autobiography, "The Brass Ring" is a nice read about what it takes to make a living as a creative person. (He was the cartoonist who did the "Willy and Joe" cartoons of raggedy G.I.s for WWII and was noted for the cartoon of the Lincoln Memorial, grieving when Kennedy was shot.)

As a kid, I remember watching writers on Johnny Carson, "whining" about rejection letters. I never really understood it until I started trying to sell my work.

My most memorable one was some ST:TNG cartoons for "Starlog". I was so happy to show it to one of my friends: " It's a rejection letter." "But it's handwritten! And they said they enjoyed the cartoons! " I only tried to get work sporadically for a couple months--MAYBE a year--before giving up. So I have an appreciation for anyone who's managed to sell work professionally.

Hell, even F.Scott Fitzgerald had to whore himself out. He wrote a couple novels, but they were largely commercial flops, so he wrote assloads and assloads of short stories to make ends meet. I love his short stories, but he hated writing them.

Or Stephen King. His first novels, he couldn't sell them. So he made ends meet by selling work for B-grade skin mags--like Playboy, only not as successful.

And in this day and age, I don't know that there are as many paying mediums for short stories.

I really need to get off my ass and start trying to sell work again. I have a fair amount of professional content that is marketable in article form, and at this point I probably have a pretty decent biography if I can market it right.

^The layman sometimes just doesn't get it. Selling your work, getting published, is not like a job interview...unless there are 199,999 other people applying for the same job you are.

(That "one out of 200,000 first novels ever sees print" meme is something my agent's been chanting for the 30+ years I've known him. In some respects it's harder than ever to get published by the old, established publishers, but other venues are opening up simultaneously.)

I would encourage you to put together everything you're confident of and start sending it out there. Sell one article, it's easier to sell the second one. Sell 10 or 12, and you've got a portfolio. You can sometimes - not always - but sometimes springboard from that into at least pitching some fiction.

Go for it!

Oh, I'm too lazy to look upthread. Did we mention Frank Herbert in this thread? Because when he died I clipped his obituary from "The St. Paul Pioneer Press"(?). The headline was something to the effect of "Thirteen Publishers Rejected 'Dune'"

Cookies, baba.
Cookies in the kitchen.
Go eat cookies, baba.
Cookies.

On art: Back in art school in '76, our commercial illustration teacher told us about a friend of hers who painted "real" art. This woman apparently could sell a painting for $100,000. She'd basically do one painting a year, sell it, and go to Europe for a 9 month vacation.

False hopes, baby. False hopes.

Which is funny cause dune is most popular scifi book. Volpone have you thought of starting your own religion as a way of supporting yourself. Or being a tv minister?

Call me crazy, but I think a discussion of the relative merits of Herbert versus Hubbard is pertinent to MC. That’s not to mention the alliteration.

Yeah, I remember reading that. Happens more often than not. Roughly 50% of book editors are lazy bastards. They’re always looking for a niche. Any novel that doesn’t remind them of something they’ve read before makes them nervous. That’s why I say there are so many factors that go into a book deal, most of which have nothing to do with the book at all.

Oh, the stories I could tell…

Well, having enough expendable cash to start your own publishing/marketing company wouldn't hurt, and a cult that preys on the gullible would certainly be one way to do it.

I’m also wondering if mainstream publishing has gotten over the era of the “hook,” i.e., the notion that doctors and lawyers and insurance salesmen make better writers than, y’know, writers, in which case a televangelist comes with his own PR machine, so that means the publisher has to do even less work than they’re doing now.

Makes you crazy, doesn’t it? Never mind the heartbreak of getting out there and realizing you’ve been duped, and you feel like Benjamin in that scene in The Graduate (“Plastics!”). There are all those folks, from relatives to potential employers, who nod and smile and say, “Well, that’s all very nice, but you really should have majored in something practical.”

Probably the most Must-resist-urge-to-lunge-across-desk-and-kill moment I can remember was the editor at Doubleday who admitted she hadn’t read the two-chapters-and-sample my agent had sent her three months ago; she’d just had a morning to kill and thought it would be nice to sit and chat. (We’re talking early 80s – when editors still met with writers face-to-face. Some even bought lunch. Sigh…)

“We’re not going to buy your ms.,” she twittered at me. “We’re bought up into next fall. But if no one else wants it, I suppose you could go back to teaching.”

Take it out of Media Central, Baba. Play in the Red Room if you want to spam.

Have it your way, Crazy. You're right, though, very pertinent to MC. But since neither Herbert or Hubbard heaved horrible hackery (yeah, I got ya alliteration RIGHT HERE!) in the direction of the Final Frontier, they're about as pertinent to this hyar thread as... cookies.

Hrm.

Am I the only one who wonders about the quality of work from a guy whose main concern seems to be "How much am I gonna get PAID, huh?"

Probably more than you should. I'd worry more about the quality of work from someone who already doesn't expect anybody to like their work enough to enable them to do it again.

Yup. Fuck it. We all gotta feed ourselves. Getting well-compensated for brain-work is the model for the current American economy.

Trying to figure out if it's worth the time you're investing is a practical concern, particularly when you've got a job and a family. Do you take the kids to the park, or finish Chapter 6? If you're writing a script, can you justify buying FinalDraft software or not?

The irony is, once you've sold a script, you can deduct the cost of the software. Otherwise, as far as the IRS is concerned, you're just buying stuff for your hobby, and it's not deductible.

And if you're looking at it solely as a way to generate a little extra income, look elsewhere. Wal-Mart pays a better hourly wage.

Calculate how long it would take you to crank out 100,000 words. Then assume yours is that one ms. in 200,000 that gets through the bottleneck and sells. Figure the advance at $10,000 - generous for a first novel in today's market. Be a cynic and assume your novel's not going to earn out, so there'll be no royalties beyond that 10 grand...also more than likely in today's market.

Oh, and your agent gets 15% of that 10 grand before you ever see it. And Uncle Sam gets a BIG bite of the rest, because it's self-employment income. Good ol' Schedule SE, at 15.4%.

Used to be advances were paid 50/50 - half when you signed the contract, half when your editor was happy with the finished ms. The trick now is that they dole it out in three payments - a third on signing, a third on acceptance of ms., a third on publication (which can be up to 18 months after you deliver it).

Yeah, sure, you could be the next JK Rowling, but probably not.

That's why I say, do it for love, or check out the swing shift at Wal-Mart.