2015 Writing Income

Fotolia_34358724_MloresI’m going to take a cue from author Jim C. Hines and post my 2015 earnings income from my writing here. In part, because I really like the way he shows his earnings trend, and in part because I personally found it very reassuring and motivational.  He’s been tracking his income from nothing (in 2002) to a very successful level. And although Jim is a traditionally-published fantasy author, he has also begun indie publishing some of his own work.  Check out his Amazon author page here.

I also follow successful indie authors I know, like Anthea Sharp, Annie Bellet, JC Andrijeski and others, trying to emulate their success. All are USA Today best-selling authors. I’ve met these women, I admire their talent, and buy (and read) their books.

While I’m not a USA Today bestseller (yet!) or even paying all my bills with my writing, 2015 seems to mark the beginning of a positive upswing, which i’m hoping will be helpful to others.  By the way, none of these charts reflect the $5K winnings I received by winning the Writers of the Future Golden Pen Grand Prize.  Since that is a (large and) once-in-a-lifetime sort of thing, I didn’t want it to skew the data.

2015 Earned Income copy

2015 Income Breakdown copy

I was paid (pro rates) for three stories I wrote this year–one of which was was my novella, Stars That Make Dark Heaven Light.  At six cents a word, the novella length really helped to boost my income.  And although it doesn’t look like much, that 5% revenue stream from my “Indie Published Titles” was largely earned in the last quarter of the year.

I believe 2016 will be even better.

This entry was posted in 2015, 2016, Annie Bellet, Anthea Sharp, benchmarking, business, Earnings, Jim C. Hines, Sharon Joss, Writers of the Future, Writers of the Future Anthology, Writers Road to Success, writing, writing business, writing goals and tagged , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.