Is it worth it? An interesting question from a member of our local writing guild. He wrote:

“[L]argely my question boils down, in many cases to: is it worth it? The publishing industry, from what I read and hear, is more aimed at always netting the next bestseller, so much so that if your first novel doesn't set the forest on fire, you become a one-and-done writer, at least as far as the publishing industry is concerned.”

Which “it” are you asking about? Today, more than ever, there are a number of its. There are the traditional big publisher its, the small press its, the self-publishing its and the subsidy/vanity its. In reality, probably none of them are quite what you think they are. So let’s look at a few its.

“If I finish this manuscript and sell it to a major New York publisher, can I quit my day job and sleep in?”

No, probably not. Average advances are often in the $2,000-$5,000 range, particularly in genre fiction. In fact, at least one publisher is offering higher royalty rates and zero advances (check out the articles on standard royalty rates and on how to calculate your advance.) Even at the low six figure advance level, your publisher is not going to be sending you on an all-expenses-paid signing tour.

“Can I skip the traditional publishing process and have the reading public beat a path to my door?”

Another bad it. It takes a lot of work to make your book stand out from the pack. In all probability, you’ll sell a few copies to family and friends and that’s it. For the most part, if it’s good enough to sell more than that, someone in New York would have taken a chance on it.

For the most part, the “Is it worth it?” question reflects a fundamental lack of understanding of what’s required to make a living as a writer. Underlying it is the assumption that all a writer has to do is write the manuscript. That’s simply not true these days, if it ever was.

For most of us, making it “worth it” means being intimately involved in the marketing process from the very moment we first conceive the idea for the book. We think about selling books the entire time that we’re developing and writing the book, no matter if it’s nonfiction or fiction.

Are you unwilling to do that part of it? Bad news then, Bunkie. The answer is no. If you’re not committed to selling books to readers, it’s probably not worth your time to finish the manuscript. There are exceptions, of course. But those are the ones that this questioner mentioned.

Let’s look at the question, though, and start over. Let’s assume your question REALLY is, “How can I make enough money as a writer to quit my day job and sleep in?”

That’s a different matter entirely and the answer is simple: sell a lot of books. Which leads us to the next logical question: how does one sell a lot of books?

Now we’re getting somewhere.

The answer to the original question is all in how you define “it”.

So I sent the above back to the original questioner. I’ll let you know what his follow on question was.