An Author's Life · 11:54pm Apr 22nd, 2022
I finished up the Enforcerverse, so if you like a completed tale, click the embeds below. That said, I am now without a writing project. Feels weird. Feels very weird. Like I am caught in a void in-between where I was and where I will be. (That's a reference to the frigid cold of in-between Starlight experiences while teleporting in my stories.)
In anthropology and ethnology, we talk about liminal times. For example, when a child comes of age, there is a transition often where the child is neither a child nor an adult, and ritual helps us through. For personal reasons, a bar or bas mitzvah comes to mind. Society has all sorts of ways to help people through liminal times.
For an author, not so much.
I've spent the better part of the past couple of years writing and rewriting about Starlight Glimmer in The Runaway Bodyguard and The Enforcer and Her Blackmainers (Augmented & Enhanced). What is something like that worth in real word terms? With the side novella, let's call that two novels, approximately 300,000 words. If I published them as genre fiction, at a $7.99 cover price and they published and sold through a run of 20,000 books with my minimum 10% cut (before my agent's cut), I would earn $15,980.00 for each book. eBooks net less and hardcovers net more, but I understand they even out. I don't know what a print run is today, but I doubt it is under 5,000 copies. Do the math.
Let me add, that if you count that in terms of hourly wage, it's less than minimum wage. All authors are mental to some degree, except for those that write and sell 3+ books per year, or become a best selling author.
I wrote these two novels for the love of the genre, for practice at 1st person narrative, and to create the character Aurora Midnight for use in other works of fiction. It had better be for love, considering what I should have earned. Just a little reminder as to why authors on this site appreciate your upvotes and comments!
What do I do next?
Well, the obvious answer is to return to writing SF. Get my act back together. I have a plan which includes a revision of my first novel into a "Author's Preferred Edition." I also have two fantasy novellas I'd like to revise and publish. Then, and only then, I write stories about a special human named Aurora Midnight (sans all Hasbro IP).
I think I'll write some more stories here, but maybe not a novel for a little while. I have sandbagged a few stories that I will release soon, a couple to do with Luna.
Meanwhile, I feel weird, liminal. My days, which were filled with me reading out loud chapters as I revised, leave me with nothing to do. Okay, I could read others' stories. I'm puttering with a Starlight, Prince Blueblood, Moon Dancer story, but I'm still trying to find the conflict.
That's one author's life, to date.
Read these completed stories and upvote!
Congrats.
Why aren't you taking a break?
5658216
I am an author.
I love words.
Can't. Not. Write. I am a slave of my brain!
BTW, I'm 10,000 words into the new pony story. I don't think it'll be as cohesive as the Enforcer or The Runaway Bodyguard, but the mentioned characters are surprising me and that's always a good thing.