Within a period of four years, novelist Heather Demetrios received, for her first five books, advances amounting to $350,000. Demetrois quit her New York City job, and did not pay off her college loans. None of her novels did well. As a result, her next two advances were $35,000 and $20,000. In her August 17, 2019 article, "How to Lose a Third of a Million Dollars Without Really Trying," published in Forge, the novelist chronicled her writer's tale of woe. An excerpt:
"If just one person had sat me down when I signed my first book contract and explained how publishing works, how nothing is guaranteed, and how it often feels like playing Russian Roulette with words, I would have made much sounder financial and creative decisions. I would have set a foundation for a healthy life as an artist, laying the groundwork to thrive in uncertainty, to avoid desperation, panic, and bad decisions that would affect me for years to come."
"How would my life be different if a fellow writer or someone in the industry had told me that the money I'd be receiving for my advances was absolutely no indication of what I could make on future book deals? What pain could I have avoided if they had advised me not to spend that money as though there would be more where that came from? I suspect I may have avoided near nervous breakdown and not come so perilously close to financial ruin and creative burnout. But no one came forward."
One could argue that people who aspire to be full time writers should first educate themselves on how publishing works. On this subject, there is a wealth of information available to aspiring writers. Moreover, publishers are not financial advisors. Apparently Demetrois wasn't taught the economics of the writing life in college.This is not surprising because liberal arts educations are not vocational, or practical.
"If just one person had sat me down when I signed my first book contract and explained how publishing works, how nothing is guaranteed, and how it often feels like playing Russian Roulette with words, I would have made much sounder financial and creative decisions. I would have set a foundation for a healthy life as an artist, laying the groundwork to thrive in uncertainty, to avoid desperation, panic, and bad decisions that would affect me for years to come."
"How would my life be different if a fellow writer or someone in the industry had told me that the money I'd be receiving for my advances was absolutely no indication of what I could make on future book deals? What pain could I have avoided if they had advised me not to spend that money as though there would be more where that came from? I suspect I may have avoided near nervous breakdown and not come so perilously close to financial ruin and creative burnout. But no one came forward."
One could argue that people who aspire to be full time writers should first educate themselves on how publishing works. On this subject, there is a wealth of information available to aspiring writers. Moreover, publishers are not financial advisors. Apparently Demetrois wasn't taught the economics of the writing life in college.This is not surprising because liberal arts educations are not vocational, or practical.
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