writing a book (by the numbers)

some of them are silly numbers

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There’s supposed to be a taboo about talking about money and we’re supposed to break that taboo for public-spirited reasons. I would like to say that I’m detailing some stuff about the money side of writing a book for such reasons. But in truth, I just like talking about myself. And money! There’s a point at which money becomes not fun to talk about because people start hating you. But I am not there yet… I think….

What follows is not fully transparent (please imagine those words triple underlined, written in red, circled, etc). This is not like… my entire financial history or expenditures or income or whatever. It is (mostly) the kind of stuff I would turn over to i.e. a grant committee. If that makes it unhelpful to you, well… I did say I was only doing this because I like talking about myself.

I’m paywalling some of this but the ~gossip items~ are all above the cut.

All expense numbers are counting from January 2024 to now.

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Advance: $50,000, paid in thirds (divided into signing, delivery, publication). So, after my agent’s cut and putting aside a chunk for taxes… that’s about $10,000 on signing, I think?

Number of books I have to sell to “earn out”: According to this calculator, 14,409 hardbacks. I believe in me. 🫡

Amount spent on research materials (books, magazines, zines, etc, but not supplies like electronics or notebooks or pens): About $3900.

Amount spent on supplies: $993, ~half of which went to an e-ink tablet. Extremely useful. If you spend any amount of time with PDFs, you should consider getting one.

Single largest sum dropped on a research item: $320, for The Complete Science Fiction Digest and Fantasy Magazine. Also super useful.

Single stupidest purchase: Probably paying for Notion ($120) because free Notion could do everything I actually wanted it to do, and yet I was like… “I must pay for this.”

So if you’re doing some mental math here, that leaves about $380 of “supplies.” You are asking yourself… is that shit just pens? Did she spend $380 on pens??

No. That would be stupid. I spent $123 on pens.

since January 2024!!!! she adds defensively