Tara Maya's Tales

I always find it interesting to see how much money authors actually make. We all know that J.K. Rowlings is the exception, not the rule; but real dollars-and-cents figures are guarded more closely than goblin's gold. I found this breakdown from one helpful e-publisher, New Concepts Publishing, about the average payout over three years for various Romance sub-genres: Average payout over three years (contract period) $450.00 Science Fiction/Futuristic range: $127.89--$8455.46 Paranormal range: $78.00--$5673.50 Contemporary range: $55.18--$7913.78 Historical range: $75.16--$3863.12 Romantic Suspense range: $124.24--$1977.20 Fantasy range: $44.00--$4774.80 Remember, all of these are actually in the Romance genre, so you sf freaks, contain your jubliation unless your aliens have their sexy on. I suspect mainstream fantasy and sf sell in much lower numbers. If anyone has any real figures, ballpark or specific, I'd be interested. * * * Small e-presses are probably the first step abo...

SunTiger tagged me with coming up with 3 ways to save money. Um. I'm really the last person to ask about how to save money. Now, if y'all wanted tips on how to waste money, I'm your gal. Plus, this is supposed to be a blog about writing. Anyway, here goes. 1. Write in the dark. Your computer screen should give you enough light anyway, right? Turn off the lights and conserve power! Oh, wait, some of you write longhand. Well, you probably don't have electricity anyway, so you're fine. 2. Query only by email. Why waste trees and spend all that money on stamps? Do you really even want an agent who doesn't know how to use email? 3. Drink less beer. Buy a keg instead. Yeah, I know. There's a reason I lost the election for Highschool Treasurer.