The Reality of a Times Bestseller

If you haven’t checked out Lynn Viehl’s post of having an NYT bestseller and money, it’s refreshingly frank and something every writer, especially newbies, should check out.

I recall a discussion about NYT bestseller-dom at Dear Author (not linking because I can’t remember the post title) and comments to the effect that selling out a 100k MMP print run is great moneywise…even if it takes a couple of years to do so.  Dudes, $60k over two years is below poverty level.  And $60k BEFORE TAX over ONE YEAR is still not that great.  Personally, $60k AFTER TAX per annum still wouldn’t entice me to quit the Clark Kent job.  But I somehow bit my tongue at DA and let people think bestseller-dom automatically means authors are rolling in it.

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