Just-cause-i-want-to

Original

no, royalties are not a significant source of income for most authors. if you wrote something like Project Hail Mary, then absolutely, the royalties would be substantial! but that's like winning the lottery. Ryan Gosling is not starring in the movie adaption of most books.

when you sell a book to a publisher, you get what's called 'an advance against royalties'. it's usually split into multiple parts, so you might get one third for the initial sale, one third for the final revised manuscript, and one third on the publishing date.

an advance against royalties is the publisher saying "we believe you will eventually make X amount in royalties, so here it is ahead of time." and then you don't actually see any money from royalties until the advance is paid off. most books do not make enough in royalties to pay off the advance (I have two children's books and one fiction book, and have yet to see royalties for any of them).

advances are still great, but you need to make them stretch! for instance, last year my net income was about 30k Canadian (21k USD), which is fantastic when you consider that I mostly made it through writing. but I'm definitely not a millionaire. I can live off my writing (not trying to undersell that!) but I'll probably remain in a low income bracket for the foreseeable future.

this isn't me making a fuss about pirating (I've pirated way too many shows to run my mouth on that lmao), but there IS actually a financial incentive to having people buy your books!

buying books shows the publisher that they can make money off you, which means they're more likely to give you advances for future books. and advances are what authors live off (if they don't have a side job). that's why I always push pre-orders so hard! you have to be a racehorse worth betting on, or else they send you to the glue factory....

Of course that sweater looks weird on me, I’m a horse, not a human! I can barely get my hooves through the sleeves, and it bunches up over my withers and doesn’t reach my fetlocks, and there’s no accounting for my hindquarters. Or my forequarters either

When I first started, it was at least an hour walk in each direction,

Also I developed appendicitis that week, during training,

And so, telling myself it wasn't serious, I walked to work at 3am, in the dark, with appendicitis, and by the time I got there my vision was tunneling, so I asked them to call an ambulance.

I have chronic pain, a lot of it, so it just didn't stand out to me that something was wrong until I was going into shock,

And I have walked everywhere my whole life if at all humanly possible, because cabs and buses cost money and hurt my spine and brain. Even before corona, I did not like closed quarters with other people if I could avoid it,

Naturally my co-workers had questions, and I answered them with answers that seems normal to me,

And I didn't really question it when the first guy started hounding me about giving me a ride home, he was a known slut [affectionate] who loved his car, and probably wanted to show off, and saw an opportunity when someone was rumoured to walk an hour each way to work, so I made it clear we were friends and that nothing else was on the table and that I probably couldn't pay him, and he still insisted on it,

I couldn't really figure out why, but he never pressed about spending time together outside of work, he was sweet, but he really did just seem to WANT to drive me home and pick me up for work,

When he left someone took over for him and insisted on it.

When she left, someone took over and insisted on it.

Then I moved and I was within a walking distance of the building and everyone dropped it.

And I couldn't figure out why there always seemed to be someone INSISTING on giving me a ride home.

Having social support from anyone was so weird to me.

I'm not used to it, and haven't seen it since, not from any friends or my parents, etc... And these people were just my coworkers.

And I do know they talked about me behind my back because I overheard some of it, but it wasn't generally super mean, so I didn't bother addressing it, [just like, if you are so worried about this why not ask me directly about it???]

But like, looking back, I am pretty sure they were all collectively afraid I would die or be killed if they let me wander home and back, and had maybe made some kind of collective agreement to make sure I didn't die or get attacked on my way home or to work.

After all, they saw me in my work clothes in the building at my desk, not what I look like in my leather jacket walking, so there's the gender bias of it all and the associated -perceived- risks, sure,

But also, these people, their first experience of me was me almost dying because I just couldn't tell when something was the kind of pain or strain I should actually be worried about.

Now I have to sit here and just live with the fact that having co-workers who I barely spoke to provided more of a support structure for me than actively making friends or having a family ever did.

Last year, wasps built this nest

This year, other species of wasps built a nest on that nest