A Tricky Business

by Abir

 

How do you measure “business success”? How “successful” have you been in terms of “business” this year?

 

 

Now this is an interesting question. In the five years that I’ve been a member of this august panel, I can’t remember this particular question being asked. And it’s an important question too, because while writing is a passion, if your dream is to make a living from it, then it’s also a business too.

 

I came to writing, at least serious writing, relatively late. I was thirty nine before I started writing, and forty one when my first novel was published. I came to writing with commitments – a family to provide for, a mortgage to pay, and all the rest. My writing dream, by necessity, was not to have a book published (though of course that was a wonderful, amazing first step), but to be able to make a living from writing. Indeed, in those early days, when people asked me what I did, I would say I was an accountant who dabbled in writing. Over time, as sales rose and my income grew, the way I described my profession changed gradually. Still, the objective remained the same: to reach the point where I could become a full-time writer.

 

I pretty much reached that position in. 2020, during lockdown. I gave up my job and my clients and focussed on the writing. It had taken five books, growing royalties, a new book deal, a degree of financial planning, and most importantly, a wife who was willing to support me taking an effective pay cut in order to chase my dreams.

 

Since then, things have been going ok. My financial background helped me to plan our finances, building up a financial buffer against any unforeseen expenses and any delays or drops in royalties. My latest book has, HUNTED, has taken about eighteen months longer to write than I had expected. It’s very different to anything I’ve written before and it took longer to master the arts of writing a bang-up-to-date thriller than I’d anticipated. The delay of course has had a knock-on effect on our finances, be it a delay in milestone payments on the contract from my publishers, or the impact on royalties of not having had a new book released for almost three years now. But it is finished now, it’ll be out in the USA and UK in early May 2024, and it is the best thing I’ve written to date.

 

So what does the business of writing entail? For me there are different revenue streams. First and foremost, there are the advances I received from my publishers for writing a book. These are generally split between an amount up front, then milestone payments for when I hand in a final draft they’re happy with, and payments when the book is released in hardback and then paperback formats. The next segment of my income comes from royalties – these are my (small) cut of the sales of the books in all formats, which I receive after I’ve earned out the original advance. I’ve been lucky to have earned out on all of my books to date, and as the number of books has grown, so generally have the royalty payments. Then come revenues from the sale of overseas rights – these can range from a few hundred pounds, dollars or euros for small territories, to much larger amounts for languages such as French, German and Japanese. I’m especially fond of the French market, where unlike in Anglo-Saxon countries, they insist on charging a decent price for a book rather than giving it away for cents or pence, and which allows a lot more writers to make a living. More countries should be like the French.

 

Then comes income from teaching and events. I don’t do much teaching – the odd week here and there, and I do it mostly because I enjoy the discipline of it. It’s also great to meet new budding writers and be able to give them the benefits of my rather dubious wisdom. As for events, I do a lot of these, mainly because it’s a great way to meet readers. Generally I receive a few hundred pounds per event, which goes to covering the costs of the day.

 

In terms of this year, business has been reasonable. As mentioned above, the delay in finishing HUNTED has delayed revenues and also meant that I haven’t had a book out in ages. Still, I’m in the fortunate position of having readers who stick with me and who still buy my books. Yet I’ve not reached that point where I feel comfortable that I can be a full-time writer for the rest of my life. For most of us, you’re only as good as the last thing you wrote, and a lot will depend on what happens over the next few years.

 

If I have one hope, it’s that you’ll all buy and enjoy HUNTED. The early reviews have been wonderful, with Lee Child describing it as ‘pretty much flawless’. I hope you’ll all agree. Because we writers need readers to keep up us in business.