Smashing your limiting beliefs about earning money as an artist

[Yarco]

Here's a video of novelist Chris Fox going over his income for last year.

He's not a famous author per se. Not a household name, it's unlikely that you've ever heard of him. But he made $190k gross from writing last year, $250k the year before that. 

He's not a sellout or a slave to just following the money, he writes what he loves: epic fantasy, space fantasy, even a comedy based on Dungeons & Dragons. And he makes a great living doing it.

Of course part of his success is taking a bit of time to learn about business, marketing, etc. But he has no educational background in marketing, he's a former computer programmer who quit to become a writer. So if he can figure it out, you can too.

Note that a lot of his "on paper" expenses like hiring an editor, cover designer, etc is stuff that he pays his own wife to do. So that money is staying in his household, he's being smart about it and taking advantage of individual tax brackets to keep more of his money within his family.

Also it might look insane and unfathomable that he's spending over a thousand dollars a month on advertising, but realize he didn't get to that spot overnight. He started with nothing and built up slowly over the past 6+ years, figuring out what worked and what didn't with trial and error along the way. Make small bets.

If you think he's a super lucky exception to the rule -- he's not. There are plenty of unknown writers living out their life purpose of writing, making $100k or more a year and loving it, without even having a publisher or agent to report to.

Take note if you're a writer, artist, or any other creative career path where it's assumed that you'll spend your life starving and in squalor for your vision. It doesn't have to be that way.

Edited April 8, 2022 by Yarco

[KingCrimson]

This is very valuable and useful information. Thanks a bunch for sharing!