OVer at the Whatever, Senor BaconCat has two long posts on the glamorous life of a successful SF writer: one breaking down his income from SF writing in detail, and the other talking about why he's talking about money. The comment threads are also lively and interesting in their own right. It's particularly funny to see the number of people who are shocked at how low the income is-- $67,000 is a pretty respectable salary in the world of people who don't play around on the Internet all that often, and it's probably in the ninety-somethingth percentile for fiction writers.
Of course, I'm amused by that in large part because it turns out that John's fiction-writing income is comparable to what I make as a small-time academic. My income is fairly typical for a physics Ph.D. in an academic position, and I'm faintly amused to find that that works out to be similar to "prize-winning SF author," on the income scale.
I'm being vague about my actual salary not because of the American taboo against talking about money (I share John's sentiment that this is pretty silly), but because I'm not actually sure what my income was last year. I know in very rough terms, but Kate keeps the books in Chateau Steelypips (we're both happier that way), so I don't know the exact numbers.
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I've never understood the whole "Oh my ghod! You can't talk about money! That's forbidden!" thing either.
I am a bit surprised that a reasonably successful author only makes that much though. I'd have expected somewhere in the one to two hundred thousand range.
King, Jordan, Clancy, and a few others being rolling in vaults of money as exceptions, of course.
I'm actually quite surprised, although writing as a member of the entertainment area probably shares similar income characteristics as sports, and acting -a tiny number of highly visible members making outrageous amounts, and are large majority making outrageously little.
The whole don't talk about money thing probably comes from the fact that within an organization talking about salaries can lead to those who are shocked that so-and-so makes more than they do.
Comparisons of salaries across countries is notoriously difficult; I would not be surprised if not comparisons between very different kinds of jobs, done in different places and in different circumstances is not as well. I mean, a freelance fiction writer working from home (probably in a capacity of the proprietor of a one-person firm) and with his earnings happening in bursts every few years is probably facing a rather different economic landscape from someone with a monthly paycheck.
Since getting my PhD I have had a five-fold spread of monthly earnings (not counting the zero months), due to anything from what continent I work in to what the money I get formally is classified as. The one thing that hasn't affected it so far is the quality of work I do - _availability_ of work is greatly affected, of course, but renumeration is largely random, it seems.
National Writers Union statistics (about a decade old): median income (from writing) for authors in North America who had a book published in the year: less than $20,000.
Top 2% of those authors earned $100,000 that year or more.
Top 1% of those authors earned $200,000 that year or more.
"Average" numers are almost useless, as they neglect the shape of the curve, and the "star system" for book publishing, similar to that in Hollywood, TV, or computer games.
I would like to add real quick: this is the amount of money he made from his science fiction writing. He actually made made quite a bit more than that, if I understand, because he writes just so damn much. He does non-fiction, and multiple blogs, and columns, and I forget what else.
Comment received by email:
"Good to have a frank discussion of the money in writing. You rarely find this, which puts authors at a big disadvantage against publishers, who know it all."
from Dr. Thomas McDonough, astrophysicist and science fiction novelist, formerly a student of Carl Sagan.
[Chad: not namedropping, merely identifying the commenter, exactly on-topic]