Hello, writers! I share my income breakdown every year, hoping my transparency will help other writers make career decisions. I’m a working children’s writer with a number of books published, a nice handful of awards and honors, no NYT bestselling books, and a need to contribute substantially to the family budget. These income reports appeared on various blogs and newsletters up through 2017, and I’m now gathering them all here. They’re just as they first appeared, except I’ve removed outdated links and things. These are an authentic representation of my income and frame of mind throughout my writing career–redundancies, celebrations, failures, and all!

2023

Hi, writers. I’ll start out with my regular disclaimer and intro: If you think it’s impolite to talk about finances, skip this article!

I share my income every year not as a warning nor as a brag. Not because money is my main reason for writing. It’s not. But I want to continue to have the honor and privilege of writing for kids as my main career. It’s a heck of a lot of hard work, but I wouldn’t trade it. So I have to keep close track of my income streams and make sure I’m being realistic about what I can do. I have to notice which streams are drying up and which might be ready to gush. I don’t like thinking about the money part. I wish I could afford to just write and never worry about making income. But that’s not real life. And, there’s a loose equivalency between the money you’re making and the number of readers you’re reaching. So for all of these scattered reasons, I keep track of this stuff and share it with you. I hope it’s useful for you, whatever stage of your writing journey you’re in!

If the screen looks splotchy, it’s probably my tears leaking out! 2023 was, frankly, a difficult year, income-wise. Because writers get paid so sporadically, it can take a while to realize when things have changed. But sometimes after the summer, it became clear that my writing income was way down. In fact, I took a part-time job at the grocery store up the street in order to have some tiny bit of steady income coming in. And I’m still working there. Only one or two shifts per week, but that’s the reality.

I could’ve taken on more work-for-hire writing (more on that later), but I was already working so hard on the writing, revision, and promotion of my trade books (the books of my heart), that I didn’t want to take on more work that would use my creativity and capacity for organizing big projects. I decided instead to get a part-time job that I could show up to, work hard, and then not think about it until my next shift. I think that was the right move for me (although when this has happened before, I’ve often just doubled down on wfh writing, instead).

Okay, on to the numbers.

My gross 2023 income was $32,865. That’s $16,000 less than my 2022 income!About 33% of my writing income dried up. Wow, that’s scary! Here’s how my income streams played out over the year.

Trade Book Sales/Royalties: $9,349 — 28% of my income

From 2022 to 2023, my royalties dropped by half. Ugh.

I didn’t have any huge royalty earners. It was mostly a number of books each earning less than $1,000 over the course of the year. And some of this was advances. I have two board books coming in spring 2025–yay! I got 1/2 of the advance for each of those last year. So that was two payments of $600. And I got the second 1/2 of the advance for a picture book that’s coming out in August–yay! That was $1,100. Clover Kitty Goes to Kittygarten was my star, I guess, because I earned a bit more than $2,000 for it. But $1,600 of that amount was licensing fees for participating in two Amazon programs.

Many of my picture books that have come out since 2019 have not earned out yet, which is rough. So much love went into them. My sales haven’t really ever rebounded, overall, to pre-pandemic levels. Man, this job is hard!

I had three new gorgeous books come out in spring last year. Puddle Song, the board book, has earned out, surprisingly! But it was a very low advance to have to earn out. Still, I’m tickled! Finding Family hasn’t earned out yet. It’s received numerous honors recently, and I’m hopeful that it will earn out in this first half of 2024. Zap! Clap! Boom! also hasn’t earned out yet. Like I said, a rather painful year.

Two of my picture books that have sold the least overall both came out from the same publisher. That publisher was sold and had a fair bit of turmoil over the past 5 years. Also, one of the two books is a poetry collection (generally never a big seller), and the other is a funny STEM story with what I think is a pretty ineffective title. Hmm…I need to do some more thinking about which publishers are best able to reach the audience that likes my books.

I hesitate to share all this so bluntly, because when you’re a midlist author whose books aren’t selling well enough to earn out…let’s just say that doesn’t make publishers get in line to take a risk on your next project. But I feel committed to sharing this info each year.

I’m hoping to have better news in this category next year!

School Visits and Storytimes: $9,268 — 28% of my income

This income stream dried up by about 33%. But that’s partially because I didn’t have an enormous storytime tour for one library district.

This includes, I think, 7 library storytimes, 7 virtual field trip sessions, 4 days of young authors conferences, 2 in-person author visits, and 2 virtual visits. I put a lot of time and some money, too, into trying to increase my virtual author visits, but I stink at marketing.

Work-for-Hire Books and Projects: $2,000 — 6% of my income

This stream is only about 1/3 of my 2022 amount. You know, it’s not unusual for some income streams to go way down and others to jump considerably from year to year. If you do many different things, then when a big project/opportunity comes in one area, you end up turning down other things offered to you in other areas. What was concerning in 2023 was the sort of universal decline!

This $2,000 was for a set of four books for the educational market. The pay was not great, as they were written through a packager. But the process and the editor I worked with were both good. I’m wrapping up a set of six books for them right now, in fact. We’ll see if I do more.

Assessment: $7,300 — 22% of my income

This area went up just a bit (yay–at least something did!). Almost all this work was for a single company–one I’ve written for for a long time. This represents about 20 passages and a poem.

Interestingly, I haven’t had a single assessment project so far in 2024. So…

Indie Publishing: $1,401 — 4% of my income

This includes both the paperback books Lisa Bullard and I wrote together, as well as the books I’ve written. I’m proud of the books, but I/we don’t market them at all. I can barely keep up with promoting my trade children’s books, let alone anything else. Making a Living Writing Books for Kids and Writing for the Educational Market are my two books for writers, and I have a cool set of poetry collections for teachers.

Almost half this amount came in two spikes. In March 2023, my two books for writers in the previous paragraph earned about $275 in royalties–most of that on one day. So I’m guessing some kind of professor or speaker bought quite a few for their writer students–a lovely surprise. And in August, I earned $480 from Fairy Tale Garage Sale. I had spoken at a large and wonderful educational co-op professional development event in Texas, and the organizers had ordered a copy of that book for each attendee. That was such a generous thing for them to do.

Writer in Progress Facebook Group: $500 — 1% of my income

In March of 2023, I put my membership Facebook Group on hiatus. It was painful to do, honestly. I loved sharing my writing life and making videos and posts for the Group. I loved the discussions we had. But the amount of income from it was so minuscule that I couldn’t justify spending the time on it anymore. (Especially since I was actually paying an assistant to create marketing materials for it.)

I haven’t started it back up, and I likely won’t. I miss it a lot.

Speaking/Teaching: $2,600 — 8% of my income

In 2023, I did one webinar for writers ($200) and one large professional development day for educators ($2,400). But that $2,400 actually included my airfare and hotel, etc. So my actual speaking fee was, I think, $1,500.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, I earn less than the mean salary for Preschool, Elementary, Middle, Secondary, and Special Education Teachers in the U.S., which is $62,900. In fact, with my 2023 income, I could earn just as much money working full time at the grocery story. My pay there is $16.50 an hour. Geez–that’s depressing!

As I said, a difficult year. Will I stop? No, although I occasionally entertain the idea when the rejections pile up. But exploring and thinking about the world, and then sharing that through books–that’s who I am. And writing pays more than just money.

Very recently, two lovely book creators I knew a bit both passed away. They were Derek Anderson and Katey Howes. Both younger than I am. Both nothing but kind and generous. Both putting beauty out into the world–beauty that outlives them. That’s what I’ll keep doing too, for as long as I’m allowed the opportunity.

Still, I hope your 2023 was a bit more financially rewarding than mine!

PLEASE NOTE: These income numbers are gross income. They don’t include any of my expenses—Google storage fees, Zoom webinar costs, Paypal fees, agent 15% commissions (for my books sold by an agent), office supplies, etc., nor the self-employment, federal, state, and sales taxes I pay. (The taxes alone are generally 30–40% of my gross income.)

2022

Hi there, writers! Well, this post wouldn’t be complete without my regular disclaimer: If you think it’s impolite to talk about finances, skip this article!

2022 was a very busy writing year, although I only had one book come out. But there were some new-to-me experiences and both good news and disappointing news about various book earnings. So…pretty much business as usual!

My gross 2022 income was $48,636. That’s about $4K less than my 2021 income. Each year as a children’s author and freelance writer is a bit of a mystery until the end of the year. Let’s see how it breaks down.

Trade Book Sales/Royalties: $18,390 — 38% of my income

In 2022, I earned $18,390. Interestingly, $3,000 of that was the reprint fee for one poem in a college textbook. That poem originally appeared in an anthology, and I held all the rights to it. And $6,129 was reprint rights for poems from BookSpeak, which published back in 2011. Usually, my royalty checks for BookSpeak are only in the double digits for a 6‑month period. With that poem, the amount I earned was only 50% of the amount the purchasing publisher paid Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. (And then my then agent’s 15% came out of it, too.) Anyway, you can see that almost half my royalty income was kind of a fluke, which is disappointing. I occasionally sell reprint rights for poems (or my publishers do), but you certainly can’t depend on that!

Some of my royalty income is from the first half of advances for 2 board books, 1 picture book, and the second half of an advance for a board book. All 3 board books have advances of $1200 each. The picture book is a $2,200 advance. So $2,900 came from those various advance payments.

The remainder, $6,361, came from the rest of my picture books that are already out and have earned out their advances:

BookSpeak (not including the reprint fee)
A Leaf Can Be…
Water Can Be…
A Rock Can Be…
If You Were the Moon
Snowman-Cold=Puddle
Lion of the Sky
Clover Kitty Goes to Kittygarten
Snack, Snooze, Skedaddle

I also have 5 picture books that were out but that haven’t earned out their advances yet (she says hopefully).

This is the writing I most want to do, so it’s the category I always hope is earning a bigger percentage of my overall income.

School Visits and Storytimes: $15,725 – 32% of my income

This is about 7 times my 2021 income in this category! Why? I only did 4 full days of traditional in-person author visits! But I also did 3 days of young authors conferences, 4 virtual author events (not full days, but 1 or 2 sessions for each), and an astonishing (for me) 20 library storytimes—including a 14-branch storytime tour of one library system over the summer. Author visits are both so much work and also satisfying, though I’m thinking of moving to virtual only for “standard” author visits for a lot of different reasons. We’ll see how that goes.

Work-for-Hire Books and Projects: $6,240 – 13% of my income

This amount is more than double my 2021 figure. I did projects for two different companies—one was a company I did a bit of work for in 2021, and it involved writing decodable storybooks. What a puzzle and a learning experience. I don’t usually actively search for work-for-hire projects. But if I see a listing in a Facebook Group that looks interesting, or if a previous client reaches out to me, then I usually take the work if it sounds interesting. Of course, if other income streams come to a screeching halt, as they did at the beginning of the pandemic, then I reach out to previous clients and start checking job boards. This part of my income is always in flux.

Assessment: $6,270 – 13% of my income

This is only about 1/3 of my 2021 income from assessment. It represents about 20 passages, mostly poetry and nonfiction. I had done some item writing in 2021, but I really hated it. And I discovered that while I have general item-writing skills, I didn’t have the skill level necessary to work with a particular top-level assessment company, so I turned down additional opportunities.

Indie Publishing: $1,126 – 2% of my income

Writer in Progress Facebook Group: $750 – 2% of my income

This is a membership Facebook Group where I try to nurture other writers. Because I put a lot of time into this and make so very little income, I had thought I’d likely dissolve this Facebook Group during 2022. But I couldn’t let it go. I do love talking and chatting and sharing with other children’s writers—aspiring or established. So, I’m keeping it going through this year, at least. In fact, my daughter has been working on a video for me to help promote it. Right now, I make a few short videos each week, and I ask questions, cheer folks on, answer questions, etc. I’d love to grow Writer in Progress enough to hold monthly Zooms to chat in real time and have more group discussions. Some topics I’ve made brief videos on recently include:

finding markets for short stories
consistency in point of view/narrator in a brief manuscript
dealing with comparisonitis
showing drafts of a poem for an anthology
sharing royalty statements

If this sounds like something you’d find interesting, please check it out! It’s just $5 a month. Learn more here. Oh, and here’s that video to give you a taste…

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, I earn less than the mean salary for Preschool, Elementary, Middle, Secondary, and Special Education Teachers in the U.S., which is $64,870. A student asked on an author visit recently, “Do you make a lot of money?” I think both students and teachers were shocked when I shared this information.

We all want to be seen as successful, and money is one way that’s measured. Because folks think being a writer is glamorous, they assume writers make lots of money. Sometimes, it’s why they expect writers to do lots of appearances for free! (Sorry, I can’t afford to do many of those.) It might shatter the mystique a little, but I think it’s healthy to be more open about payments and income so that we can all work toward our own realistic versions of success.

2021

Hi there, writers! Well, this post wouldn’t be complete without my regular disclaimer: If you think it’s impolite to talk about finances, skip this article!

2021 started out with such promise, but it still proved to be challenging in so many ways. Getting responses from editors and acquisitions teams seems even slower now, and supply chain disruptions, event cancellations, and distance learning continued. Let’s see how the year went financially for me. I hope you find some tidbits of interest here.

My 2021 income was $52,243. That’s about 30% higher than my 2020 income, which surprised me. But I did work my buns off all year :>)

Trade Book Sales/Royalties: In 2021, I earned $24,871. That’s more than twice last year’s not-quite $11,000. Frankly, I’m shocked to see that number! I had just one picture book come out last year, and that was If You Want to Knit Some Mittens. It just published at the end of October 2021, so I don’t know how sales are going. I haven’t yet received my 2021 royalty statement from the publisher.

Here’s how my trade book income breaks down for last year. I’m listing my books from newest to oldest, followed by books that aren’t out yet and anthology payments. If I haven’t listed a book, that means it hasn’t earned out yet. I have 3 trade picture books that haven’t earned out. Oh, 4 if you count Mittens.

$2,125 – We Belong (2^nd half of advance)
$1,306 – Clover Kitty Goes to Kittygarten (earned out!)
$1,340 – Lion of the Sky
$1,144 – Snowman-Cold=Puddle
$2,116 – If You Were the Moon
$1,806 – A Leaf Can Be…
$557 – A Rock Can Be…
$609 – Water Can Be…
$4,308 – BookSpeak (July 2020-June 2021 – mostly reprint rights, as this is an older, but still in print, book)
$600 – Complete advance for a board book—whee!
$1,000 – Complete advance for Oskar’s Voyage, forthcoming from Minnesota Historical Society press
$3,500 – 2^nd ½ of advance for a forthcoming poetry collection
$4,250 – Complete advance for forthcoming nonfiction picture book
$210 – Poetry anthologies

[48% of 2021 income] This is the writing I love to do, so I’m thrilled with that percentage. However, I haven’t signed a new contract in a while, so I have no advances on the horizon out there. I’m really hoping to place one or two trade manuscripts this year!

Work-for-Hire Books and Projects: $2,750. I wrote 10 decodable phonics stories for a supplementary reading program. The pay wasn’t stellar, but it was an interesting project, and I liked working with the editor very much. So much that I’m doing some more right now! [5% of 2021 income]

Assessment: $17,633. Assessment writing roared back in 2021. This amount represents 44 (whew!) testing passages (up from 10 last year) and also writing some items (the questions after the passages, plus their correct answer and incorrect choices–distractors) for some reading programs. Again, I mostly took on nonfiction and poetry passages. [34% of 2021 income]

Speaking/Teaching: $2,220. This is almost exactly the same number as for 2020. I love teaching writers, but the opportunity doesn’t come up often. I have in mind to contact some venues about offering classes. We’ll see if I get to that this year or not. This was 4 sessions: my webinar for writers on how much money an author makes; a video created for a local library system; an SCBWI webinar on work-for-hire writing; and a writing workshop video for a fabulous homeschool group. [4% of 2021 income]

Author Visits: $2,300. I did six sessions with students or library patrons in 2021. 4 were virtual, and 2 were in person. I’ve already done more than this in 2022, and I’m so glad! Author visits are a lot of work, but also very satisfying. I missed reading and writing with kids! [4% of 2021 income]

Collaborative Indie Publishing: $51. Lisa Bullard and I used to run Mentors for Rent for children’s writers, and we collaborated on a few indie-published books. This $51 is my 50% of our book sales for 2021. We don’t market the books at all and will likely put them out of print shortly.

Indie Publishing: $769. This is my income from my solo books for writers and teachers. I don’t market these books (are you sensing a theme?), so this is just passive income. Making a Living Writing Books for Kids and Writing for the Educational Market are my two books for writers, and I have a cool set of poetry collections for teachers. [1% of 2021 income]

Patreon: $660. This is another income stream I’m probably going to let go. It’s a low-cost subscription-model Facebook Group ($5/month), called KidLit Circle – Writing for Children. I love the idea of chatting and answering writers’ questions. The form it takes right now is mostly 3 short live stream videos per week, plus answering any questions people post in the Group. Videos are on everything from “how I plan out a revision when I’ve gotten a boatload of feedback from my critique group” to “here’s how I storyboarded my book trailer.” It’s a tiny Group! I like mentoring and teaching, but I can’t really justify the time I’m spending on it much longer. I haven’t promoted the membership to try to grow it, and I’m going to have to either devote some time to trying to grow the Group in 2022 or I’m going to have to let it go. [1% of 2021 income]

I had a few other bits of income from an occasional critique or something, but basically, the above listing shows you how my total GROSS income was $52,243.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, I’m still below the average salary for Elementary and Middle School Teachers in the U.S., which is $67,030. But I can spend some of my time creating books I love that I hope will reach kids–as well as pay my bills with my income and be a contributing part of our household budget, so I’m thrilled with that.

Thanks for reading! For more information about earning a livable income as a writer, check out my book Making a Living Writing Books for Kids. And if you’d like to have access to me to ask questions on both the craft and business side of being a children’s writer, please consider joining my Writer in Progress Patreon/Facebook Group!

PLEASE NOTE: These income numbers are gross income. They don’t include any of my expenses—Google storage fees, Zoom webinar costs, Paypal fees, agent 15% commissions (for my books sold by an agent), office supplies, etc., nor the self-employment, federal, state, and sales taxes I pay. (The taxes alone are generally 30–40% of my gross income.)

2020

Hi there, writers! Well, this post wouldn’t be complete without my regular disclaimer: If you think it’s impolite to talk about finances, skip this article!

Well. 2020 was a year, wasn’t it? The closure of bookstores, the cancellation of school visits, and the publishing world going on hold greatly affected the income of many writers, including me!

As I start my annual income post, I feel like there should be some momentous lessons learned. And I guess there were, though the lessons I learned were more about life than about income. But as I tally all my numbers, I’ll see what little gems of insight (ha!) I can offer you. Let’s dive in and break it down.

Laura 2020 — How Much Money Does a Writer Make?

Trade Book Sales/Royalties: In 2020, I earned $10,919. That’s way down from the $17,954 I earned in 2019. Not great news, but not a surprise, either. I had two picture books come out in 2019: Clover Kitty Goes to Kittygarten (Two Lions) and Secrets of the Loon (Minnesota Historical Society Press). My loon book published just after the world shut down in spring. All the book launch events were canceled, and sales were not great. Then, trying to launch Clover, a back-to-school book, in a year when nobody was actually GOING back to school was kind of a lost cause. Neither of those books earned out (sold enough copies to offset the advance I had already been paid in a previous calendar year). Sigh.

Okay, let’s look at where my royalty money DID come from.

$3,000 – 2^nd half of the advance for a picture book that hasn’t come out yet
$2,940 – Snowman-Cold=Puddle (for sales in July 2019-June 2020)
$980 – A Leaf Can Be… (Jul-Dec 2019)
$583 – A Rock Can Be… (Jul-Dec 2019)
$1,684 – Water Can Be… (Jul-Dec 2019)
$1,176 – If You Were the Moon (July 2019-June 2020)
$360 – BookSpeak (July 2019-June 2020)
$196 – Poetry anthologies

A few things to note about the above.

BookSpeak was published in 2011, and I’m so grateful it’s still in print, chugging along.

My Can Be… books (2012–2016) also still bring in small, steady royalty checks. But I earned NO royalties for them in the first half of 2020, because the copies sold were actually fewer, I guess, than the copies returned.

Snowman was one of my 2019 books, and it had earned out its small advance already, which is why I got royalties last year. My other three 2019 books (Lion of the Sky; In the Middle of the Night; and Snack, Snooze, Skedaddle) didn’t earn out by June 30, 2020, so I earned no income from them in that calendar year. One of those three has since earned out, so I’m starting to receive royalty payments from it in 2021.

[28% of 2020 income] This is the writing I love to do, so I do wish these numbers were higher, and it’s sad to see the number fall from last year. But all I can control is creating the work. I repeat that to myself all. the. time.

Trade Sales/Flat Fee: $3,000. Most of the time, I earn royalties for my writing. But sometimes it’s a flat fee, even when it’s not work for hire. In 2020, I received $500 for one anthology personal essay and three anthology poems. Those are all one-time payments, and I won’t earn any more from those pieces, no matter how well or poorly the overall books sell. And I received $2,500 from one of my book publishers as payment to include my picture book in a special promotional giveaway. I didn’t get royalties for those copies that were given away—instead, I just got a one-time payment (plus, hopefully, good exposure and reviews for the book). [8% of 2020 income]

Work-for-Hire Books and Projects: $925. One task I did as book sales plummeted was contact various freelance writing clients I had worked with before. This WFH number represents a passage for a reading program and a bit of passage searching. Passage searching is new for me, and it involves finding passages written by other people and published in book form, usually, that companies can reprint excerpts from in their reading programs or assessment materials. I’ve only tried a few passages, but I found it tedious and tough! I think it’s likely not a good fit for my skills, but part of that could be that it was extra difficult to research passages using only online resources, since libraries were still closed when I did this. I might try it again, as I know it’s good to expand my skill set. But I’m not very enthusiastic about it! [2% of 2020 income]

Assessment: $5,875. Assessment writing is writing either reading passages or questions and answers for use in standardized tests. I wish there was less standardized testing in schools, but I do enjoy writing for them. This amount represents 10 testing passages and also writing some items (the questions after the passages, plus their correct answer and incorrect choices–distractors) for some reading programs. Typically, writing poems and nonfiction passages make up 90% of my assessment work each year. Last year, I did more fiction passages than usual, and I’m becoming more comfortable with them. [15% of 2020 income]

A cheerful moment during the SCBWI Nonfiction Conference

Speaking/Teaching: $2,420. This was three virtual events (one for a college, one for a library system, and one for SCBWI), one small stipend for providing an audio reading to go with a storywalk, and one in-person presentation at a local MFA program for writers (about earning a living writing!). This also includes a bit of income from my video courses for writers and a webinar I created in early 2020 for writers. [6% of 2020 income]

With Holly Dragisich at Rogers Elementary

Author Visits: $4,900. I did several school visits in February—thank goodness! Usually most of my visits happen in April, National Poetry Month. But by April 2020, all schools were shut down. This income represents 6 days of author visits, plus one video created for a Young Authors Conference I always teach at.

I tried adjusting to the pandemic by creating an author visit by video program, where I would sell access to my recorded program but also do a personalized intro and follow-up. I spent SO much time (more than 240 hours) creating and trying this out. (Thank you, guinea pig schools!) In the end, it was just too labor intensive. Every school needs different modules and timings, and I would need a more sophisticated tech set-up, and it became obvious that creating and trying to sell recorded author visits could quickly turn into a full-time job. But not the job I want. It was a valuable but expensive (time-wise) lesson to learn. [12% of 2020 income]

Collaborative Indie Publishing: $50. Lisa Bullard and I used to do joint critiquing through Mentors for Rent. We created a couple of excellent indie-published books for children’s writers, and this $50 is my 50% of our book sales for 2020. We don’t market or promote these books at all—can you tell? [Really?]

Making a Living Writing Books for Kids — A few $15 copies available. Email me if interested. Tx!

Indie Publishing: $933. This is the income from my solo books for writers. I wouldn’t try to self-publish picture books for kids (what a nightmare), but I have a few really practical books for writers. I don’t market them, so it’s no surprise that they don’t really sell. Making a Living Writing Books for Kids and Writing for the Educational Market are my two most thorough and “bestselling” indie books. I use the term “bestselling” tongue in cheek. I also have a wonderful set of poetry collections for teachers. [2% of 2020 income]

Copyediting: $8,604. So after two years of no copyediting income at all, copyediting was 22% of my income last year. Crazy! That came about from my checking in with previous clients as the pandemic started closing things down. Mostly, I copyedited reading program materials, but I also took on a big math copyediting project. Always learning!

I’ll keep it very real here and share that I was quietly let go from the math project at the end of the year. With no notice of being let go. The work just stopped coming. I’m 95% sure it was because of my payment policies. The work was for a small packager, whom I’ve worked with off and on over many years, and I know and respect them. BUT, small companies were shutting down right and left. My policy for big projects is to never have more than $1800 owed to me by a single client. That way, if a company goes out of business, that $1800 is the most I could lose. Because of the project’s pace, and because of the company’s payment process, this meant they had to pay me through a totally different process than usual. I got paid through Paypal, with my paying the associated fees. I was okay with that option. But I think the extra work that that process created led to them finding another freelancer. I completely understand that (though I wish they would’ve at least notified me). I knew it was a risk I was taking, but I feel my policy is fair and protects me overall. I recently sent a change of address note to the company’s owner and we had a nice exchange. I’m hoping this payment issue doesn’t mean I’ll never work with them again. Most of the time, a project goes slowly enough that my balance due never exceeds $1800. This was just an exception due to this particular fast-moving project. [22% of 2020 income]

Patreon: $980. This low-cost subscription-model Facebook Group, called KidLit Circle – Writing for Children, lets me chat and share with supporters. I answer questions from writers and teachers and share behind-the-scenes stories of my writing days. I love sharing with writers, but I really need to promote this more to make it worth the time I put in on monthly Zoom salons, etc. But…who has time for promoting? [2% of 2020 income]

Critiquing: $825. I love critiquing picture books and poetry collections, but I haven’t officially offered that service for a few years. Just too many income streams to juggle! This bit of income in 2020 came about from a couple different folks who got in touch, and I said yes :>) I’m thinking about doing more critiquing, but…still so much going on! [2% of 2020 income]

So, my total GROSS income for 2020 was $39,381—down about $6,000 from 2019.

And frankly, I consider myself lucky. Of course, poor sales in 2020 are having repercussions now in 2021, since you get royalty payments 6 months to a year (or more) after the actual book sales. Still, I was reasonably relieved with the way things went.

My overall thoughts on what is really valuable in my writing career after the rough year of 2020?

Multiple streams of income: They matter. And they make it easier to pivot when one income stream dries up.

Good relationships: Libraries or other groups that have to cancel their plans still might have grant money to spend, and they have to spend it somehow. Being flexible and kind and positive means you’re someone they’ll turn to when other opportunities come up.

Flexibility: Turning your in-person visit into a virtual visit takes work, but you can do it. Be willing to learn new skills and try new things!

Taking refuge in writing: Although it wasn’t my highest income year, I actually did a LOT of writing in 2020. Publishers weren’t buying much (from me, anyway), but the manuscripts I created in 2020 will hopefully find homes in the future, reaching readers and creating income down the road. I’m so glad that I can usually write even when the world turns upside down. Writing is my safe place.

And that’s it! My numbers for 2020. Thanks for reading! For more information about earning a livable income as a writer, check out my 30 Days of a Writer in Progress video/text course. And my book Making a Living Writing Books for Kids might be helpful, too. If you’d like to ask questions, hear more details, or support my efforts, please consider joining my Writer in Progress Patreon/Facebook Group!

2019

Hi there, writers! Well, this post wouldn’t be complete without my regular disclaimer: If you think it’s impolite to talk about finances, skip this article!

I am lucky enough to live in an area rich with children’s writers and illustrators. We gab about everything when we get together: school visit stories, editor woes, review news (good and bad), current projects, rejection despair, everything…except money. That rarely comes up, and it can be difficult to find hard numbers on what kind of income children’s writers make. Imagine if you had to do a career report on being a writer and you couldn’t even guess about the average income? I understand the taboo, and writers making a six-figure income (NOT most of us) don’t want to brag. Writers making below the poverty line (many of us) feel embarrassed. And those of us in the middle mostly follow accepted social rules against speaking about money. But I think sharing information is the best way to help us all be realistic and to become better businesspeople. Each year, I share my income publicly. Here are my details for 2019.

Trade Book Sales/Royalties: My royalties for 2019 totaled $17,954. Well, shoot. That’s only 78% of my trade book income from 2018. This is the number I’d most like to see go UP, not down! This income included advances or royalties for nine different trade picture books, plus $295 for royalties for poems in anthologies (an unusual situation). [39% of 2019 income] The books this covers are: BookSpeak, A Leaf Can Be…, Water Can Be…, A Rock Can Be…, If You Were the Moon, Secrets of the Loon, Snowman-Cold=Puddle, Snow (not really titled yet), and We Belong. Meet My Family (2018) has not earned out yet. Oi. Lion of the Sky and In the Middle of the Night, my other two spring 2019 books besides Snowman-Cold=Puddle, did not earn out by June 30, and those are the only royalties I would have been paid in 2019. Snowman earned out, but the advance was very small ($2,000), so there was not much to earn out. This category represents the books I am passionate about. If I could, I would make 100% of my income in this category. Well, a writer can dream!

Work-for-Hire Books and Projects: $0. What? For the second year in a row, this is a $0. This number makes me both excited and nervous. I don’t pursue work-for-hire books because I’m writing trade books, which I’m passionate about. But wfh books are a comfort zone and a (used-to-be) steady source of income. I’m glad I’ve been too busy to pursue them, but it does feel a little odd to be getting far away from this market. [0% of 2019 income]

Assessment: $8,438. That’s more than twice what I made from assessment work in 2018. I’m happy to have the work and the income, but I, as always, feel that twinge of guilt. I am not a fan of all the assessment going on. $2,000 of this is for the reprint of a single poem. The rest represents 21 passages (poetry, nonfiction, and fiction) written for two different companies. [19% of 2019 income]

Speaking/Teaching: $5,067. That’s 30% more than my 2018 number, mostly due to my co-teaching Lyrical Language Lab, a fabulous online course with Renee LaTulippe. The rest came from a book festival ($200 stipend) and my online courses for writers ($196). [11% of 2019 income] By the way, you might notice a brand new course! That orange one pictured to the left is a short lecture series (three videos) that gives more details about this financial breakdown you’re reading right now, plus some background on my income streams and my basic business philosophies. If you’re a Patron of mine, though, don’t register without getting the coupon I’ll be sending out soon with coupons for a free or greatly reduced prices for the course!

School Visits: $11,753. That’s a 45% increase from 2018. And I’m super excited about that because 1) author visits are fantastic for connecting with my audience; 2) they help spread the word about my books; 3) I meet loads of awesome educators; and 4) they’re book-related income. AND, I have felt SO good about my school visits so far in 2020. I always prep a lot and do a good job. But I feel like something has changed somehow in this past year that has allowed me to connect with students on a deeper, more authentic level. So I’m enjoying the school visits even more (though they’re still exhausting and leave me—as an introvert—a wimpering puddle by the end of the day—ha!). [26% of 2019 income]

Collaborative Indie Publishing: $123. Lisa Bullard and I don’t do joint critiquing anymore, but we do still have a couple of excellent indie-published books for children’s writers, and this $123 is my 50% of our book sales for 2019. This is about half of what it was in 2018, and, as we spend absolutely no time promoting or advertising these books, I expect it will continue to go down. There are just only so many hours in a day, and I have to let some things go. [less than 1% of 2019 income]

Indie Publishing: $1,228. This is only 58% of my 2017 number, but I guess it’s not surprising. Again, I don’t really do any sharing of or advertising of my indie-published books. I just put the information out there so that someone who’s looking for it might find it! Making a Living Writing Books for Kids and Writing for the Educational Market are my two books that reach the most people—and it’s still a VERY limited number. They account for $1100+ of this figure. I also have a set of poetry collections for teachers, and those are clearly not selling! [3% of 2019 income]

Copyediting: $0. Another two-years-in-a-row $0. But that’s okay. Copyediting is not my dream or anything. Still, I like to keep my hand in…Hmmm, will have to think on this one a little bit. [0% of 2019 income]

Patreon: $814. This is the second year I’m trying Patreon. This low-cost subscription-model group allows me to share things with my supporters. My Patreon group is called Writer in Progress, and in it, I share drafts and my writing process, and I answer questions from writers and teachers. It’s a microscopic income stream at this point, but I’m going to try it for the rest of 2020. I love doing the sharing, but to make it viable, I really need to get more Patrons. Which means more promoting and/or advertising. Ugh. [2% of 2019 income]

So, my total GROSS income for 2019 was $45,377.

That’s up 11% from last year—whee! My income goes up and down all the time, and I generally earn less money than the average elementary school teacher. This is a tough career to make a living at, but there’s no way I’m giving it up.

I hope you don’t find these numbers too depressing! But if you do, I hope you’re at least reading this before you quit your day job! For more information about earning a livable income as a writer, check out my 30 Days of a Writer in Progress video/text course, where you’ll see what my crazy writing life actually looks like for 30+ workdays. And, again, the book Making a Living Writing Books for Kids might be eye-opening. And if you’d like to support me in my efforts, please consider joining my Writer in Progress Patreon Group!

For more details about last year’s income and my approach to multiple income streams and writing as a career, check out my

How Much Money Does a Writer Make mini-course!

Loads more details in three 30-minute-ish videos! But if you’re a Patron, make sure you’re using your coupon code for a free or deeply discounted price:>)

PLEASE NOTE: These income numbers are gross income. They don’t include any of my expenses—like travel, business cards, printer ink, Google storage fees, Paypal fees, agent 15% commissions (for my books sold by an agent), office supplies, etc., nor the self-employment, federal, state, and sales taxes I pay. (The taxes alone are generally 30–40% of my gross income.)

2018

Hi there, writers! Well, this post wouldn’t be complete without my regular disclaimer: If you think it’s impolite to talk about finances, skip this article!

When kidlit writers gather, we talk about everything! Except money. There’s not much reliable information out there about what writers make. Writers making a high income (who are NOT most of us) don’t want to brag. Writers making little or no income feel embarrassed. And those of us in the middle are generally following the social rules about not speaking about money. But I think that’s baloney. How else can we improve our businesses–because if we’re full-time writers, we ARE businesses–if we don’t know what typical incomes and payments are.

So, for the past 12 years, I’ve shared my income publicly. Here is this year’s edition.

Trade Book Sales/Royalties: My trade sales added up to $23,069. That’s up 36% from 2017. Whee! This income included $715 for numerous poems in anthologies; $312 for BookSpeak! (frankly, I’m just happy this 2011 book is still in print!); $6,500 advance for a forthcoming picture book (my contract says I can’t share details about the contract, so I can’t name it here); $3,000 for the first half of my advance for my first picture book with Bloomsbury, which is currently called Zap! Clap! Boom!; $3,500 for the second half of my advance for If You Want to Knit Some Mittens (forthcoming from Boyds Mills Press); $2,125 for the second half of my advance for Snack, Snooze, Skedaddle: How Animals Get Ready for Winter (coming this fall from Millbrook); $759 for royalties for If You Were the Moon; and $6,258 royalties from my three Can Be… books (the lion’s share is from Water Can Be…). Meet My Family hasn’t earned out its advance yet. [57% of 2018 income] Oh. I am seriously a bit teary-eyed. While I didn’t meet my overall income goal of $45,000 for 2018, I am overjoyed to realize that I DID meet–exceed–this goal: Increase % of income from trade books from 37% to 45%. I am gobsmacked.

Work-for-Hire Books and Projects: $0. Wow. For the first year since I began writing full-time for kids, none of my income came from work-for-hire books. I’m not sure how I feel about this. I LOVE writing picture books that I conceptualize, write, and sell. But I’ve written many work-for-hire projects that I’ve really enjoyed, too. Hmmm. It’s kind of a comfort zone. I imagine more will come my way eventually. I haven’t been actively pursuing this revenue stream lately, because I’ve been to busy writing trade books–my ultimate goal. [0% of 2018 income]

Assessment: $3,000. That’s less than half of what I made from assessment work in 2017. But…I’m glad about that! If I can keep my income stable with less of this work, that is excellent. I enjoy writing the passages, but I feel there’s too much assessing going on in our schools. So, I’m always torn about it. Having this number go down instead of up is okay with me. This income is from 10 passages, all for one company. [7% of 2018 income]

Speaking: $3,897. This is more than double my 2017 number. $3,630 came from teaching Lyrical Language Lab, an online course with Renee LaTulippe. This was intense but really rewarding! We may do it again this year. The rest was the tiny bit of income from my online courses for writers. I still have not come up with a solid plan of marketing those courses :>( I also do some free speaking at events/conferences for educators. [10% of 2018 income]

At Cedar Island Elementary School in 2018

School Visits: $8,042. That’s an almost 50% increase in school visit income from 2017. I’m happy to see this go up, because author visits are such a valuable way to spread the word about my books, connect with readers (especially since my kids are not picture book age), connect with educators, and earn income. It’s hard to solicit school visits. The numbers just kind of fluctuate based on available funding, whether my books have won any awards lately, etc. I’ve never had success with mailings or anything. It’s always word of mouth. I’m grateful that this number is up for 2018! [20% of 2018 income]

Mentors for Rent: $248. Since Lisa Bullard and I don’t do joint critiquing any more (but Lisa is still doing excellent individual critiques!), this income stream is barely a trickle. However, we have some excellent books for writers (ebooks, mostly, but a few paperbacks, too) that we still sell, so that’s what this income is: my half of the royalties earned on our indie-published books. [less than 1% of 2018 income]

Indie Publishing: $2,103. Well, this is nice, since it’s a bit more than double my 2017 number. That jump is mostly due to my newest book, Making a Living Writing Books for Kids! I’m really proud of it and am glad it’s reached some folks. That and my book Writing for the Educational Market are my two books that get into a few hands. I have eight other indie-pubbed books by just me, and they barely sell a copy. These two titles for writers accounted for, I’m estimating, more than 90% of my indie pub income last year. This includes both e‑books and print books, and these are all books either for writers or teachers. I do not self-publish children’s books. This tiny income stream doesn’t really pay in money, but I’m glad to have this option for putting out books for writers or educators. [5% of 2018 income]

Copyediting: $0. Ooh, another category with a 0. On the one hand, I’m glad, because my goal is not to be a copyeditor. But…I do like to keep my hand in. Just to keep my skills up and have recent experience in case I would need to go out and find an office job (God forbid). But I’m happy I was too busy with trade books to mess with this in 2018! [0% of 2018 income]

So, my total income for 2018 was $40,359. That’s down 8% from last year. And, keeping it real, I make less money than the average elementary school teacher. Writing, especially writing for kids, is a really hard career to make a living with. I happy dance any time I make more than $40,000 gross, so I’m chalking up 2018 as a win.

I hope these numbers encourage you. Sure, you can make a lot more money doing other things. But would they give you the opportunity to impact kids and the world? And to satisfy your soul? Didn’t think so.

For more information about earning a livable income as a writer, check out my Writer in Progress, a video/text course where you’ll see what my crazy writing life actually looks like for 30+ workdays. And, again, the book Making a Living Writing Books for Kids might be eye-opening.

You can also sign up for my free monthly eletter for writers, A Writer Can Be…

2017

Howdy, writers! First, my annual disclaimer:

If you think it’s impolite to talk about finances, skip this article!

So, one question aspiring writers often ask is, “Can I make a living at this?” It’s not a matter of greed, but of necessity. So many of us dream of making a living doing what we love. But there’s little reliable information out there about what writers make. That’s partly because writer incomes vary so greatly, and partly because writers tend to be private about their incomes. Those doing very well probably don’t want to brag. Those making very little might feel embarrassed. Those of us in the middle might just be adhering to societal norms of not speaking about money. Luckily, I don’t care about societal norms:>)

Every year since 2007, I’ve shared my income publicly. And if you’re interested in these posts, you’ll likely be interested in my brand new book called Making a Living Writing Books for Kids! It’s 100,000 words’ worth of my tips on, techniques for, and anecdotes about making a living as a children’s writer, available in paperback or Kindle.

You can also sign up for my free monthly eletter for writers, A Writer Can Be…

OK, now on to the good stuff. Here’s my 2017 income breakdown.

Trade Book Sales/Royalties: My trade sales added up to $16,948. That’s about the same as 2016. Darn. I was hoping for a big increase. This is my #1 goal, to make a living from my trade book projects. My income in this category included my $4,000 advance for Lion of the Sky, $2,125 of my $4,250 advance for Here Comes Winter!, and $2,000 of my $4,000 advance for Meet My Family! It also included royalties on several books that have earned out their advances: $4,372 for BookSpeak (thanks to a sale of some reprint rights), $1,165 for Leaf Can Be…, $2,740 for Water Can Be…, and $329 for Rock Can Be… (Yay! It earned out its advance!) If You Were the Moon was still earning out its advance last year. I also earned $217 in royalties for my poems in various Poetry Friday Anthology books. [38% of 2017 income]

Work-for-Hire Books and Projects: $10,341. That includes two leveled-reader “picture books” (kind of) at $1800 each for an F&P project through Heinemann/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. I really enjoyed these projects and was sorry when my editor moved on to older books! $4167 came from two Crayola branded books for Lerner. I had received partial payment on the first one in 2016. The first book, How to Make a Rainbow, is out, and it’s super cute! It also includes more than $2500 for a big phonics lesson plan series I wrote through a packager. Overall, my work-for-hire projects in 2017 were interesting and challenging, and I really liked the final results. [16% of 2017 income]

Assessment: $6,500. Well, that’s a big jump from last year. This is for a total of 20 passages. As always, I’m torn about this work. There is way too much assessment in education, and if this income segment disappears, that will make me happy, even while I scramble to replace the income. I loved these reading passages when I was a student, though, and writing them today—writing well and at a certain grade level and meeting specific requirements—is always a satisfying puzzle to me. [15% of 2017 income]

Speaking: $1,633. This is down from last year. I only did three paid event speaking to adults in 2017: an online poetry workshop for homeschooling families, a presentation to kindergarten teachers, and a library event for adults who want to write for kids. I love speaking to adult writers and to educators, so I’d like to do more of this. I also did a couple of unpaid gigs speaking to writers and educators last year. This number also includes income from my online courses for writers—which is obviously negligible. People who take my courses tell me they love them, but I’ve done a terrible job of promoting them. It’s why I’m not creating any new courses. I have to figure out the marketing of them first! [4% of 2017 income]

School Visits: $5,363. I’ve noticed a decrease in school visit opportunities this past year, plus I didn’t do the Young Authors Conference that I always do. This is for 10 days’ of in-person school visits or paid library events for kids. It’s been several years since one of my books has been a Minnesota Book Awards Finalist, and I know that’s a criterion for some funding that many outstate schools access, so that might be part of what’s hurting my numbers. [12% of 2017 income]

Mentors for Rent: $362. Since Lisa Bullard and I have stopped taking on mentoring clients, this income stream is mostly extinct. However, we have some excellent books for writers (ebooks, mostly, but a few paperbacks, too) that we still sell, so that’s what this income is: my half of the royalties earned on our indie-published books. [less than 1% of 2017 income]

Indie Publishing: $978. This number represents the royalties from my indie-published books for which I am the sole author (so, not the books on which Lisa and I collaborated). This includes both Kindle and CreateSpace books, and these are all books either for writers or teachers. I do not self-publish children’s books. This tiny income stream doesn’t really pay in money, but I’m glad to have the option for putting out books for writers or poetry collections I want to share with teachers (poetry is notoriously hard to sell to traditional publishers). [2% of 2017 income]

Copyediting: $1,600. I just did one project in 2017, and it was copyediting a middle-grade novel by a young writer. Copyediting is one of the income streams I don’t really pursue, but sometimes it comes my way. (I have newspaper copyediting experience.) [4% of 2017 income]

Miscellaneous Sales: $188. This is mostly just me selling author copies of my work-for-hire books through Amazon using their Fulfilled by Amazon service. It’s a terrible system, and I think even though I “earned” this much, I probably paid this much is fees and storage. I finally just had them do whatever they do to get the books out of my inventory, because they were actually going to cost me money. I wish I had just donated the books to schools or libraries to start with:>( So, this income stream is finished. Hallelujah! [less than 1% of 2017 income]

So, my total income for 2017 was $43,913. That is 94% of 2016’s $46,348. Am I getting rich? Not at all. In fact, I make less money than the average elementary school teacher. Few children’s writers make the kind of money other people think they make! It’s a hard career to make a living with, so any time I earn more than $40,000, I’m pretty dang happy.

I hope this info is helpful to you rather than discouraging. This is a competitive field, but it’s also satisfying in a way that no other career would be for me.

If you’re making a living solely through the sales of your trade books, I salute you! And if you’re still working on your first trade sale, don’t despair. You can do it!

PLEASE NOTE: This is gross income. It doesn’t include any of my expenses—like travel, business cards, printer ink, Google storage fees, Paypal fees, office supplies, etc., nor the self-employment, federal, state, and sales taxes I pay. (The taxes alone are generally 30–40% of my gross income.)

2016

Hello, writers! I’ll start with my annual disclaimer. If you think it’s impolite to talk about finances, skip this article! Now that that’s out of the way…One question I hear often from aspiring writers is, “Can I make a living at this?” We’re not greedy, but we do dream of earning a living doing what we love. In our case, writing. This field is very tough, though, unless you happen to have a book that dominates the bestseller charts for a while (and even then, writers don’t earn as much as everyone thinks). But it’s hard to know that, because most people are understandably private about their income. I have no financial filters, though, so every year since 2007, I’ve shared my income publicly. Also, you may be interested in a book I’m working on called How to Make a Living as a Children’s Writer (or something like that).

OK, here’s my 2016 income breakdown. If you just want the bare facts, with no explanations, my gross income in 2016 was $46,348.

That breaks down into:

Trade (bookstore) books: $16,991
Work-for-hire books: $2,772
Indie-published books: $1,508
Short passages: $2,600
Speaking to educators: $2,597
School visits: $11,580
Teaching online: $618
Mentors for Rent: $2,521
Copyediting: $555
Miscellaneous sales: $144

Trade Book Sales/Royalties: My trade sales added up to $16,991! That’s about a 60% increase from 2015. Whee! I am passionate about my trade projects, so this is happy news. This figure includes $8,500 in advances on four different forthcoming titles, $1,851 on BookSpeak royalties, $6,513 on Leaf Can Be… and Water Can Be… (A Rock Can Be… has not earned out its advance yet—uh oh), $100 for a poetry anthology poem, and $27 for a poem in Cricket. Those amounts are earnings AFTER my agent commissions were paid: $1,560 in agency fees. It’s not an I‑could-live-off-it income, but at least the number is rising! [37% of 2016 income]

Work-for-Hire Books: $7,233. That includes three leveled-reader “picture books” (kind of) at $1800 each for an F&P project through Heinemann/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Those were really fun to write—topics I came up with and was interested in—though they did include the leveled reader tasks of art specs and such. I actually wrote two or three more than that that haven’t yet gone through the revision/acceptance process. In addition, it’s $1,000 for two sight word story poems—a fun writing puzzle/challenge. And it’s $833 that is 1/3 payment for a branded picture book that I’m writing for Lerner. On that one, the topic came from the publisher (typical for work-for-hire), but I had lovely latitude on the approach and creativity. This is a big increase in work-for-hire from 2015, but it felt like challenging and enjoyable work-for-hire, so I’m pleased with that. [16% of 2016 income]

Indie Published Books: $1,508. That’s a small increase from 2015, but I’m happy with it for now. This includes both Kindle and CreateSpace books, and these are all books either for writers or teachers. I do not self publish children’s books. This is a very small income stream, clearly! But it gives me an outlet for things I want to share with writers or for poems I want to share with teachers (poetry is notoriously hard to sell to traditional publishers). [3% of 2016 income]

Short Passages: $2,600. This was seven passages at $300 each and one at $500. I turned down several projects this year, due to our move, our daughter’s wedding, my mom’s death, and other family events. I’m forever torn about this income because I enjoy the writing but hate the overuse of assessment in education. [6% of 2016 income]

Speaking to Educators: $2,597. This is a nice increase from 2015. I did one virtual visit with a homeschooling group plus three in-person events at libraries or teachers’/librarians’ conferences. I love speaking with educators. I wish I knew how to increase this segment of my career more. This dollar amount is also a little misleading, as it includes hotel stays and out-of-pocket expenses that I got reimbursed for. My speaking fees ONLY were $1,975. I also spoke to educators at both ILA and NCTE last year, but those are unpaid gigs. [6% of 2016 income]

School Visits: $11,580. This is almost as much as I earned in 2015 on school visits, so that’s great! This is for 16 days’ of in-person school visits or young authors conferences. As with speaking, this number also includes some reimbursement of out-of-pocket expenses. [25% of 2016 income]

Teaching Writers Online: $619. I started offering online video courses this past year through Teachable, and I really like speaking directly to you in videos. I do a terrible job of marketing my courses, though! That’s something I need to get better at in order to make this feasible. This year, my only new course is Writer in Progress: 30 Days in the Life of a Children’s Writer. I have told myself I cannot create any more courses until I figure out a doable marketing system. I price them REALLY cheaply, because I want them to be accessible. But that means I need a lot of writers to buy them. But who wants to spend time on marketing? Oi. [1% of 2016 income)

Mentors for Rent: $2,521. This is a decrease from 2015, but Mentors for Rent has never been a big money-earner. Lisa Bullard and I really enjoy consulting with writers, so we’ve kept it going. However, at the end of 2016, I was extremely overwhelmed and scattered. I knew something had to give. I analyzed my income streams, and it was glaringly obvious (unfortunately) that I had to step back from Mentors for Rent. At full price, I earned $48/hour for our joint consulting. However, marketing efforts and long emails with clients before sessions ever happened brought my pay to about $20/hour. In fact, we discovered we couldn’t afford to be “more successful” (i.e., to have more clients). The business model just didn’t work. So I am not critiquing, and, for now, my involvement is strictly through books and online classes and speaking gigs. (Lisa and I are dynamite joint speakers:>) We have a few ongoing clients who had prepaid for more hours, and of course we’re honoring that! Otherwise, Lisa is still offering critiques and coaching (contact Lisa here if you’re interested). She is awesome! [5% of 2016 income]

Copyediting: $555. This is way down, only about ¼ of my 2015 income. I had to turn down some projects because of my crazy schedule. [1% of 2016 income]

Miscellaneous Sales: $144. This is just me selling author copies of my work-for-hire books through Amazon using their Fulfilled by Amazon service. I end up making VERY little per book. In fact, I’m not sure this number reflects all the storage fees and such I pay them. I might not have even broken even. I was glad to get the books out of my house before we moved, but I actually don’t recommend this for authors. Unless you have indie published a single title that is selling well—then it might be worth it. But if you have a lot of odds and ends of titles and they sell slowly, it is kind of torture to sell them through Fulfilled by Amazon.

So, my total income for 2016 was $46,348. That’s a 38% increase from 2015’s $33,653. I am super happy with that, because it means I have a decent mix of incomes right now that lets me pay bills plus have time to work on the projects I absolutely love. Am I getting rich? No way. Very few children’s writers do! In fact, the income of some very well known writers might surprise you. It is just a hard career to earn a livable income at, so any time I top $40,000, I’m happy.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics says the average elementary schoolteacher salary in the U.S. is $54,890. I earn less than that, clearly, but I’m OK with that. Educators are one of the few groups of people whom I think work as fiercely and creatively and exhaustively as I do—all toward growing kids and books. (I just wish all schools were understanding about why authors need to be paid for school visits.)

There are also writerpreneurs (entrepreneurs whose main customer base is writers) earning a lot more money than I do. And I’m OK with that, too. As a writerpreneur, your primary focus has to be on list-building and product creation and sales. Those things are part of my life as a writer and small businessperson (essentially anyone trying to make a living as a writer is a small business), but they are not my main focus. And I don’t want them to be. Writing what I love. Getting kids excited about reading and writing. Trying to celebrate the world as it is and change it where it needs to be changed. Those things motivate me. If I can pursue those and earn more than I’d make flipping burgers, I feel happy. And please don’t get me wrong. I’m not knocking writerpreneurs! I learn a lot from them. There are a couple in particular I follow, and the knowledge they share helps me do what I do! Neither path is good or bad. It’s figuring out if the path you’re on leads you to the place you want to go. The place I want to go is (ideally, in my dreams) making a living through my trade picture books (70%), speaking (15%), and courses and books for writers (15%). So I trot along my path with that goal in sight, way off in the distance.

I tried some new things in 2016. My Putrid Poetic Ponderings download was an epic fail and sold barely double-digit copies. Again. Marketing. Online courses were a hit with the students, but I need more students. Sigh. In 2017, I will continue on the same path, though I want to spend some time refining my online presence and my marketing efforts. I hope you find this information helpful. Writing income can be discouraging. It is hard work and a competitive industry. But it’s incredibly satisfying! And it’s possible to make a living at it, if you’re willing to hone your craft, write a lot, and branch out into writing-related activities.

For more information about earning a livable income as a writer, check out my Writer in Progress, a video/text course where you’ll see what my crazy writing life actually looks like for 30+ workdays…For you writers making an actual living solely through the sales of your trade books—congratulations! I want to grow up to be you! And for those of you still hoping for your first trade sale, I hope this gives you a realistic picture of what the income of a typical hard-working children’s writer looks like.

PLEASE NOTE: This is gross income. It doesn’t include any of my expenses—like travel, business cards, printer ink, Google storage fees, Paypal fees, office supplies, etc., nor the self-employment, federal, state, and sales taxes I pay. (The taxes alone are generally 30–40% of my gross income.) The only expenses already subtracted to arrive at these figures were for my agent and for all the fees Amazon charges to store and ship my books that I’m selling directly through them in the Fulfilled by Amazon program.

2015

I’ll start with my annual disclaimer! If you think it’s impolite to talk about finances, skip this article! One of the questions Lisa and I (at Mentors for Rent) often hear from children’s writers is, “Can I make any money at all doing this?” It’s not that we’re a money-hungry group. Far from it. But most of us dream of making a living doing what we love. And we love writing. But it can be super hard for a writer to figure out if he or she can make a living by writing (and related activities), because there’s so little info out there. Even knowing if you can make a part-time income off of it is tricky. So every year since 2007, I’ve shared my income publicly. Feel free to check some of my older income reports if you like.

Last year was a rough year. Sometimes people look at writers whose books have won some awards and assume they must be easily making a full-time living. I’m guilty of that—still!—when I think of other writers and make assumptions about them. But, it’s just not always true. I am a working writer, and my emphasis is always on the writing. Still, I do various things (and enjoy most of them) to earn income related to writing. (Like, ahem, my brand new online video course for picture book writers, called Picture Book Fixes – A.)

So, here, I’ll break down my 2015 income, including writing, teaching, speaking, etc.

Trade Book Sales: My trade sales came to a total of $9,810. I’m excited that that is 1.5 times my 2014 trade sales of $6,570, because these books and poems, the ones I write because I’m fascinated by or passionate about or in love with a project—those are the ones that keep me going! This amount includes $7,160 in royalties for BookSpeak, A Leaf Can Be… and Water Can Be…, some Poetry Friday Anthology editions, and portions of advances (sort of like an advance on your salary) for two forthcoming picture books—If You Were the Moon (2017) and If You Want to Knit Some Mittens (tba). And it includes $2,650 in flat-fee payments for various poems in anthologies and a one-poem reprint that garnered $1,700 (I wrote about that in detail in my most recent edition of A Writer Can Be–you can subscribe here). Even though this total amount is still small, I’m pleased to see it go up for 2015 instead of down!

Work-for-Hire Books: $200. I only wrote one work for hire poem (meaning I sold all rights and wrote it to the publisher’s specifications) last year, and that was $200. I did do another work-for-hire picture book that I really enjoyed doing, but I didn’t receive my payment until early this year. I’m hoping to do a few more picture books for this project this year, and I’m working with a great editor—so fingers crossed! (If you’re interested in doing writing for the educational market, you can learn more about my book on this topic here.)

Assessment: $3,385. This is only about 29% of the 11,600 I earned in this category in 2014. But a huge chunk ($8,000+, I think) of 2014’s earning was from one enormous project. So I knew it wasn’t likely to happen again. This money was all earned from individual passages, usually paying $3–500 each. As usual, I did lots of poetry and nonfiction, but I’m getting more comfortable with literary/narrative passages on demand, too. That big 2014 project took me out of my comfort zone and gave me some new skills:>) (I’m thinking about doing a video course on this topic during 2016.)

Teaching/Speaking: $870. This is a sad 13% of 2014’s $6,935. I really only spoke (for money) at one SCBWI conference and one Minnesota Book Award event. I already have several teacher inservice gigs lined up for this year, which is awesome. Last year, I did speak at both ILA (2 sessions) and NCTE (3 sessions). But speakers don’t get paid for those large educator conferences. At least Lerner (thank you, Lerner) was able to support me by providing me with a badge so that I didn’t have to pay several hundred dollars to attend each conference.

School Visits: $12,065. This is 156% of the $7,748 I earned from school visits in 2014. I’m excited about that because I enjoy getting out there and working with students. Don’t get me wrong. It’s HARD work. But it’s super rewarding! I had several fairly big ticket projects, including a 2‑week poetry tour of schools and libraries in northeastern Minnesota, a Poetry Month storytime at 5 or 6 libraries in one library region, and 5 days of the local Young Author Conference. And then the rest was just individual days at various schools.

Mentors for Rent: $3,415. This is a slight increase over 2014’s $2,889, but I think that’s a false reading. Before, I was including MFR ebooks in my Ebooks category (see below). But this year, I separated the MFR ebooks sales into the MFR income category, as they should be. So, my income for this small hourly writers’ mentoring business I run with Lisa Bullard is really about the same. It’s not much money, but this work brings a lot of satisfaction.

Indie Publishing (formerly Ebooks): $1,375. This is about 130% of my 2014 indie earnings of $1,054. But this is only my books now, not the Mentors for Rent collaborations Lisa and I create (those are now properly included in the MFR category). And I’ve changed it to Indie Publishing, because this includes my Kindle and paperback versions of books. In fact, I’m trying out something new right now—selling pdf downloads of a poetry story/collection on my website for National Poetry Month! Anyway, this figure, for 2015, includes only my 30 Painless Classroom Poems series for educators and my book for writers on writing for the educational market. Will there be more indie published projects? Who knows! I’m playing with a couple of possibilities.

Copyediting: $2,285. This is almost exactly the same as last year’s $2,214. I did small projects for a couple of new clients this year, but I still haven’t really pursued it in a big fashion. Still, I like to keep my hand in:>)

Miscellaneous sales: $248, down from $328 in 2014. This is me selling autographed copies of my wfh books online. Just last month, I packed up my books I had left and shipped them to Amazon to do the Fulfilled by Amazon program…I will make even less per book (seriously, who knew that was even possible!), but I don’t have to mess with them! So while we were decluttering our home in preparation for selling it, it felt good to ship off three heavy boxes of books!

So, my total income for 2015 was $33,653, which is a 22% decrease from 2014’s $42,986. That is disheartening, because I work really hard. And it means I have to spend more time thinking about increasing my income and less time writing. Boo, hiss! But I love writing and teaching, so, what can I do? Even though I didn’t reach my goal income of $40,000 last year, I did see my poems and stories get into the hands of many teachers and kids, and I am thrilled about that.

What will 2016 bring? I’m not sure. I’ll be trying new things, like the Putrid Poetic Ponderings download and my Picture Book Fixes video course for children’s writers. I have so many ideas for cool books for kids and books/courses/etc. for children’s writers and/or teachers. If only I had the time to do all of them!

I hope you find this information helpful as you think about your own financial and writing goals. Be realistic, of course. But know that it is possible, with a lot of hard work, to make somewhat of an income through writing for kids and its related activities. For the writers who are doing this and making a great living at it—I salute you, support you, and hope to be in your shoes someday. For the writers still working on their first sale or making less than $5,000 per year—I encourage you and support you as you work to make a career in children’s writing!

PLEASE NOTE: This is all gross income. This doesn’t include any of my own expenses-travel, promotion, office supplies, etc. nor the self-employment or sales and self-employment taxes I paid. Unfortunately.

2014

If you think it’s impolite to talk about finances, skip this article! One of the questions Lisa and I (at Mentors for Rent) often hear from children’s writers is, “Can I make any money at all doing this?” It’s not that we’re a money-hungry group. Far from it. But most of us dream of making a living doing what we love. And we love writing. But it can be super hard for a writer to figure out if he or she can make a living by writing (and related activities), because there’s so little info out there. Even knowing if you can make a part-time income off of it is tricky. So every year since 2007, I’ve shared my income publicly. Feel free to check some of my older income reports if you like. You’ll notice some big swings in both directions:>) Because making a living as a writer is tough. Sure, there are those few children’s writers who are knocking it out of the park, income-wise. But most of us are…not. I hope you find the following information useful to you in your own career planning!

In general, 2014 was a lovely year. WATER CAN BE… came out, and I indie-published some books for teachers, and I sold a new (non-Can Be…) picture book, and my next picture book poetry collection finally made its way (mostly) through the editing process. So I’m grateful to continue to expand my number of trade books! That’s my dream goal: earning a living off of trade books (the books I want to/love to/must write) instead of freelance assignments (the books/passages/pieces I get assigned to write). Still, even with three trade picture books in print for most of 2014, that is just a tiny portion of my income.So here we go. Here’s the breakdown of what I earned in 2014.

Trade Book Sales: My trade sales totaled $6,570. That’s only about 2/3 of my 2013 number. This number includes ½ my advance for my forthcoming NIGHT picture book poetry collection, my 2014 royalties on BOOKSPEAK and A LEAF CAN BE…, royalties for my poems in the Poetry Friday Anthologies, and a few miscellaneous fees for individual poems in trade anthologies. I would sure like this number to be a lot higher!

Work-for-Hire Books: $2,913. The bulk of this was one book for Capstone on how to write poetry. I haven’t pursued as much work-for-hire book writing the past couple of years, though I definitely consider offers that come my way. I turned down several this year when I could tell the research/writing time would make the fee too small. (If you’re interested in doing writing for the educational market, learn more about my textbook for writers here.)

Assessment: $11,600. I more than doubled my income from assessment writing this past year. More than half of it was from one huge project with a new-to-me client, and I hope to work with them more in 2015. In fact, I think all of this came from just two clients. I can work more efficiently (and thus earn a higher hourly pay) when I work on a few big projects rather than lots of little piecemeal assignments. But I’m conscious of not putting all my eggs in one basket, too. Still, I have enough clients/contacts now that there always seems to be some new offer not too far off in the distance. In 2014, as part of one of those huge projects, I did a fair amount of fiction writing for assessments, which was new to me. I learned a few basic things that made that go much faster for me. It’s still not my favorite assignment (I do prefer poetry and nonfiction), but I have to admit the lack of research usually required makes a nice change of pace. Last year, I said, “I’m thinking of writing a how-to ebook for writers interested in this area. Sadly, with standardized assessments multiplying constantly, the demand for good, dependable writers in this area seems to be growing.” I haven’t done that yet, and it’s hard, because it’s impossible to give examples of anything because of strict confidentiality agreements! Still, I think I could put together a guide that would be useful for beginners. Maybe this year.

Teaching/Speaking: $6,935. I really enjoyed speaking last year. I presented at several large

Kelly Goodall and me (Kelly was my angel in Vegas!)

conferences for educators, as well as some regional book festivals and state events (like Camp Read-a-Lot and different divisions of the Minnesota Reading Association or Minnesota Library Association. And I spoke at some writers’ conferences, too, which I love. I would like to do more of it, in fact.

School Visits: $7,748. More than half of this was for one large multi-week project with a summer school program. They had approached me, out of the blue, and I ended up really loving it (we made Can Be… books over several weeks). Right now, I’m contacting various other school districts to see if someone might be interested in doing this again this summer. I’ve left my rates the same, even though I contemplated raising them. This summer, I want to think about some tweaks to my school visit offerings and fees.

Mentors for Rent: $2,889. This is the hourly writers’ mentoring business I run with Lisa Bullard. It’s another income stream that is small but brings a lot of satisfaction. We’ve seen some clients have books come out recently (yay!) and get contracts, which is always exciting. I struggle a bit with keeping this going because the income is so minimal from it. But I don’t want my main source of income to be from coaching. Eventually, people who do that are coaching/selling so much I feel like they’re out of touch with the writing side of things. I am a writer FIRST. Then a visiting author, teacher, speaker, critique, coach… So, Mentors for Rent will remain small:>)

Ebooks: $1,054. This includes both the MFR books for writers and a few copies that sold of my 30 Painless Classroom Poems series for educators.

Copyediting: $2,214. This was down quite a bit this year, though I turned down a couple of projects because I had so much assessment work already. I enjoy the copyediting, and I might look at growing this part of my income in the future.

Miscellaneous sales: $328. This is me selling autographed copies of my wfh books online. I previously sold these through half.com/ebay. 2014 was my first full year on Amazon sellers. I list all the books I have author copies of at $13. Then I pay about $2–3 each to ship them when they sell. Amazon pays me $12.70 per title. So I make about $10 per book. It’s nice to be clearing a bit of shelf space in my storage area downstairs. I don’t sell my trade books this way–only my wfh books. (I also donate a lot of these books.)

That’s a total of about $42,986. That’s within $200 of my 2013 income, so that’s a nice bit of consistency. I’d like to earn a higher percentage of this from trade books and speaking/teaching, so that’s what I’ll continue to work on growing. Meanwhile, I’ll do all of the other freelance stuff in order to pay the bills. I still feel very lucky to make my goal income ($40,000) doing work that’s at least related to what I love.

NOTE: This is all gross income. This doesn’t include any of my own expenses-travel, promotion, office supplies, etc. nor the self-employment or sales and self-employment taxes I paid.

P.S. Here’s an interesting article about the reality of six-figure book deals, too. Enjoy!

2013

If you think it’s impolite to talk about finances, skip this article! It’s hard for writers to figure out if they can make a living by writing (and related activities), because there’s so little info out there. So every year since 2007, I’ve shared my income on my blog. I’m switching to sharing it here, since I’m trying to reach educators with my blog now.

Overall, 2013 was a great year. A LEAF CAN BE… got lots of lovely recognition, and I’m starting to work my way in to the world of educators and feel comfortable there, and I think that’s where I need to be to promote my picture books and poetry. Here’s the breakdown of what I earned in 2013.

Web Work: I used to update webpages through the Children’s Literature Network. In 2013, this accounted for $2,100 of my income. My work with CLN has come to an end, as the Network itself is going to (very sad about that). Although it wasn’t a big source of income for me, I will really miss working with the CLN founders and meeting so many wonderful writers through my web work.

Trade Book Sales: My trade sales totaled $8,944. That’s almost double my 2012 number. I’m especially excited about this because my goal is to do more trade books and fewer work-for-hire projects. This includes anthology payments/royalties, advances for two forthcoming picture books, and royalties on A LEAF CAN BE… and BOOKSPEAK!, my two trade books that are in print.

Work-for-Hire Books: $600. This number is waaaaay down. I only did one wfh book last year, and it was an ebook about car racing that I wrote through a packager. I’m of mixed feelings about this. I miss the steady work, but, as I try to build my career as a trade book writer, I’m thinking it’s a good time to decrease my number of wfh books. So I didn’t pursue more wfh books last year and am still trying to cement my approach in this area. (If you’re interested in doing writing for the educational market, learn more about my textbook for writers here.)

Assessment: $5,340. I did loads of assessment writing in 2013. I mostly write poetry and nonfiction passages, though in 2013, I also did some fiction and some item-writing, too. Assessment writing is very different from writing for magazines, even though the length might be similar. I’m thinking of writing a how-to ebook for writers interested in this area. Sadly, with standardized assessments multiplying constantly, the demand for good, dependable writers in this area seems to be growing.

Teaching/Speaking: $4,238. I had a great time speaking last year. I spoke at a couple of university children’s literature conferences, the Minnesota Library Association annual conference, the Loft Festival of Children’s Literature, and a few library events. It’s awesome connecting with teachers and librarians, and I’m hoping to do more of this!

School Visits: $11,553. Woohoo! That was 19 or 20 days of school visits or young authors conferences. I don’t have tons lined up for 2014, though, and I’m wondering what to do to promote my visits more. Many writers at about my level of publishing history are charging $1,000+ per day, and they’re getting it. I charge $680 per day, but when my rate was higher, I didn’t book as much. Not sure if it’s because Minnesota has SO MANY wonderful children’s writers, many of whom do school visits, or whether it’s my lack of name recognition. Another area I need to figure out this year!

Mentors for Rent: $2,206. This is the hourly writers’ mentoring business I run with Lisa Bullard. It’s another income stream that is small but brings a lot of satisfaction. We’ve had several clients get publishing contracts (both with trade publishers and educational publishers) this past year, which is wonderful. We have a new ebook just out (see below).

Ebooks: $523. This includes both the MFR books for writers and my ebook on Writing for the Educational Market. I’d love to sell more ebooks, since they are already made and can bring in more income with very little additional work. But wanting and doing are two different things:>)

Print version of Writing for the Educational Market: $963. Even though the Kindle version is only $9.95, I still sell some of the print version. I get great feedback on it, and there’s really no other comprehensive guide to this market. So, this book keeps chugging along.

Copyediting: $6,312. This is a new category for me. I’ve done a bit of copyediting on and off, since I have newspaper copyediting experience. Last year, I did a huge copyediting project for a book packager. It was stressful at times, but also really interesting, since it was a literacy curriculum for another country. I learned so much! I don’t have steady copyediting clients, though this is an area of income I could probably grow if I put my mind to it.

Miscellaneous sales: $32. I started selling autographed copies of my wfh books online. Last year, I only sold a couple, but I switched to an Amazon Sellers account recently, and I’ve already sold 5 or 6 this year. I’m not going to make much money on this, but it will help me clear out some shelf space, I hope! (I’m just selling off my author copies.) I don’t sell my trade books this way–only my wfh books. (I also donate a lot of these books.)

That’s a total of about $42,811. That’s a 26% increase over my 2012 income, which is awesome! My goal for 2014 is to hit $40,000 again. I know I’m not going to make millions as a children’s writer. But if I work hard enough, I like to think I can earn more than minimum wage. I work my buns off and do a million different things. But if that also allows me a little bit of actual writing time and the opportunity to connect with kids, educators, and other writers, either in person or through my books, then I am the luckiest worker I know:>)

NOTE: This is gross income. This doesn’t include any of my own expenses–travel, promotion, office supplies, etc. nor the self-employment or sales and self-employment taxes I paid.

2012

If you think it’s impolite to talk about finances, skip this post!

Every year for the past few years, I’ve shared my income breakdown. It’s hard for writers to figure out if and how they can earn a living through their writing and related activities, largely because there’s little info out there. So I share every year. And it’s that time again. 2012 was definitely a better year for me than 2011. Thank goodness. It was nice not to need to get a holiday retail job! Here’s the breakdown of what I earned last year.

Web Work: I update webpages through the Children’s Literature Network. In 2012, this accounted for $2,405 of my income. One of the reasons I keep doing this freelance work is that it lets me interact with lots of other writers, which I love. It helps me stay a little bit on top of new and forthcoming books, too, as I see what various members have coming out. Of course, it also contributes greatly to my looming TBR pile. Sigh.

Trade Book Sales: My trade sales totaled $4,993. Yay! More than twice my 2011 total. Um, not exactly a livable wage, however. Like most writers, I would love to earn a living off of trade books advances and royalties. Clearly, I still have a long way to go! I did meet one goal and sold a follow-up manuscript to Leaf Can Be…, Water Can Be… (coming out in 2014). And although Stampede has not earned out its advance, BookSpeak!: Poems About Books did! It was so exciting to get a royalty statement with a real check attached! I had about $2,100 in royalties for BookSpeak, plus my $2,700 advance for Water Can Be…, plus a few small sales to anthologies, magazines, etc., for that total of almost $5,000.

Work-for-Hire Books: $7,913. This amount includes four math picture book/board book sets for Capstone, a very short novel for reluctant readers for Heinemann, and several kindergarten-level shared readers (for an educational publisher through a packager–for digital production). Those shared readers were a mix of nonfiction, fiction, and rhyme. (If you’re interested in doing this kind of writing, learn more about my textbook for writers here.)

Assessment: $7,075. Well, this is a part of my writing business that’s growing that I wish wasn’t. I mean, I actually enjoy a lot of the writing I do for assessment companies–I just wish there was less testing in the schools and therefor less need for those passages. I mostly write nonfiction passages and poetry for use in standardized tests. The poems usually have to be fairly lengthy and detailed, so that they can support a dozen or so multiple-choice questions. And I have to write them so that certain standards can be covered, like using context clues to determine the meaning of a word. So that would mean I’d include a word 2 or 3 grade levels above the grade the passage is for, and I’d make sure to include enough context clues in the sentences surrounding that word that a student can figure out the meaning even if she’s never heard the word before.

Teaching/Speaking: $3,250. This was fun stuff! I again co-led a writing retreat/intensive with Lisa Bullard in Wisconsin (though this was the last year for that, I think). I judged a community poetry contest in the Chicago area and also finished out my commitment with the Shabo Mentorship at The Loft. These were all great experiences!

School Visits: $4,670. School visits and young authors conferences were up somewhat in 2012, and even more so so far in 2013! I love visiting schools, and it’s demanding but rewarding work.

Mentors for Rent: $3,650. Mentors for Rent, the hourly writers’ mentoring business I run with Lisa Bullard, is growing little by little. We’re starting to see many repeat customers, which we love. We have an ebook on How to Query an Agent or Editor and an ebook on Writing for the Educational Market, too. This year, we hope to keep growing and also to produce more helpful materials for writers–probably with a focus on quick tips.

That’s a total of about $33,956. That’s a 77% increase over my 2011 income. Thank goodness!

NOTE: This is gross income. This doesn’t include any of my own expenses–travel, promotion, office supplies, etc. (ballpark of around $8,000)–nor the taxes I paid (which were around $4,500). My goal was $40,000, and I didn’t hit that, but I at least came closer. For 2013, my income goal is again $40,000, and I have lots of writing goals and writing dreams, which I’ll share more about another week. I hope this info is helpful to you. If you have a different job and write just for self-expression or love, great! Or if you write full-time, but don’t need to contribute a certain amount to your household budget, great! This info is for those of you who, like me, want to write, love to write, but need to earn income, too. I hope you met your 2012 writing goals!

2011

If you think it’s impolite to talk about finances, skip this post!

Every year for the past few years, I’ve shared my income breakdown. It’s so hard for writers to figure out if they can earn a living through their writing and related activities, largely because there’s little info out there. So I share every year, sometimes with pride, other times (cough, cough) with dismay and more than a little embarrassment. I know income does not directly correlate, necessarily, with skill, passion, or a job well done. The people in some of the professions I most admire make very little money. Still, as a small business person…ack.

Anyway, here’s my 2011 edition: Keep in mind, this is only gross income. (And for 2011, gross really applies.) This doesn’t include any of my own expenses–travel, promotion, office supplies, etc.–nor the taxes I have to pay. 2011 was a bad year, financially. My worst in a long time. Sigh. The rough economy and my huge time commitment to doing a year of drum corps combined to squash my income like a bug. So be warned.

And here goes:

Web Work: I maintain and update webpages through the Children’s Literature Network. In 2011, this accounted for $1,545 of my income. This is not a big chunk of income, obviously, but I like keeping my hand in with this fantastic organization.

Trade Book Sales: Another year without a trade book sale. Ugh. I did get the second half of my BookSpeak! advance, plus $450 for a couple of poems in a Georgia Heard anthology–yay! (And I have made a trade sale for a follow-up to Leaf Can Be… in 2012.) So that came out to a total of $2,150.

Work-for-Hire Books: $5,768. This is only about half of 2010’s amount.That included the second half of payment for two Picture Window books about emotions, three really fun monster-related e‑books (can’t wait to see them!) with Jackson Fish, and one easy e‑reader. This also includes some copyediting I did for a book packager and the kill fee for a work-for-hire fiction middle-school book that was accepted by the editors but then killed by the project manager. Not a stellar year.

Assessment: $1,200. This was a mixture of nonfiction and poetry, mostly poetry, sold to assessment companies for use in their standardized tests. The poems usually have to be fairly lengthy and detailed, so that they can support a dozen or so multiple-choice questions. A lot of times I’ll use an existing poem and then make it longer and edit it in other ways to make it usable in a testing situation. It’s always a challenge, but interesting to do.

Teaching/Speaking: $2,500. I really enjoyed this work in 2011. This income came from two events: the Redbery Writer’s Retreat I co-led with Lisa Bullard in Wisconsin and the first half payment for the Shabo Mentorship I was the mentor for for The Loft. Both were great experiences, and I connected with many terrific writers!

School Visits: $2,067. The other half came from 5 or 6 days’ worth of Young Author’s Conferences and school visits (of course, the prep time was lots more than that). I’m re-vamping my school visit presentations and also hoping to get into Skype visits shortly.

Marketing Consultant: $2,670. This was the tail end of a short-term project that I took on for 2010. I put aside other income streams like online classes to take on this project, which was interesting and paid well. It wrapped up in the first couple of months of 2011, and I’m still trying to figure out how to balance my income streams.

Addendum: Mentors for Rent: $1,200. I somehow deleted this entry earlier! Mentors for Rent (new website coming soon) is a small business I run with Lisa Bullard, where we mentor kids’/ya writers for an hourly rate. We started out very slow and small, but we’re getting great feedback. We’re hoping to really grow this business this year!

That’s a total of about $19,100. Only a bit more than 1/3 of my 2010 income ($53,600). Ouch. I could make more money working at Target. But could I do that full-time and let go of my writing? No way. So, those were my fairly pathetic income numbers in 2011.

This year, I’m really focusing on getting my income back into shape. We’ll see if it pays off. I hope you’ve supported yourself doing something you love, too! Or, if you weren’t able to support yourself at it (like I couldn’t have this year), I hope it at least kept you in cute shoes and caramel brownies.

2010

If you think it’s impolite to talk about finances, skip this post!

Every year for the past few years, I’ve shared my income breakdown. Trying to figure out whether you can earn a living doing writing and writing-related things is excruciatingly difficult because there’s so little concrete info out there. So, here’s my 2010 edition:

Keep in mind, this is only gross income. This doesn’t include any of my own expenses–travel, promotion, office supplies, etc.–nor the taxes I have to pay (which worked out to about $17,000).

As always, I found myself juggling a ton of different activities in 2010 do a whole bunch of different things to make up my income. Most relate to and interact with my writing in some way.

Here goes:

Web Work: I maintain and update webpages through the Children’s Literature Network. In 2009, this accounted for $3,167 of my income. I used to do some other accounts, too, but all I retained this year was CLN. I like being in contact with children’s writers and illustrators, and it’s pretty low-stress occasional work. Just a couple of hours per week.

Trade Book Sales: I didn’t make a single trade sale in 2010. I am SO depressed. On the income side, I did get my advance for a book I have coming out with Millbrook in spring 2012. After my agent’s percentage, that came out to $2,590. I am really hoping I have at least one trade sale in 2011.

Work-for-Hire Books: $12,000. This is the same amount as last year! I wrote five Colors of… books for Capstone, one leveled reader that almost killed me for a book packager, two books of verse about emotions for Capstone, and a very nifty book about using photos to inspire poetry, also for Capstone. The bad news? I didn’t get a single assignment for this winter/spring from Capstone or any of its imprints. Not sure what that signifies.

Assessment: $2,600. This was actually mostly from poetry! I wrote a bunch of poems on contract for an assessment company. The poems have to be long and detailed enough to support 12 questions each, or sometimes a related pair of poems can support 12 questions. I can often use an already-written poem as the starting point and then expand it, add specific poetic techniques they need to assess, etc. It’s an interesting challenge.

Teaching/Speaking: $1,225. This is a huge drop from 2009. That’s because I didn’t really teach online at all in 2010. I pretty much put that on hiatus in order to do the marketing consultant work below.

School Visits: $11,750. This was a great year for school visits for me. I did a bunch of school visits and Young Authors Conferences. However, this year, all I have booked is one day at a school and four Young Authors Conference days. My school visit income will be WAY down in 2011.

Marketing Consultant: $20,275. This was new to me at the end of 2009 and throughout 2010. It was interesting work and good pay, so I put aside my online teaching and a few other things in order to make time for it. However, the big projects are finished now, so this has dropped down wildly since the new year. It will likely only be a few thousand dollars for 2011. I knew going into it that that would happen, so it’s not a shock. This year, however, I’m trying to figure out anew how to balance my various income-producing activities.

That’s a total of about $53,600. That’s up almost 50% from last year! After my income dropping the past two years, it’s a nice change of direction. However, dwindling school visits and marketing consultant work will bring it back down for 2011. Way down. But just like I couldn’t focus too much on the lower income the past two years, I can’t focus too much on the higher income this past year. I worked intensely hard all the years–as a freelancer, you have to work unbelievably efficiently and hard in order to earn a livable income.

And the income doesn’t necessarily vary as a result of my efforts. It’s market conditions. Sometimes there are higher-paying jobs available, sometimes not. So I’ll just keep plugging along, trying to keep all the balls I’m juggling in the air, ever grateful to earn a living through writing-related stuff…

So, those were my income sources in 2010. I hope you supported yourself doing something you love, too!

2009

Each year for the past couple of years, I’ve shared my income information in the hopes of making money a less taboo topic among children’s writers.

Our taxes are now done, so I’m ready to share my 2009 info! Of course, this is only gross income. This doesn’t include any of my own expenses–travel, promotion, office supplies, etc.–nor the taxes I have to pay (which work out to somewhere between 30 and 40% of my gross income).

As usual, I do a whole bunch of different things to make up my income. Most relate to and interact with my writing in some way.

Here goes:

Web Work: I maintain and update webpages through both Winding Oak and the Children’s Literature Network. In 2009, this accounted for $4,600 of my income. I recently stopped doing the Winding Oak work, though I am still maintaining author pages for the Children’s Literature Network. I kept the CLN work even though it pays a lower hourly rate than the Winding Oak work. The reason I did this is that the CLN work is more reactive. I just respond to requests to add or update pages. And the pages are templated, so there’s very little learning curve. There are no urgent deadlines, and it doesn’t require mental energy on behalf of clients, where I had to think about, “Hmm…it’s almost the end of the month, and I don’t have Writer XYZ’s beginning-of-month updates. I should contact her!” I can barely keep track of all my own stuff. It was too stressful to always have that in the back of my mind for other people. I do miss the contact with the fabulous writers whose Winding Oak sites I maintained, but it was the right decision for me, stresswise.

Trade Book Sales: Bleh. I didn’t make a single penny on trade book sales in 2009. I did sell a trade book, so that’s good news (in fact, I just got my first half of the advance on Saturday!). Stampede is nowhere near earning out its advance. But with a new book sale and a previous sale finally moving forward, here’s hoping this category will look a lot better in 2010! Total: $0

Work-for-Hire Books: $12,000. I wrote four Science Songs books for Picture Window Books and eight Alphabet Books for Capstone Press. Oh, and one leveled reader for a book packager. Not all the income for all 13 books came in during the calendar year, but that is most of it!

Assessment: $800. These were four nonfiction passages I wrote for an assessment company. I also sold a boatload of poems to an assessment company at the end of the year, but I didn’t get paid until after the new year.

Teaching/Speaking: $9,600. This money came from almost exclusively from teaching online last year! Hardly any in-person stuff, which is unusual. This year will be more of a mix.

School Visits: $5,800. This was an area I’ve been trying to increase, and it’s working! I did 12 days’ worth of school visits and Young Authors Conferences in 2009. They take a lot of prep time, but they’re a great mix of promotion for my books, connections with my audience, and income. They exhaust me, but I actually really enjoy them.

Marketing Consultant: $3,500. This is something new for me. I am doing some freelance consulting work for a financial firm. I’m helping with things like a book they’re self-publishing and a website redesign. I’m not actually doing the designing or anything, but I’m kind of the middleman between their marketing person and the subcontractors. It’s a bit out of my comfort zone, but I’m applying the stuff I’m learning there to my writing career. For instance, I learned all about Constant Contact, a service for sending out html emails, and I just started using that service for my own monthly update emails. Plus the cash is nice:>)

That’s a total of about $36,300. That’s down about 9% from last year. Shoot. That’s down two years in a row. But I’m trying to find the time to work on trade projects, which don’t bring in any immediate money but will hopefully figure into the budget in the future. And I’m just trying to lower my stress level enough to actually enjoy the fact that I get to make a living from writing-related stuff. Don’t get me wrong. I worked my butt off for that amount of income. Lots of books. Lots of poems. Several trade projects that my agent is trying to sell. But I just mean I can’t focus too much on the lower income, because if all I concentrate on is the money, I’ll be miserable.

So, those are the main ways I made income in 2009. I hope you’re finding ways to support yourself doing what you love (or at least tasks related to what you love!).

2008

If you’re a person who thinks it’s rude to talk about finances–skip this!

A while back, I blogged about my income from 2007. I did that because money is such an off-limits topic to many people, and yet, when you’re trying to figure out whether you can survive as a writer, you need people to talk about it.

And now it’s time for the update. It’s August, and I’m finally taking a bit of time to look back at my 2008 income and give a recap. Like most writers, I scrap together a patchwork income from many sources. Looking back at my 2008 business plan, these are the totals I find. Keep in mind this is gross income only. It doesn’t include any of my office expenses, travel for conferences, etc. Here goes:

Web Work: I maintain and update webpages through both Winding Oak and the Children’s Literature Network. In 2008, this accounted for $8,500 of my income.

Trade Book Sales: I received one-half of my advance for a children’s poetry book, Bookspeak: Poems By and About Books, plus a tiny royalty check for an old book. Total: $1,750

Work-for-Hire Books: $13,350. That’s a big step down from last year on work-for-hire, reflecting the fact that I didn’t spend quite as much time on it and that I didn’t have the set of 10 poetry books for Capstone, which had been a large chunk of my 2007 work-for-hire income. In 2008, I wrote 4 science songs, 2 ecosystem books, and 4 animal classification books for Picture Window Books (all for K‑2), plus 4 alphabet books for Capstone Press. I think that’s everything. Well, everything I got paid for during the calendar year, anyway. So that’s a total of 14 work-for-hire books. There were also a few work-for-hire assignments in there that weren’t books.

Assessment: $1,500. These are passages I wrote for assessment companies.

Teaching/Speaking: $13,030. This money came from some one-day writing workshops at the Loft Literary Center and numerous online classes. This was a big jump from last year. I enjoy teaching and speaking, but I’m still trying to find the right balance!

School Visits: $1,900. 2008 was the first year I did enough school visits to make a separate income category for them. I’ve done a bunch so far in 2009, and this is one area I’m trying to increase, since they’re a great convergence of connecting with kids, promoting books, and making some income.

So that’s a total of about $40,000. That’s down about 28% from the previous year, which is not good for the family budget. But that’s the life of a freelancer.

Right now, I’m considering an ongoing freelance position of about 10 hours per week in marketing/PR. This possible job would be decent, regular money, with a company of good people doing interesting work, which is a nice thing. The problem is, I’m already working more hours per week than I really have available. So something would have to go. But every single one of the scraps of my patched-together income offers me something besides just money. And the job would stretch me past my current skill level in the marketing/promotion arena. That makes me anxious. But it also interests me, and I know my own book promotion efforts would benefit from some of the skills I would expand doing this job. So I’ll keep pondering how best to find the balance between income, love of writing, and interesting, challenging work.

It was really helpful for me to lay out here the various income streams I’m relying on and how each one is going. I hope it’s helpful to some of you out there who are considering writing (and all its related tasks) as a possible career.

2007

If you’re a person who thinks it’s rude to talk about finances–skip this!

I’ve been thinking recently that one of the things children’s writers wonder about is money. Usually because we don’t make any. Of course there are exceptions. There are children’s writers who make a living solely off their book sales. I think there are 4. Which leaves the other 9,996 scrambling to put together an income off this crazy, wonderful, unreliable world of children’s publishing. OK, maybe there are more than 4. But most children’s writers I know who actually make a living off of writing do it by cobbling together an income from many different sources.

This has been on my mind even more than usual lately. Partially because I’ve had a few different students in my online classes ask how realistic it is to make a living at this. And partly because my husband and I sat down a couple of months ago to re-do our family budget and make it more realistic. I was feeling way too much pressure because I had been unrealistic about what I hoped to earn this year.

So in the interest of sharing specifics for those of you who are wondering whether to quit the day job, I’m looking back over my 2007 business plan and sharing my deep dark financial secrets with you. All of my various jobs are/were related to writing or children’s books in some way.

Minneapolis Star Tribune: I used to work part-time for the website of the Trib, and in 2007 (my last year there), I made $13,000 after taxes. But I didn’t have enough taxes taken out to offset my writing income, apparently. I no longer work there (newspaper industry is in the toilet, if anyone’s not already aware of that), and trying to make up that income elsewhere has been a major stressor in 2008!

Web Work: I maintain and update webpages through both Winding Oak and the Children’s Literature Network. In 2007, this accounted for $5,000 of my income.

Trade Book Sales: I received one advance for a children’s poetry book, Stampede! Poems About the Wild Side of School, plus a tiny royalty check for an old book. Total: $3,725

Work for Hire Books: $26,000. That’s the most I’ve ever made in a year for WFH books! That includes 10 poetry books for Capstone, Write Your Own Poetry and Scrapbooking for Fun for Compass Point, three life-cycle books for Picture Window, and a book on Gallaudet University for Trillium. So, a total of 16 books. There were also a few work-for-hire assignments in there that weren’t books.

Assessment: $2,150. These are passages I wrote for assessment companies.

Teaching/Speaking/School Visits: $5,450. This money came from some one-day writing workshops at the Loft Literary Center, some prepayment for an online class that I actually taught in January of this year, an appearance at a Young Scientists Conference, and a couple of writing conference appearances.

That makes a grand total of about $55,000. But I really hustled to make that and didn’t have very much time to work on my own writing projects that I’d really like to work on. Actually, really hustled is a kind way to put it. I maintained a brutal schedule all year. It’s not a pace I could keep up year in, year out. Plus I didn’t pay quarterly taxes (I’d never needed to before), so I ended up owing about $9,000 in taxes at the end of the year, on top of the money I’d already been setting aside in my “taxes savings account.” Yikes. I’m mailing in those quarterly tax payments now! (And yes, I do use an accountant, deduct my home office and all my expenses, etc.)

2008 is different. No Trib income, for one. And fewer WFH books. The poetry books were fun, but a fluke. Not many of those in educational publishing. So I’ve been trying to figure out how to maintain some kind of reasonable income as well as my sanity.

Maybe I’ll check back in on this topic in January or February to see how 2008 compared to 2007. I’ve always wished I knew how much money other writers make and how they make it, not from a nosy standpoint, but just from a career-planning and budgeting view!

I hope this info’s helpful to people really trying to figure out how to make a livable income off their writing!

2021

2020

So, my total GROSS income for 2020 was $39,381—down about $6,000 from 2019.

2019

So, my total GROSS income for 2019 was $45,377.

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

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