Streams and Buckets: How to Make a Sustainable Living as an Indie Author

By John G. Hartness, @johnhartness

Part of the Indie Author Series

$74,000. There’s the number. It’s tax time, so numbers are what we’re all about this time of year, and that one’s mine. That is my income for 2017. It’s a decent number for my part of the world, enough to live on and pay the bills for a family of two with one income. It isn’t the million dollars that some folks make, but it also is a nice, steady increase over my income of previous years. It’s about what a teacher in my school district makes, if they have a Master’s Degree, National Board Certification, and 30 years of experience. So it’s a solid, professional-level salary.

I make my living from my writing. This is my day job, and my side hustle. I don’t have a safety net, and I don’t have a Plan B. This is all I’ve got, and I’m both happy and a little proud to be able to make a full-time living from my work. I published my first book, a collection of poetry and short stories, in 2009, so eight years into this career, that’s where I am. Not bad, since eight years into my first career I was sitting at around $32K/year. That was also 2003, so there’s a slightly different lens we use when looking through the wayback machine.
Read more »Written by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com