David Anderson asked Jeff Strand:

Are you a full-time author? If so, how did you make the transition?

Jeff Strand Yes, I'm full time. I'd love to be able to give the happy answer and say, "All it took was two or three published novels and I was set!" In truth, I quit my day job sixteen years after my first book came out. My big-publisher and small press books didn't come anywhere close to giving me the ability to write full-time; it wasn't until I started self-publishing on Kindle that I thought, "Whoa, I could make this happen!"

In my case, it's about being prolific and exploiting subsidiary rights. So as soon as I finish one book I start working on the next one. Thanks to Kindle, almost all of my books are still easily available, generating income. I've got the e-book sales (which are responsible for most of my income), the hardcover limited editions, the paperbacks, audio books, the occasional foreign language edition and movie option, and I finally hit a point where the many streams of income made it possible to quit my day job. (I could've done it sooner, but I refused to quit until I could afford health insurance. I didn't want a car accident to ruin my financial existence.)

The BETTER way to do it is to sell a book for a lot of money. But my method of writing a lot of books, while taking care to maintain the level of quality, eventually paid off.

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