Author Business Decisions
Yes, being an author is a business. It also requires business decisions and things like marketing and so on. It's hard, y'all.
When I wanted to be an author when I growed up, all this paperwork wasn’t what I meant. I imagined myself living the “Murder, She Wrote” life sans murders. You know, writing, book signings, all that stuff. What I didn’t imagine was marketing, bookkeeping, newsletters, social media, accounting, and the amount of screaming into the void I need to do to stay somewhat even a little maybe sane.
That last line is a joke. I’m nothing resembling sane.
Not only do I need to handle all of those above things, but as an entrepreneur, I’m not really given the option to just offload it to others because I’m also disabled and living on a fixed income. That means every financial decision I have to make is compounded by the “okay, cool, I can buy this service for my book that I need to be able to market it” but also the “can I afford gas, food, and medication this month?” situation. It’s, quite frankly, grating. And inflation has taken us disabled and fixed income folks and shoved us into a blender because while costs are steadily climbing, our income (which was paltry and not enough to survive on before) has not changed significantly.
Seriously, they touted how big the cost of living increase was last year for SSDI recipients and how big a deal it was, and it was like $200/month which, when one week of groceries costs $300 for two people buying staples and needs exclusively, isn’t a whole lot in the face of things.
As a result of this, I’m having to do some hard eye contact with my author expenses and trying to decide what, if anything, I can give up in order to make ends meet because everybody uses subscription models these days. I might be able to pay $200 for something I own forever and get updates on if I scrimp and save and put by for it and then catch it on sale. But paying $10/month forever is a lot harder because all those services sneak up on you and eventually end up adding up to a whole hell of a lot. It’s a problem.
It really frustrates me sometimes that being an author is so much work that has nothing to do with writing. Nothing at all. And it never will, either. Unless I somehow manage to break into things as a trad pub (which is unrealistic for me because if I got an advance, I’d lose healthcare, and then I’d be back where I started except ineligible for benefits because of income at all) or win the lottery (which I don’t play), I’m stuck on this hamster wheel of death until I die from it or somehow manage to eke out some kind of “success.” Whatever that looks like.
This isn’t my usual kind of weekly post, and I’m somewhat sorry for that, but this space is also about author things and me and not just my writing advice and stories. This is a bit of that, and it’s something that’s been weighing on my mind more and more as I get deeper into my author career and the world becomes less and less accessible to disabled and poor people because the economy — and business in general — seems to just want us to die. No, that’s not an exaggeration. If I didn’t live with family who helps us keep our heads above water, my husband and I would be dead.
I’m frequently faced with people in the world who seem to think the poor and disabled are the scourge of society and that we have nothing “useful” to offer. How we have "nothing of value” to contribute because we can’t do a 9-5. Healthcare costs are prohibitive so even if I could work part time to try and earn money and make ends meet, I would be on the street because I’m on multiple medications and regularly need expensive medical procedures, testing, and care. I’m in physical therapy for 3 or more months most years. In fact, I can’t remember any time in recent history where I wasn’t except at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic and even then I should’ve been in PT but was avoiding it because we had a plague.
I know the few subscribers I have to this blog — and the people who read my newsletter and interact with me on social media — value what I have to say. That’s why you’re here, right? I entertain, educate, or inspire people. That makes me happy in such tremendously deep ways. Unfortunately, we live in a world where capitalism is a thing, so it doesn’t matter how much people like me when it comes to whether or not I can afford to live.