
144
The Ten Roads to Riches
something-anything
. You can even create
your
own catchphrase
and be parodied on
Saturday Nigbt Live.
WRITING
FOR
DOLLARS
Most
successful writers don 't get rich. Few books sell many
copies-
most less than 10,000. At
that
, if it's a $20 book, royalties may be $2
per book.
The
author
makes $20,000 for much of a year's work and
remains
poor
. A tiny percent sell
better
. Take stock market books,
which are mostly what I've written. A real
monster
stock market
book may sell 200,000 copies in its life.
There
are maybe two
of
those a year at most and they will make the New
.York
Times Best
Seller list like my 2007 book did. But $400,000 in royalties isn't
enough to get rich on. And that's before expenses associated with
promoting
it.
Writers who succeed keep cranking out best sellers to main tain
income and then go down the Road
More
Traveled (Chap
ter
10).
Broader category monsters like
James Michener are statistically
and simply way
out
on the bell curve of success. You're as apt to
become the next Babe
Rut
h.
Long
-
term
top
-10 selling romance
novelists accumulate $5 million to $30 million in t
heir
lifetimes. I
know because two of
them
are my clients. But that's it.
Nice-but
not
mongo
huge.
That
is unless you mo
rph
otherwise.
For
example, St
ephen
Kin
g will collect endless cash from royalties on Tbe Sbining
-the
movie,
not
the book, and subsequent remakes, prequels, sequels,
remakes
of
prequel/sequels, reissues, special-edition