Translated from Utsudo’s original Chinese column.

Can you make easy money writing novels?Hardly. Just finishing a complete novel filters out most people. Then you have to pass the commercial test of publishers and other backers — reportedly under 1% of newcomers get accepted. After publication you still face readers, and most books don’t sell much. Utsudo says making money from novels isn’t impossible, but it takes love to keep the fire burning.

“Can I make some extra money writing novels?”

　　Here’s what happened: a relative suddenly asked me how to make money from novels, saying she wanted to write one over summer vacation to see if she could earn some extra cash.

　　Honestly, as a novelist, hearing that question stung a bit, because it sounded like she thought writing novels was super easy and selling them for money was a piece of cake — and yet she’d never even written a complete novel…

　　I believe anyone who has actually written a novel understands that finishing one is never easy, and the difficulty rises with length — flash fiction, short stories, novellas, novels, epics.

　　Oh, of course,geniusesaren’t included in this discussion.

The first hurdle to monetizing: the commercial test

　　Even if you really do finish it and want to monetize, you have to pass the commercial test — whether self-selling or finding backers (publishers, e-books, scripts for other media). Just writing a complete story already filters out most authors; getting a backer willing to work with you, meaning it has commercial value, is another challenge altogether.

　　And this challenge is highly unpredictable. Setting aside self-selling, when finding a backer, some people get accepted on the first try, while others write for years without ever selling their rights… I recall reading somewhere that the acceptance rate for newcomers is apparently below 1%.

　　But I believethe higher your work’s quality, the higher the odds should be. So it’s best to pursue completeness in your own work, and be zen about the things you can’t control, so your mood isn’t affected.

Challenges after publication

　　And then, if you really do succeed in selling the rights, congratulations on taking the first step — because you’ve only become one of the many published books.

　　After a novel is published, it still has to pass the consumer test. The vast majority of books don’t sell many copies. For a newcomer with no accumulated name, and a topic that isn’t explosive or buzzworthy enough, getting onto the bestseller list is even harder.

　　If you just want to fulfill a publishing dream, getting published is enough. But writing novels has no end; selling the rights (publishing a book, e-book contracts and so on) is basically just crossing the threshold. The long road comes after — and you may very well just get buried…

　　Of course this is just a brief take — I just want to saymaking money from novels isn’t impossible, but it’s really not easy, and in the vast majority of cases it’s thankless work. It takes lots of time and energy, may well not sell, or the royalties are pitifully small, and then it gets pirated everywhere. You really need love to keep the fire burning to keep going.

Making money from novels takes love to keep the fire burning

　　Before I signed with a publisher, I never told my family I wrote novels, let alone let them see them. Of course I didn’t want to tell them I wanted to be a novelist either — because I believe 99% of parents would scoff at it.Rather than writing novels to make money, you’d be better off researching how to make the human body coexist with chlorophyll, so you can get full just by sunbathing (X

　　If you want to make money from this, a part-time job would be more efficient.

　　Otherwise, you can have anything in your dreams — you might as well take a nap XDD

FAQ

Further reading (in Chinese)

• Previous: #86 (in Chinese)
• Next: #88 (in Chinese)
• Start from the beginning: #01 — Utsudo’s debut
• Column introduction
• Utsudo’s books

About the author

Utsudo is a Taiwanese light novelist and novelist VTuber with more than ten years in the industry and 40 commercially published print books. Her novel 《遺失的情書》 received a 2022 Ministry of Culture youth creative award. The 《嘿！聽說妳在鬼島當作家》 series records her experiences as a novelist in Taiwan.