- The Cult of Breastfeeding - November 27, 2023
- Having a Baby After FIRE - November 13, 2023
- Pathfinders Book Review - October 30, 2023
(Click here for Part 1 to see how much we spent. Click here for Part 2 to see our portfolio performance)
Be an engineer. Don’t be a writer. Writers don’t make any money….
…except when they do.
I never thought I’d ever make a livable income as a writer. Not when we first started writing in 2008, not when we signed with a literary agent, and not even when we got our first advance for our children’s book, Little Miss Evil.
Despite my cynicism, I still framed our first $200 author paycheque smack dab in the middle of our bedroom, at eye level, so I can remind myself the dream is alive and well.
Maybe, I thought, one day my author pay-check will support me and I won’t have to be an engineer anymore.
HA! Naivety, thy name is FIRECracker.
It wasn’t until AFTER I retired from my engineering career (thank you, FIRE movement!) that I would FINALLY be able to make a living as a writer.
It wasn’t quick or easy though. Nor was it expected. In fact, it wasn’t until I’d completely given up on making money from my passion, instead, writing for the pure joy of it, that the reward finally came.
“Follow your dream and the money will follow”.
Nope. More like: “follow the money, invest it until you no longer need to work, and then your dreams will come true.”
Unexpected Income
So how much did we make from writing in 2020?
| Line Item | Amount |
| Gross Income | $72,000 |
| Business Expenses | $6,500 |
| Estimated Taxes | $13,000 |
| Net Income | $52,500 |
After 5 years of retirement (and TWELVE whole years of writing), our after-expense gross income is still dwarfed by my old engineering income. Don’t quit your day job, kids! At least until you become FI, anyway.
On the plus side, once your expenses are taken care of by the passive income from your portfolio, every single penny you make from passion income goes into savings, giving you a 100% savings rate! That’s why any unexpected income AFTER financial independence becomes significant. Normally, making $10,000 a year from passion projects wouldn’t even be enough to cover rent, but in retirement, that could reduce your withdrawal rate from 4% to 3%, giving you a 100% success rate!
You may have noticed that this year’s writing income is also lower than last year’s. This is because a) most of our book’s advance got paid last year b) advertising income went down in March due to the pandemic.
That’s the thing with passion project income. It fluctuates so you can’t rely on it. Instead, rely on your portfolio and treat it as a bonus.
However, I am happy to report that we earned out our book advance in 1 year and got our first royalty cheque in 2020! For those readers who aren’t familiar with publishing lingo, a book advance is a chunk of money paid by the publisher up-front to the author before the book is published. This is basically them taking a risk and guessing how good your sales will be. The more copies they think you can sell, the bigger the advance. Once the book is published, a percentage of each book’s price goes towards paying off the “debt” of the advance. Only after the advance is paid off, will you start getting a percentage of every book sale, and this is called your book royalty. This is like passive income from your portfolio because you don’t have do anything else and the money keeps rolling in.
If you don’t earn out your advance, you don’t have to pay it back, but you likely won’t get another book deal from that publisher.
It’s also worth noting that the VAST majority of authors (75%!) never earn out their advance. So we’re beyond stoked to be in this minority. Not only did we end up becoming professional authors, we became financially successful authors! Who woulda thunk it?
Since this year will be the 5-year anniversary of our blog, let’s take a look at how much we made to date:
| Year | Gross Income (after expenses) | Notes |
| 2016 | $150 | Just starting out. We’re paying more than we earned at this point. |
| 2017 | $13,000 | We added affiliates like Questrade and Personal Capital. Also blog readership grew exponentially. |
| 2018 | $52,000 | Our income jumped from the previous year because we switched from Google Adsense to Mediavine after meeting the required 25,000 session/month criteria. We also got the first instalment of our advance. |
| 2019 | $95,000 | We got paid the rest of our book advance, as well as for additional translation/adaptation rights, pushing our income to its highest level. We also added more affiliates to our blog. |
| 2020 | $65,500 | Ad revenue plummeted in March due to the pandemic and didn’t come back until late summer. On the bright side, we earned out our book advance in 1 year and got our first royalty cheque! |
Now, if my cynicism hasn’t scared you off, and you STILL want to be a writer, here are some tips I’ve learned.
Don’t do it for the Money
If you’re already thinking about monetizing, stop. You need to get into writing for the right reasons. And if it’s for money, sorry to disappoint you, but the average salary of a writer is $10,000 or less a year. That’s why most of the authors I know have multiple jobs (teaching, tech, editing) or a spouse who can support them. Write because you love to write. Don’t write for the money.
Focus on Your Reader
They say amateur writers write for themselves and professional writers write for other people.
It’s perfectly fine to write for yourself as a hobby. However, if you want to one day do this professionally, your need to care about your reader. Always be thinking about how THEY are receiving the information, rather than a brain dump of what YOU want to say.
Whenever we get feedback from readers saying “you’ve changed my life”, “thank you for teaching me how to invest”, or “finally, someone who understands the immigrant experience and what it’s like to grow up poor”, it’s the best feeling in the world. When you’ve touched someone with your words, you’ve done your job as a writer.
Always keep your readers in mind when writing.
Be Consistent
Before you can gain a loyal following, you have to prove you’re there to stay. No one wants to read a blog that’s only updated once a month.
That means showing up, at least once a week (we started with a 3 posts/week schedule), and producing quality posts regardless of what is going on with your life.
Writing is about parking your butt in the chair and bleeding onto the page. If you can’t consistently show up, don’t start a blog. You have to LOVE writing. Your readers aren’t stupid, and they’ll know when you’re faking it.
Be Conversational
I have to admit, learning to write as an engineer wasn’t easy. Engineering (and most office jobs) tends to have the opposite rules as writing. “Use big words to sound important”. “Use lots of words and technical jargon”. “More is better”.
I remember in engineering school, we had an exam question asking us to design a parallel interface and describe it in one paragraph. We were given a list of words like “synchronous, asynchronous, transfer bus, paradigm, algorithm, resistance (wait, did you just fall sleep? Yeah I thought so)…”
The more words we used from that list in our description, the more marks we earned for that question.
All that ended up doing was creating paragraphs like this:
“the parallel interface uses a synchronous clock, which is not asynchronous, and the heuristic algorithmic paradigm dictates…”
Ugh.
Don’t write to show off your vocabulary. Write to entertain. Pretend you’re having a conversation with your best friend.
Less is More.
Done is Better than Perfect
Now, don’t get freaked out because I’ve scared you by saying “bleed onto the page” and “be entertaining”. You don’t need to agonize over every word to create the perfect sentence. Just get it down and you can fix it later.
One of my favourite piece of advice is “vomit onto the page. Then clean it up later”.
Writing is editing and you can’t edit a blank page.
Get it down. Then put it away for a while. Once you are ready to pick it back up, be ruthless with your cuts.
Don’t Force It
I used to think I could out-work writer’s block. After all, just like engineering, the more effort and time you spend coding or fixing bugs, the more you’ll get done right?
Wrong.
Turns out, that’s not how art works. Sometimes the harder you try, the worse you write.
Instead, go for a walk, meditate, read, and do something fun. Your subconsciousness can work wonders if you let it. Hell, sometimes my best ideas come when I’m in the shower or doing the dishes.
You can’t force creativity.
Whenever you get stuck, take a break, and come back to it later. Your brain will thank you.
What do you think? Are you planning to work on passion projects in retirement? If so, what are they?
***
NEWS: We got this e-mail recently from a reader who lives in Shiga, Japan:
“I read your book all at once. I think what makes it superior to other books is that it is clear and logical in its concreteness and numbers. I’m excited to feel that it’s the bible I was looking for.”
YAY! Quit Like a Millionaire is now available in Japanese!
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Congratulations on earning your book advance and getting royalty! That really is quite an accomplishment that many others do not achieve. Are you guys feeling any new book writing opportunities? And will you entertain them if they come along?
I’m on the fence about excepting a book writing opportunity myself, and it’s also with a big publisher. It’s kind of like a bucket list item that can help, given I’m already writing stuff for free that helps.
What are some of the things you would do differently if you could write your book again or negotiate again the book deal?
Thx
Sam
Thanks, Sam. In terms of book writing opportunities, I will we’re going to take a break and just write for fun. Publishing a book is a ton of work and we need a break. I’m a masochist but THAT much of a masochist.
Congrats on your book opportunity! If you decide to do it, definitely get a literary agent. They are worth their weight in gold. We can chat more about this privately if you like. Just shoot me an e-mail at FIRECracker.revolution@gmail.com.
What I would do differently is not stress myself out by trying to go in a hundred different directions in terms of marketing. Just focus on 3 things. You don’t know what you don’t know right? I would’ve just relaxed and not worried so much.
Ok! Good advice. Will reach out in due time. The opportunity kinda fell into my lap due to an acquisitions editor contacting me.
Your description of writing a book and the work it takes is kinda intimidating! The last thing I want is to spend more time doing hard things after a hard 2020! lol
* accepting, not excepting. typo above
Sam
Shot you an email several days ago in case you didn’t get it. Thx
Great piece. I really like your honesty here. Gotta do it for the love of the craft!
Thanks, MI. Trying to get rich by writing definitely not the way to go 🙂 Wish they told me that in English class in high school.
72,000 in “unexpected” income? and you call yourself FIRE? WHere in the world this is early retirement.
I was disappointed with the movement for a while now but this only confirms my theory…if you truly FIRE without a dime in income you’re be screwed !
Clearly Ralph, you must follow not this blog closely or you’d know that this income is just gravy. They live off of their investments and quite comfortably too. Jealous maybe?
Ha3x….I have been retired for 3+ years without a cent in wage income and I am definitely now screwed. Like FIREcracker says, any kind of income once you’re FIRE is just a bonus, which usually ends up being invested again (not because FIRE people are misers, but because we have more than enough money already to lead a happy life and we continue being smartasses after FIRE) which then create more money, giving us perpetual nothing-to-complain-about-headaches. Yes..yes…poor us….ha3x….
I kinda have to partly agree with you Ralph…I wouldn’t FIRE nowadays based on the 4% rule and planning on having zero side income. It won’t work in this zero rate environment with inflation going up
Smart of you not to count on the 4% rule. I know ZERO people since leaving my job in 2012, who withdraw at 4%. They either draw less or have good supplemental retirement income.
Sam
Thank you for proving my point Samurai. FIRE is a fad…if you have side income you’re not a truly FIRE. If you don’t use the holy grail 4% rule you’re also not FIRE.
FIRE is misleading..much more now when they are printing money faster than the printers can run. USD is declining and pretty soon will be worthless..so if you have 2 million you have nothing.
That’s why I dropped the FIRE movement to enter the FSOCIETY movement
Cool. Question for you.
I’m estimating we will have about $300K in investment income this year (distribution amount in website box below) and we spend less than that. However, Financial Samurai also generates income.
Would you consider me FIRE, even though all my USD assets are heading towards $0?
Also, what interests you about this site and FIRE? What is your current age and financial situation?
Thanks!
Sam
I’m 38, penny hoarding since I was 16. About 600k saved and invested in 75%ITOT/25%IUSB, married 2 kids, no debt, no house, an old car falling apart, living miserably with 80k/yr (saving 50%) household income trying to reach fire at 45. I can get there..it’s just I’m not sure I want to do this anymore…it’s been to great of a pain..I’m depressed, tried suicide twice now..family hates me…and seeing posts like this, that one from GCC and his fancy club membership, and some others in the community just make me much more miserable for some reason. sorry for taking you for a shrink
Do you also suffer from penis envy?
Get real. You’re apparently doing it all wrong. I don’t think the money is the issue. You’re just a miserable person who’s just jealous of others. Doing FIRE is about meeting your own goals, not that of others.
And get some help for yourself for your mental health issues. You can thank me later.
I’ll Thank you now Dave. You must feel great giving me this advice.
I love the affectionate and helping spirit of the FIRE community. Way to go ! I can feel the love !
You’re mistaken. I don’t require your thanks. I’m indifferent to your attention seeking. Just calling out your bullshit for what it is.
Best of luck. $600K is a nice chunk of change. Be proud!
It feels like comparison is taking away your feeling of accomplishment. That may be one of the problems with net worth and performance reveals. It’s the main reason why I haven’t shared net worth updates since 2012.
Also, think about your kids! I think they will miss you if you were gone. Don’t ned to grind so had.
If the direction is correct, sooner or later you will get there.
Sam
Thank you Samurai. That was actually helpful. It might be just the Covid depression hitting harder and harder but you’re right, I just can’t compare my net worth to others. Actually, net worth is not the problem, what really makes me doubt myself is the side income these FIREEs have (this post for instance). It definitely does not motivates anyone to FIRE without plans to keep working (which is not FIRE to me). tks
Hi Ralph, definitely do not compare yourself to successful FIRE Bloggers, they are the type of people that are extreme over achievers, hustlers, etc who would keep making side income and big job income regardless if they retired early or not. Just keep in mind that there are plenty of folks out there that FIRE and don’t make side income, but also have no desire to write or talk about it, and thus you won’t be seeing blogs, videos and coverage of them. The podcast “Afford Anything” often talks about that aspect of the quiet-FIRE folks. Additionally don’t make yourself or your family miserable trying to scrimp and save every dime, if you buy that nicer car, or vacation a bit, or spend a couple thousand on hobbies, but it keeps you happier the next 7 years, sure you may work an extra 6mo, but 7.5 happy years is better then 7 miserable ones.
RALPH: Typical hater hating.
Martius, no I’m not. I want to be convinced. I’ve been in the FIRE movement for years now. I’ve always embraced it but I started to realize that most of the people I follow earn more income with their blogs and hustles than I’ll even be able to earn with my job. They preach one thing but have the safety net of their side income that keep growing and growing while me….I don’t have any special skills I can market nor have interest in doing anything when I FIRE. That’s all, no hate, just this incredulity that hit me.
To answer Samurai above, I’m 38, penny hoarding since I was 16. About 600k saved and invested in 75%ITOT/25%IUSB, married 2 kids, no debt, no house, an old car falling apart, living miserably with 80k/yr household income trying to reach fire at 45.
I am sorry that you are so depressed. Depression is a very serious illness that requires ongoing help. It’s no wonder you are feeling disappointed in your pursuit of FIRE. When you are depressed you see the world and everything in it from a different vantage point. Please take care of this first. Suicide is a horrible and real danger for depressed people. Please reach out to your friends family and mental health professionals. Don’t give up, you can find happiness. I wish you the very best.
I think it is impressive you have a $600K net worth with an $80K/year household income.
I was JUST updating one of my posts on what someone’s net worth should be at 35. And I think the answer is 2X household income or 4X annual expenses.
So for you to be at 7.5X annual income is super great!
You say you are demoralised because all the people in the FIRE community who have blogs, are making money from their blogs. Have you tried looking at the people who don’t have blogs?
Check the MMM forums, there are a stack of people who have fired and not earned additional money after retirement.
I’m planning on FIRE in 2-3 years at age 47ish, and expect to never earn any significant money from work again.
I also expect to have no issues with the 4% rule, but if things go to shit so what? Maybe it turns into Barista FI, but at least i’ll still be richer and more free than if i never did it.
Get a grip mate, youre doing great at 38 with 600K. Way more money than i had at that age, and i wish i was 38 again too. Stop focusing on how far from FIRE you are and just live life until you get it. Ease off a bit.
And get some therapy or medication for the depression.
Ralph,
The MadFientist discussed the same issue with depression on his way to and after achieving FIRE. He was OBSESSED with saving money. Took the joy out of life. He was a miserable wreck. I highly recommend checking out his website. Great financial therapy. Always remember that money is a tool to enhance happiness. It is not happiness. Enjoy your family and friends, man. I recommend setting your savings/investments on autopilot and spend the discretionary loot on whatever you want. Works for me. On my road to FI, I went to concerts, rode my motorcycle, traveled, dined with friends, etc. I did what I loved and STILL achieved FI and I didn’t have a huge salary either. It can be done. FIRE is real and millions of people have achieved it. At least reach FI and continue working if you choose. Financial freedom is a beautiful thing so enjoy the journey. Spend some money. Don’t let saving it ruin you.
Not so. We retired in Jan ’08 with $1.51M. By the end of Feb ’09 we were down to $864K due to the financial crisis. By the end of that summer we were back over a million. And by the end of May ’14 we were back to $1.51M. As of today, 21 Jan 21, we are over $2M. And that’s while spending $1.25M in living expenses over that entire time period. And we did almost ALL that with passive index funds from Vanguard. So, no, you are NOT screwed if you don’t earn a “dime” of income in retirement. 8^)
I love you guys! I thought the Quit book was great and recommend to all my friends. I am retiring early in 3 weeks and am super excited. Your Quit book, and the Fire concept that brought it to me, was very inspirational and helped me realize I can do this 🤯 The conversational style of the book made it very readable and coming from tech I completely agree that the jargon is boring as hell!!!
Hope you both have a great 2021
Thanks, Fiona! Really appreciate you recommending our book to all your friends! If you enjoyed it, would you mind leaving us an Amazon review? That would help more people discover it online. Thanks again!
Congratulations on your success as a writer. Your website and book are just the kind of clear financial advice that is uncommon these days. Thank you for your efforts and motivation to start/keep investing. All the best in 2021 – Looking forward to your travels once you are able to.
Thanks! yeah, no idea when travel can resume. But hey, at least there’s a vaccine coming and things are looking up!
I like your articles. They are easy to read, factual, blunt, to-the-point, and dare I say, like code !!! Keep up the good work. Your articles have been key to me choosing to enjoy my FIRE future after I got ‘fired’ recently. I chose to enjoy my FIRE status, instead of looking for yet another tech job. The politics is too much these days.
Wow, congrats on FIRE-ring. I hear you on the office politics. Lots of that in tech. There’s so many way better things you can spend your time on.
Way to go guys… fantastic accomplishment. I look forward to receiving your blog in my in box and make sure I set aside all distractions to read with my full attention. You ROCK!
Thanks, Kim! That’s so great to hear 🙂
Just shared your post with another writer. I know he will love it and see the reality of writers.
Thanks
Thanks for sharing, Ela! Hopefully it’s not too harsh. The reality is, as a writer, you won’t know how hard it is to make money until you try it. We thought we were going to be rich like Stephenie Meyer when we first started. Even when literary agents told us “don’t expect to get rich writing”, we didn’t believe them. You have to be in the writing trenches to figure out it.
Excuse me firecraker you are not an “engineer” – do you hold a P.Eng? – guessing not – you wrote a bunch of code so that makes a programmer yes, but that does not make you an engineer – try calling yourself a lawyer and see what shit rains down on you – please retract your use of the label “engineer” as you are not one. The profession has standards that are to be met – starting with having at least a B.A.Sc degree – what’s yours?
Surely being an engineer starts with learning how to drive a train?
Hi! I am an Ontario PEng and I have many degrees, but none of them is an engineering degree.
PEO might get bent out of shape about the use of the word “engineering” here but I’ve seen my engineering students use “engineering” in this context all the time, as do Americans.
Love you too, gcai! Thanks for sticking around all these years and giving me all this extra ad income 😛
Congrats on keeping that income coming from the book. For how many years do you think you will keep getting substantial income from your book? Would it be 100% passive or would you have to edit the book with updated/new content to keep having people buying it? And last but not least (since we love numbers), do you know how much of that income (at least what %) is from the blog vs from the book?
No idea. That’s why you can’t rely on it. It’s all just bonus. And sure, we may need to update it down the road, but that work is negligible, compared to actually writing the book. In terms of % book versus blog, it varies from year to year. Ranges could go from 50 /50 to 60/40 to 30/70. Since ad revenue and book sales fluctuate, it changes month to month, especially during the pandemic.
I’d like to pursue a passion project in retirement, but I’m not sure what! Art is my passion, but the type of art I like is generally large, which isn’t compatible with nomadism, and in any case I’m more of a fan/commentator than a maker. Perhaps an art blog? I write about art regularly on my IG and a fair few people seem to like it, but coming up with more than one art post a week will probably require me to spend lots of time in expensive parts of the world (not because there’s no art in cheaper parts, but because I wouldn’t know where to find it), which my budget won’t allow. Perhaps an FI and nomadic living blog, with an art section within the travel section? Oh well, I have plenty of time to decide, retirement is still four years away, six if I decide to work part time and go to (cheap) art school part time for my final couple of years before retirement!
Yup, you’ve got lots of time and options. If you want to try an art blog, see if you can come up with 100 blog post topics. That will help you decide if you can sustain the blog long enough without running out of topics or enthusiasm.
Way to go and thanks for the income updates. But what is it with the negativity of some of your readers lately? Love the blog, loved the book and thanks for showing those that are interested that there are many different ways to live your best life.
Ha ha, don’t worry about them. We should thank them for all the ad revenue they keep generating for us, coming back to fight time and time again 😉
Thank you for the kind words on our blog and book! Definitely many ways to live. Conventional doesn’t mean best 🙂
woohoo, congratulation on being successful professional writers like we know you are.
Alas, you are right. I’ll continue with the day job before I can FIRE and become a professional artist.
Thanks, Zoe! You are already a great artist/designer. And a sought-after one too! Congrats on finding a job during the pandemic. That’s an amazing feat and you should be super proud of yourself.
“Flip your boss off and play his head like a bongo drum….” This was the best bit of writing I’ve read in a looong time and i use it as a motivational tool. Thank you for this.
Thanks. Inspired by the Simpsons 🙂 Have you seen this episode before? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3dWAH2dznI
Congratulations, sooooohappy for u both, I live in Australia and turned 60 last year, your book was the first book on finance,share etc that I understood as well as laughed a lot. Over here we have a fella called Scott Pape, who is young and wrote a book called “ The Barefoot Investor” , he is abit of a legend over here and there are Facebook groups dedicated to his advice- I always tell all the folks to buy your book, cos like Scott everyone can actually understand it- so I hope the Aussie readers are purchasing your fabulous book cos it’s a stand out and a lot of us folk are not financially savvy , so just want to say thanks and good on you- by the way I love the blog so entertaining,lots of love from over here ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Aww, Thanks, Margie! We ALMOST made it to Australia. We were only 2.5 hours away in Bali before we had to be pulled back to Canada. *sigh*. So close!
I love Scott Pape. His Barefoot investor book is amazing. Super honoured that you told the FB group about my book.
Hope we can one day make it to Australia! We still have Jetstar credits so we need to go!
Hey, remember Waterloo work term reports? I rewrote the Software Engineering work term report requirements. Target length is now 5 pages. Computer Engineering has been doing something with theirs too, but I’m not so familiar with that.
Incidentally I read this book Overload (Kelly and Moen) about how IT work at this US Fortune 500 company was terrible. Reminded me of some of the things you’ve wrote. Would sure be a good reason to FIRE.
Oh yeah! Now that you’ve reminded me. They were the WORST! Must be 30 pages. C’mon. If you can say in in 10 pages, why say it in 30? Good for you for revising the target length! I really hope they follow in your footsteps for Comp Eng.
I think it’s happened but I’m not on top of that. They may have even innovated beyond what I did.
“…we had an exam question asking us to design a parallel interface and describe it in one paragraph. We were given a list of words like “synchronous, asynchronous, transfer bus, paradigm, algorithm, resistance…”
Ha ha! You just gave me a grad school flashback! I got ahold of a book called “What Smart Students Know” by Adam Robinson. It has a list of Big Words (or whatever the writer called them). The trick is to only write one or two of those Big Words per page. OH! Also: be sure you know what they mean so as to not look like a total knucklehead when your prof reads it. I would keep the book open to that page while I wrote stuff, and my papers tended to get high grades.
I’m confessing this now because I’m sure the Statute of Limitations has run out! I got a lot of mileage out of that book, I’m telling you. One day–also during grad school–I read something in a folder in my apartment and I thought to myself “Who on EARTH wrote this boring crap?” I turned to the first page to see the author’s name and it was one of MY papers! Oh well, I graduated!
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!
Dan V
Taipei, Taiwan (no extradition treaty with US universities!)
“Who on EARTH wrote this boring crap?” I turned to the first page to see the author’s name and it was one of MY papers! Oh well, I graduated!”
Bwahahaha. It’s ok, Dan. We still love you 🙂
Hey, please don’t tell my profs! Ha ha ha!
Dan V
Taipei, Taiwan
Wow tough crowd out there. Thanks for this article and congrats on your success!
Thanks! And don’t worry about the tough crowd. All they’re doing is showing up and giving me ad income 🙂
If you’re talking about me, sorry FC. I really like your blog and I don’t mind giving you more revenue (you’re getting plenty I can see). I’ve been following your blog for years and really like it. It was just this post that didn’t hit me well.
I apologize if that looked like I was being too harsh. Not my intention, only wanted to show you maybe that this side income of yours makes people like me that are trying too hard to kinda enter in disbelief about the principles spread by our supreme leader Mr. JL Collins.
Congrats to you both and that’s awesome to read that the book earned out the advance! That’s really something to be proud of. You’ve done a great service to your readers 🙂
I appreciate the rest of the general tips for fellow writers, too! Sometimes the little stuff is easy to forget, the occasional reminder is helpful!
Here’s to an even more successful 2021 and hopeful recovery of ad revs!
Hi Firecracker and Wanderer, so sorry to see nay sayers on this site. I find you both inspirational and helpful to many to see how they too can improve their financial situation and look at it from another perspective. Your book was amazing and I did read it within two days, despite my poor eyesight. Keep up the amazing work you are doing. Many people that do not comment appreciate your posts. I am only one.
I wondered if I was FIRE and after spending time with you both learned that I was on the right path. Thanks for that support. Now after a few years in I have never been happier or more free.
Cheers, Barb from Greece and Portugal
nay sayers my ass…these fucking commies man
Congrats on your book success! You two have the superpower combo of great “voice,” great ideas, and entrepreneurial skills, so I’m not surprised.
My partner went the artist route and showed us all by making a great income doing it.
My advice: If someone’s an artist and can put in the hard work to become good, ignore all the haters.
There are thousands of great creative job. Life is short; be brave and choose joy.