OVer at the Whatever, Senor BaconCat has two long posts on the glamorous life of a successful SF writer: one breaking down his income from SF writing in detail, and the other talking about why he’s talking about money. The comment threads are also lively and interesting in their own right. It’s particularly funny to see the number of people who are shocked at how low the income is– $67,000 is a pretty respectable salary in the world of people who don’t play around on the Internet all that often, and it’s probably in the ninety-somethingth percentile for fiction writers.
Of course, I’m amused by that in large part because it turns out that John’s fiction-writing income is comparable to what I make as a small-time academic. My income is fairly typical for a physics Ph.D. in an academic position, and I’m faintly amused to find that that works out to be similar to “prize-winning SF author,” on the income scale.
I’m being vague about my actual salary not because of the American taboo against talking about money (I share John’s sentiment that this is pretty silly), but because I’m not actually sure what my income was last year. I know in very rough terms, but Kate keeps the books in Chateau Steelypips (we’re both happier that way), so I don’t know the exact numbers.