The book or Bora Bora?

On Thursday night I went along to an author event at the Queensland Writers Centre where Simon Higgins was talking about how to make a living from being a writer. Simon writes novels for young adults, most recently with an overriding ninja theme - so probably the polar opposite of the type of book I am going to write, unless I make my hero an Iaido expert. I struggle to find the martial arts sexy though, so that is unlikely.

Anyway, Simon has had something like 11 books published, both here and in the United States. And he still has to keep a day job to pay his bills. I almost fell off my chair when he said that he gets $1 for every one of this books that sells. My god, McDonalds are making more profit from a cheeseburger!

This got me to thinking about my break even point of this whole creative exercise. I did a quick calculation of what I think this six month writing stint is going to cost me; I tallied up my lost wages, lost super, no paid annual leave, the amount of my savings I think I am going to burn through, and a bottle of wine/vodka per day (to get the creative juices flowing) and I came up with something around the $110,000 mark. (Cut to image of Kathryn lying on the beach in Bora Bora for 6 months, which would probably be cheaper).

Now maths has never been my strong point - those of you who were in High School with me may fondly remember my ever-patient maths tutor Rob L'Estrange, who once walked out on me after five minutes due to pure frustration. But even I can work out that at $1 per book, to break even I not only have to somehow get published but I need to sell a copy of my book to practically the entire population of Townsville.

I recently read that Peter Andre's lovely ex-wife Katie Price (AKA Jordan) was on top of the best sellers list in the UK with her latest book Paradise, written by a ghost writer. To be on the best sellers list, she sold 10,000 copies of her book in one week.  So all I really need to do is somehow get myself on the UK best sellers list for, oh, about five years in order to make enough money to never have to work again. I will really need to step up the shameless self marketing - maybe I will take some tips from Katie. The bikini is already on order.

The fact that 10,000 people bought the ghost written book of a former topless model in one week is a blog entry entirely on its own.

The QWC event was not totally a wrist slitting exercise though - I actually exchanged emails with a couple of fellow writers and there was talk of a coffee catch up - so perhaps I will be sipping Lattes and talking punctuation and all things creative before I know it.