So you want to be a writer?

Are you ready to chuck your staid career to embark on a life as a novelist? Ready to switch your major from accounting to creative writing? Vanessa Barbara, writing in the Times, suggests that you understand what you're getting into:

Let me give you some personal numbers. I wrote a book in 2008 that won a literary prize and recently sold its 3,000th copy. The book retails for around $15, the author’s royalty rate is 5 percent, so I earned $0.75 from each copy. So for the book that took me one year to write and four more years to sell, I earned a total of around $2,250 (and a bout of depression). I’d have done better donating my body to science.

Although she is specifically describing her experience as a writer in Brazil, I can attest that circumstances are not much better for writers in America, so know what you're getting into if you'd like to be a writer!