[Evenjos]

I have a 6 book contract with Podium, my debut was in the top 100 books of 2023 by Kirkus, and I am nowhere near quitting my day job.

I've paid attention to the publishing industry for years. Like all of the arts, it's oversaturated and there's a lot of churn.

IMO, writers who earn a full-time living as authors fall into three basic categories. They either a) established themselves as blockbuster bestsellers with the Big Five before Amazon democratized the marketplace, circa 2010 and earlier, b) they established themselves as blockbuster bestsellers as early adopters of the Amazon Kindle marketplace, circa 2011 to 2016, or c) they own an advertising agency, are married to someone who owns an advertising agency, they are slick marketing gurus, or they are major social media influencers.

There are exceptions. I see interesting innovations in the web serial space, where I play around. I sell advance chapters on Patreon. Some authors do earn a full-time living that way.

But in general, yes, it is very tough to be a professional author or an artist or a musician or an indie game developer these days. Everyone wants to be one.

I also see cynical authors and artists using AI to 100x their content production so they can nickel and dime their way into top seller spots. The algorithms boost anyone whose works consistently sell and bury everyone else.