2021年 12月 の投稿一覧

What is the difference between being a full-time novelist and being a part-time novelist?

I think this is another thing that aspiring novelists are interested in.

Various novelists have said various things, and the atmosphere is quite different depending on their positions.

However, they all have one thing in common: they all say that only a few can become full-time authors.

When a working person becomes a professional after winning a newcomer’s award, he or she is naturally working at the same time.

At that time, the editor of the publishing company tells the writer, “Don’t quit your job.”

Since various writers have said this, it seems that this is almost a certainty.

One example of failure is when a writer says, “I’ve won the New Writer’s Award! I’m going to make a living by writing novels!”
His novel doesn’t sell, his savings are depleted, and he can’t go back to his original company and struggles to find another job.

Editors know many such episodes, so they say, “Don’t quit your job. Write novels as a second job.”

However, not all novelists stay in a dual occupation forever, and at some point they become full-time authors.

What is the timing of those authors who became full-time authors?

As far as I could find out, it seems to vary considerably from person to person.

  • A novelist resigns when his income as a novelist exceeds the income from his main job.
  • A novelist was working part-time and being a novelist at the same time. The restaurant where he worked part-time closed, so he became a full-time novelist.
  • Retire from your main job when you have saved enough money to eat for a few years.

Since each writer’s living situation is different, there seems to be no guideline as to how much annual income is required to become a full-time writer.
It is said that there are some people who have become full-time writers even with a very low income.

As you can see, the situation differs from writer to writer, but in order to become a full-time writer, you need to sell a certain amount of books.

For this reason, it is said that it is extremely difficult to become a full-time writer of pure literature.

Since the number of copies of pure literature works tends to be small, it would be quite difficult to make a full-time career out of pure literature royalties.

With exceptions such as Haruki Murakami, most authors of pure literature seem to have dual careers.

To become a novelist, is it better to “apply for a rookie award” or “submit to a website”?

I think this is one of the top ten questions that aspiring novelists want to know.

There is quite a bit of irresponsible stuff on Yahoo Chiebukuro. It wasn’t a very helpful answer.

After watching many Youtube videos from various sites and professional authors, I can answer this question.

1,Where can you get the top?

First of all, it is important to ask yourself where the work you are writing or want to write will reach its peak.

Whether you want to win a rookie award or be picked up by a submission site, in both cases, you have to find the “top” of the field.

This fact, when you think about it seriously, is painful. But it’s reality, and there’s nothing we can do about it.

If it’s a newcomer’s award, you have to be the first or the second highest rated work by the judges out of hundreds of submissions (or 5,000 works if it’s a light novel of Japan).

If it’s a submission site, you either have to get the top ranking instantly, or you have to keep gaining popularity over a long period of time and accumulate enough evaluation points to surpass other authors.

In other words, in either case, if you don’t have the momentum to get to the top or come close to it, you won’t be able to become a professional in the first place.

If your work is obviously going to be popular on ” Shosetsuka ni Narou “, then you have to aim for the top ranking on Shosetsuka ni Narou.

If the work you are writing is apparently not popular among web readers, you should aim to win a newcomer’s award.

At the time of writing this article, the Agatha Christie Award winner, Fuyuma Osaka’s “Comrade Girl, Shoot the Enemy” has become a hot topic with its huge sales.
(This original article is in Japanese, so this is a Japanese event.)

He originally serialized the work on Kakuyom and submitted it to the Agatha Christie Award and won.

You say, “I see. That’s amazing.”

No, you’re missing the important thing.
What’s important is the fact that when this author was serializing on Kakuyom, he did not make a debut as a pick-up artist (although he caught the reviewer’s eye), but he applied for and won the Rookie of the Year Award.

In other words, even if your work won the Rookie of the Year award and became a big hit, it was not even picked up by the submission sites.

So, think about whether your work can reach the top of the heap at the submission site or the Rookie of the Year Award!

2, Do you want to make your debut as soon as possible, even if it’s short, or do you want to be active for a long time, even if it’s late?

If your work is picked up by a submission site such as “Shosetsuka ni Narou” (Let’s Become Novelists), it will be published in book form in a shorter period of time compared to a New Author Award debut.

In the case of the New Author Award, it takes six months or longer to get your work selected. From there, the manuscript is reworked according to the editor’s instructions, so it takes a year or more from the time you submit your work until it is published.

When you hear this story, you may think, “How can I be bothered with all that? I’ll just have it picked up by a submission site!”
However, the disadvantage of submission sites is that you become a disposable writer.

In the case of submission sites, the initial investment is small because publishers simply look for works that are likely to sell and convert them into paper books.So, if a publisher feels that a book is not selling well, they will not publish it again. When authors try to publish the next one, the response is often, “Please publish it on the novel submission site again and call me when it gets the top ranking.”

In the case of the Newcomer’s Award, a lot of money is involved in the running costs of the Newcomer’s Award, prize money, and other expenses. (In some cases, more than 10 million yen), so publishers start with a lot of money invested in the work, and they try to make a profit from the author. Even if the book doesn’t sell very well, the publisher will say, “No, he’s a newcomer that we invested a lot of money to discover. I have to get my money’s worth!” And they will release the next one. (Of course, there are limits.)

For this reason, it seems to be a common belief among professional writers that if you want to be active for a long time, you need to win the New Writer Award.

That’s all the information I’ve gathered from the videos and books of professional writers.