Yes, I write full time. I’ve talked about this quite a few times, but I know that there are a lot of people who are probably seeing my profile for the very first time, and they won’t be familiar with all of the times I’ve talked about the way that I set up last year in order to get my publishing business off the ground.
And that was that I spent all of 2022 saving everything I made as a photographer and artist, just putting all of that money away in order to invest it in becoming a full time author starting last year in 2023. I also did that with the agreement that I made with my husband. He supported that. He believes that I’m capable of this and that we can look at this, hopefully, fingers crossed, like a retirement plan, like we’re trying our best to help me get set up so that I can take over the bills and he can relax a little bit after years and years of working so hard. So I spent all of 2022 doing photo shoots, doing illustrations, book covers, everything, just saving up all of the money that I could get so that I did not have to worry about trying to work doing anything other than writing and marketing books in 2023. And given that 2023 was the first year that I was learning and building my author platform seriously. And just all of those things, I did pretty well.
This year. I am already set to kind of blow last year out of the water. I think if we look at the royalties estimator from January till now this year, I’ve made $6,000. So that is significantly. I mean, that’s like we’re getting close to what I earned last year just through Amazon alone. That doesn’t count my Areem account, which is where my subscribers are at. That doesn’t count the rest of my wide books. So everywhere from, you know, apple to, you know, Google Play and whatever. And it doesn’t count everything coming through my platform, my shopify store, Tower Room Publishing, where people can go and buy my books and merch and other things directly from me. So just from Amazon alone, that’s where I’m at. And that means I’m absolutely on track to make a profit this year.
And like that would not have been possible at all if I had been working a full time job. That would not have been possible at all. If my kids were still at home. My oldest is in college. My youngest is in 5th grade. So I have a lot of time to be able to like work this like a job. And that makes a huge difference. So having that context is really important.
So thank you for this question. It gives me a chance to talk about it yet again and also just encourage other authors who are in this position. When somebody like me shares their story, the best thing you can do is take what pieces of it actually work and fit into your life. So if your kids are getting ready to go back to school and you’re getting ready to have some more free time that you can really put work into building your author business. Like that is a thing. You can take those things that I have done, wherever I’ve mentioned them and put them to work for you. But if you’re working full time, if you still have kids at home, if you are taking care of maybe an aging parent.
Right now, I have a diabetic pug and she is requiring way more of my attention than I ever expected her to. We have these responsibilities that require our attention and our time and our investment. And so you should not look at anything, not just I, but any other author posts about their author career, their author journey, and assume that all you have to do is the same things they’re doing and then it will work for you the same way. You have to test, you have to take every idea that comes across your desk and test it against your life and your process and what works for you. And if it doesn’t work, get rid of it. And if it does work, integrate it. And even at that point, you can still finesse it so that it works better for you.
If you guys have any other questions about what I am doing with my author career in terms of my process, my workflow, how I do anything, please feel free to ask. I wish that I would have had more people to ask directly about this kind of stuff. That includes money. Like, I have no problem at all sharing any of those numbers to, you know, if people would like to know on the condition that you’re okay with me talking about it publicly. I don’t have time, unfortunately, to answer every message that comes through because I would spending all of my time coaching people and no time like actually writing. So yeah, so I hope that is helpful. Let me know if you have any other questions. Keep writing, y’all. Don’t give up.