What’s the Difference Between…?

I do love a good joke. The clean set-up, the surprise twist of the punch line. Here’s my favorite of the last week, amended from a delivery by Ray Romano:

This guy’s always being harangued by his wife for not doing any housework and not paying attention. She says, “the next time you ask me where something is and you should already know, I’m not gonna talk to you for a week.”

So he’s doing the dishes, and goes to the drawer for a dishtowel, and they aren’t there. He panics, looks in the other drawers. No towels. Finally, he screws up his courage and asks his wife, “Honey, I looked in the dishtowel drawer and didn’t find any. Do you know where they are?” She says, “Oh, I just did the wash. They’re in the dryer.”

Dodged a bullet there, the guy thinks. I better not ask her where the dryer is.

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But today’s joke is only partly a joke. What’s the difference between a writer and a large pizza? A large pizza can feed a family of four.

Every few months, I’m reminded of that when I get my royalty statement. Over the course of the last year, my two books—one from 2016 and one from 2019—have sold a total of 87 copies. In a week or so, I’ll get a check for $181.02. That’s what being a writer made me last year: about fifty cents a day.

Really, though, that’s like a lot of professions. Raising strawberries, for instance, or running a restaurant. Doesn’t matter how good it was, it’s now over and you’ve got to do some more.

Hardly any writers make a living writing. They make a living teaching writing. They make a living doing writing-adjacent work like grant proposals, airline magazine profiles, content for the local weekly shopper. It’s all about the daily practice, not the imagined heroic life of press tours and best-seller lists. According to long-time literary agent Miriam Altschuler, about seventy percent of all literary fiction sells two thousand copies or fewer. At two bucks royalty apiece, that’s four thousand dollars for your year’s work, or five years’ work, or a life’s work. We can talk all we want about Donna Tartt and Nicholas Sparks and the other ATM writers who spew out fortunes on demand, but the daily reality for most of us will be something significantly different.

All we can do is the work.

But I’ve got some good news, too, coming tomorrow.