Will I Quit My Day Job?

As the school year winds down, many people have asked me, “Once your book comes out and you’re a big fancy author, are you going to leave the classroom?” So here’s my answer.

I don’t know.

The publishing world is full of unknowns. Something like 90% of authors never even publish a third book. I’m lucky to have a two-book deal, so I am guaranteed a second, but nothin guarantees me a third. Even if I write and come up with a third, the advance I get will largely be based on the sales of my first book.

By and large, those sales are out of my control.

There are over 300 writers in a group chat on Slack who all have their debut novels releasing in 2024. Many conversations circle the idea of sales, building social media platforms, conducting preorder campaigns, and basically doing whatever can be done to control those sales numbers.

The truth is, the marketing dollars put in by the publisher (and perhaps a random viral TikTok) influence sales most. However, even they can’t control the sales, or of course they’d make millions off of every book they publish, right?

While many writers find this loss of control maddening, I find it freeing. Marketing isn’t my job. Writing is.

And so is teaching.

For a lot of authors, being able to write full time is the ultimate goal. They could devote more time to their books and leave a day job they hate. The problem is I don’t hate my day job. I actually kind of love it.

Now, I don’t love the hours of grading I put in every night and weekend, but for the most part, I love working with students. I love reading their thoughts and I’m inspired by their creativity. So far, balancing writing and teaching has not been a burden.

Additionally, one of the biggest struggles with working as an author is unstable payment. Right now, if I meet my deadlines and if my publisher meets its deadlines, I will be paid two times in 2023 and 2024 and once in 2025. (I was also paid once in 2022.) I have some foreign deals that give some income, but their payments seem mostly unpredictable and considerably smaller.

And royalties? Well, most writers never see any. If they do, they will likely be paid twice a year as well, and there’s no way to predict how much each check will be. In contrast, I know exactly how much my school is paying me every two weeks.

Finally, writing full time means investing more of myself in writing. Right now it’s easy to separate myself from my success as a writer. But if that was my main source of income, I believe I would have more difficulty finding freedom in the loss of control over sales. While some might find balancing being a wife, mother, teacher, and writer all at once, I like being able to take comfort in finding success in one area even if another is struggling.

So as of right now, no, my plan is not to leave my day job.

That being said, I understand that I am not living the full “author life” right now. I am mostly unknown outside of my one editor at my big publisher (not even her team knows more than my name yet!) and this past school year I only had to focus on revising one book. Next year, I will be gearing up to launch that first book (getting blurbs, promoting pre-sales, doing other things I don’t even know about yet) and revising my second book (assuming I finish drafting it this summer—insert nervous laughter here).

And then in the 2024-25 school year, I will be promoting the book that’s published, gearing up book 2 for launch, and possibly, hopefully, writing book 3 at the same time.

Will I be able to handle all of that while still grading an extra 10-12 hours a week outside of school? I have no idea!

But I also wasn’t sure how this year would go, and it was delightful.

I plan to go where I am led. I know I was led into my high school classroom, and I know I was led to my husband and to be a mother. So far, I was led to having this book deal on top of that.

I’m willing to go where I’m meant to be.