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How To Be Readable.
Either you’re someone people want to read, or you’re not. Being a “stats fan” isn’t going to help.
“No decent career was ever founded on a public.” F. Scott Fitzgerald
There was a time when F. Scott Fitzgerald didn’t earn enough to keep Zelda in mint juleps, earning only $879 from his short stories in 1919.
Back then, if that’s all you earned, you didn’t have to file a tax return. Same goes for today. I don’t have to file one, either, according to my accountant.
Zelda probably spent $879 the first week. Fortunately—or maybe by necessity— F. Scott turned around and earned $17,687 the next year, placing the couple in the top two percent tax bracket.
You might say 1920 was a banner year for the Fitzgeralds. F. Scott sold 11 short stories to magazines for $3,975, four short stories to the movies for $7,425 and $6,200 in royalties for This Side of Paradise.
From then on, including his time in Hollywood, Scott averaged $24,000 a year (which my accountant says is still more than me).
If you mentioned market penetration, you’d probably be slapped silly by Gertrude Stein and followed home by Anais Nin.
