Your little dose of reality, folks, from the people who know.
You’re not going to get rich as a writer. You’re not even going to get the $150,000 advance this heartbroken author got and spent on living expenses so many years ago.
You’re probably not going to make much of anything.
Write because you love it. Because you love this work.
I always like to counter these kind of “beware all ye who enter” posts with my favorite quote from Futurama:
You can’t give up hope just because it’s hopeless! You have to hope even more, and cover your ears and go, ‘blahblahblahblahblahblahblah!’
-Philip J. Fry