Don't Give Up the Day Job

by Anna Jones Buttimore
www.annajonesbuttimore.com

Every September for the last couple of decades or so, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs has sent me a tax return. The income from my day job is taxed at source under the Pay As You Earn system, so the tax return is simply for me to declare any additional earnings. Read: book royalties.

Last year I filled in and sent off my tax return, and got an official envelope from HMRC a couple of weeks later. A cheque. £33. A refund, no less. I'd paid too much tax on my day job because they'd been taking royalties into account and I hadn't in fact earned enough in royalties to offset what I'd paid in tax.

A day or two later I got a letter saying that HMRC were no longer going to require me to fill in tax returns. It said, "We know you're never going to make enough money from writing to make it worth our while to chase you for tax." Well, it didn't, but that was the gist.

"I'll have you know my next novel is going to be a massive bestseller!" I protested. Actually I didn't, I just felt quite pleased I didn't have to bother with doing tax returns each year any more.

But I might have felt a little sad that the Inland Revenue had no faith in my writing ability.

Having said that, does anyone (apart from JK Rowling) make good tax-liable money from writing? Is it, in fact, possible to make enough to live on just from writing books? Probably not, it seems. The Society of Authors estimates that the average professional (full-time, agented and traditionally published) author makes around £12,330 ($20,000) per annum. Half of all self-published authors make less than £300 ($450) per book, and among the other half the average is just £6,375 ($10,000). That's well below the income tax threshold of £8,105 ($13,000). 

We write for love, not for money. Meanwhile I'm keeping the day job, and rejoicing in my little tax-free sideline writing novels.