Robert J. Sawyer is arguably Canada’s best known Science Fiction author and has achieved significant international recognition as a Hugo Award winner and through the recent debut of his novel FlashForward on television. Given his stature in the field of Science Fiction, his blog entitled “Are the Days of the Full-Time Novelist Numbered?” is of particular interest to all of us who follow Science Fiction and Fantasy literature. Sawyer begins his blog by alluding to an invited lecture he gave to the Canadian Book Summit:
I started by recounting how, a few months ago, I’d had fellow science-fiction writers Robert Charles Wilson and James Alan Gardner over for pizza; at that dinner, I’d told Bob and Jim that I feared there was only a decade left in which anyone could make a comfortable living writing science-fiction novels, and urged them to plan their careers and finances accordingly.
If someone with Robert Sawyer’s achievements makes this observation, then one ought to listen. Are the days of the full-time novelist numbered? What does this mean for novelists who are just starting out (like me)?