Living Off the Backlist
What does ‘retirement’ look like for an author?
I’ve worked in publishing for thirty-three years: the first five of them in-house as an editor, working on other people’s books; the subsequent twenty-eight as a freelancer, mostly writing my own.
This is probably a good point to mention that my name isn’t Steve Fendt, so don’t go off to Amazon expecting to find heaps of books by him. If there are any, they won’t be by me.
Will I notice?
A few years ago when I mused about retirement, a friend very unkindly asked: ‘How would you notice?’
Well, he had a point.
The first few years of freelance life were an unremitting quest for the next big project, accompanied by assurances that ‘Yes, I can do that.’
(Could I do that? Only one way to find out.)
The two middle decades were ones of pleasant industry: hard, rewarding work and plenty of time for play.
The last five years have been mostly ones of leisure, with a couple of bouts of intense labour and mild panic annually. Three months is generally enough to pop out another coursebook. I need the panic to kickstart my enthusiasm these days.
