Interview #206: How Simon K Jones Makes Money Writing

Simon K Jones is a writer based in Norwich, England, who has spent the last decade mastering the slow build of a serialized fiction career. He once racked up over 179,000 reads on a single novel, only to realize he was “borrowing” an audience he didn’t actually own. Today, he serializes science fiction and fantasy via his Substack newsletter, Tales from the Triverse, while working a day job at Creative PEC.

In this interview, Simon discusses why he left the algorithm days behind, how his newsletter organically grew to pay his grocery bills, and why he believes the age of super-scaled platforms is over. If you want to know how to build a sustainable writing life without losing sight of why you started writing in the first place, this one’s for you.

• What you do: Write serial fiction and help others do the same.

• Years writing professionally: 5.

• Earnings range: ~$4k per year.

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I never expected writing to bring in anything financially. In a previous job I worked with a lot of fiction authors and the main observation was that nobody was making any money. There’s a handful of superstars on their yachts, while everyone else is scrabbling in the dirt and trying to get by.

Writing was something I did because I love doing it, and it’s a core part of who I am. The big surprise with the newsletter is that it’s organically grown into something that is financially significant. Not enough to make a living or quit the day job, but it absolutely helps to pay the grocery bills. That has changed the equation somewhat, and makes me wonder how far I can take it.