I'm a writer (not a novelist, yet) and from what I've learned from the people I've talked to is simple. #1 is that they write out of a passion (myself included)

I'm a writer (not a novelist, yet) and from what I've learned from the people I've talked to is simple. #1 is that they write out of a passion (myself included) and that they'll do it regardless of money, so the complaints about the grossly low pay becomes somewhat dubious when many writers still work day jobs for the majority of their career. One of my extended family was a semi-pro golfer, he had notorious low pay from it (even professionals doing the full circuit don't get amazing pay, it's the endorsements that pay well), but he works in banking so his day job pays a lot so he gets to do what he loves (golf) a lot. #2 is that the genre you choose can seriously affect how much you get paid. Vampire-Romance is 99% of the time YA, which is predominantly read by young-female readers, many of whom may be transients in the market. This might be your ideal literary area, however this isn't a mountain of gold waiting for people with pickaxes to come claim it, this is a stream with a dozen people with sifters already there. I'm working on a Fantasy series, which if I'm lucky on a NYT best seller list might pull me in above $25,000 due to its target market being well established and adult readers (IE people who'll buy hardback). However, I'm a realist and I quickly realised that Mystery novels have the biggest literary market and pay their authors the most of any. Writing a pulp mystery novel could likely bring in $25,000 for a single book (likely very few royalties, but that's beside the point here), hitting a best seller list for mystery (especially a multi-book deal) would easily bring in the big cash and could work as your day job. The authors own efforts also contribute, many authors believe that their only job is putting pen to paper (or finger to keyboard), which is well within their rights. However many authors do vast marketing and meet-and-greets, signings and such to help boost word of mouth of themselves, not their books. A good example here is John Scalzi, who is constantly in contact with his fans and does extensive convention runs. This kind of self-marketing is how many webcomics became profitable and allowed their artists to become full time at it relying solely on advertisements. Edit: Note on the genre front. Many NYT Best Sellers hit the front page on Hard Cover (where the author makes a greater percentage of royalties, but also the book sells for 2/3 times the paperback price), especially mystery novels. However YA never hits the list in hard cover, many are rarely ever released in hard cover. Not selling hard cover books well will easily 1/2 or 1/3 your pay and typically the older reader spends more on their books and will buy hard cover.