Becoming a full time author - story time
Hello babe,
My name is Vivian Mae, and I’m a spicy contemporary romance Latina author who writes dramatic, sexy, and empowering romance with hot men who fall first.
I quit my corporate job over 3 months ago.
No, it wasn’t as simple as I woke up and decided to quit, almost that kind of happened.
I’ve been a romance author since 2021…
I began writing my first novel in 2020, published my first romance novel, Burning Little Secrets, in 2021 and it took off with TikTok’s algorithm. It was really cool to see her fly, until I started getting hit for my spicy scenes in videos. It was annoying.
Anyway, fast forward 2024, and I had this dream about 2026 being MY year. By 2024 I had 4-5 published books.
I Began working on books 3-5 of my slow burn, angsty love triangle series in 2023 (first published in 2022, Lawsuit and Leather)—she’s my favorite series, honestly.
I’m a sucker for love triangles, especially well made dramatic ones, so of course I set out to do my own. And when I tell you I’ve turned A LOT OF love triangle haters into lovers, I HAVE. I DID THAT 😈
Anyways… I’m always moving on through too many pieces of storyline, 🐻 with me.
2025 was a huge year for me. It was the year I really put myself out there. I started doing in person events very frequently, and I began gaining more of an audience. I didn’t realize there were more ways than 1 to earn income as an author. I was stuck in this thought process of digital was the only way, and it was flopping hard for me. I’m glad I began doing in person events. I see my business so much more differently now, it’s so much fun, and socializing… YES it’s one of my favorite things to do!
My husband and I made a plan, in 2026 I would quit my job to give my author career a real shot.
Come January 2026 at my corporate job and they were laying people off left and right (the money they saved went to the CEO. No, I’m not kidding). I didn’t get laid off, but man I kept crossing my fingers and toes, because I wanted an excuse to be let go of, so I can start my dream NOW.
By the end of January, after being drained from that awful job for 10 years (okay, it was fun the first few years, because they cared about their employees, then Covid hit, and shit got bad on that end) I finally quit.
Why did I quit earlier than I anticipated?
For starters, Ai was being shoved down our throats. I happily told my manager I refused to use Ai to write an email. I already know how to do that. So I didn’t use any of their tools, instead I tried to educate people during team meetings about what Ai was doing—except my fem rage is too much, so it didn’t come out so great. It just came out angry and upset.
One morning, we got emails to do our typical safety drills in the upcoming weeks, for gun safety. I couldn’t stand it anymore. How can we normalize such a ridiculous thing? They didn’t allow us to work remotely full time, yet I was safer at home than I was in the office. And with 🧊 in Minnesota and hitting Phoenix, I didn’t feel safe leaving my house at all.
Therefore, I took the plunge and quit earlier than I needed to.
Do I make the same salary as I did? Hell no. I went from 61k (which is truly low for any worker in today’s day) down to making a few hundred a month—if the algo picks up any of my videos.
And I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Luckily, my husband is able to pay our bills, and while we’re scraping by each paycheck, damn… I’ve never been happier
I’ve been able to write more (I’m set to publish 4 books in under a year), I opened my formatting services and premade cover shop, and I was able to start a co-author project with my bestie!
I’m literally free from the shackles life put on me at such an early age.
Now? Life is perfectly simple and nicely slow.
Don’t give up on your dreams. If you can make the dive, do it! Because I’d rather work 24/7 for myself than 40+ hours a week for some jack off company that only care about pinching its employees for every last cent.
I’ve gotten a lot of messages about this since I quit.
The most frequently asked question is… how was I able to do it? I let them know I’m not making my salary, not even close. I’m also childfree, married with a husband who takes care of me now (I’m a spoiled princess for the first time in my life), and both of our old cars have been paid off for years.
We live very low maintenance lives, so when we did the math at the beginning of the year, it was do-able for us.
Sure, I can’t splurge on stuff like I used to, but that’s a-okay with me.
Now it makes my birthdays and Christmases more meaningful than before! I actually look forward to them!
Want to feed an indie author for less than your local coffee drink? Check out my upcoming books and preorder!
Stay safe out there my babes❤️
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