I want to talk about money. Impossible not to quote Samuel Johnson’s, “no man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.” Friends, I’ve worked with a lot of blockheads. Then there is the new age-y advice to do what you love and the money will follow. If that’s true, then how come no one ever gets paid for eating in front of the tv? Some writers keep their day job and write at dawn. Others forgo regular employment to support their writing, cobbling together a precarious income with no health benefits . It seems to me that whatever you say about money, you must also say something about time.
I doubt I’m alone in saying that getting paid for my two books was the best money I ever made. I would have laminated that first check and put it over the cash register if I had been the proprietor of a diner.
Writing is awesome. Getting paid for writing is ___________________. (fill in the blank)
Do you write for money? If not, what?
Filed under: Writers |
Betsy Lerner 
Mindblowing.
“going to happen.”
Here’s the deal: sometimes you have to write for free to build your name, to get an audience and to find out if anyone would ever buy your book if one was ever published. Then, because you wrote for free and established yourself, you are able to get an agent who can then sell your work to an editor. Years later? Not writing for free.
Until the economy tanked, I had the luxury of focusing on my writing full-time. But now I’m back to tech writing full-time, so, yes, I get paid to write. But my fiction suffers – I don’t know how people do both – I find it so difficult to switch between the two and create on demand when I have some extra time. But I am up writing in the middle of the night so instead of making the blog rounds, I should be working on my wip. lol!
Unimaginable…
I don’t write for money because I married a sugar daddy. (I told him this and he laughed out loud: he always wanted to be a sugar daddy.)
Getting money for writing is validating in that “they like me, they really like me” kind of way. Because someone can like you enough to say hi, or enough to give you encouragement, but if they like you enough to part with cold hard cash, then for at least that moment, they love you.
‘Necessary.’
I mistrust anyone who writes for free, and I despise anyone who writes for pleasure. At least any aspiring professional. Because that’s the definition: we’re whores, not sluts.
At least that’s how I like to think of myself. But I got an offer to ghostwrite a book for a guy who hit the bottom of the list, and I read his stuff, and it was just shit. Even worse than mine. So I said no. I’m still not sure why–but I suspect Betsy’s right, that the answer involves ‘time’ somehow.
The title of my how-to-be-a-writer book is, ‘First, Paint Yourself Into a Corner.’ I don’t know how anyone sticks with this if they have another option. Fortunately, I’m blessed with the inability to function either professionally or socially, so while the swinging scene suffers, the world of literature benefits from my deathless brilliance.
“We’re whores, not sluts.”
I need a button. A t-shirt. A bumper sticker. They should sell them at AWP.
fan-fucking-tastic.
seriously, i write for the sentence that gives me a thrill. this week the sentence is: A financial flotilla.
Hypothetical (even with a published book).
If it weren’t for the great letters that readers of my first book send me, I would give up writing a second book (it’s a VERY expensive non-paying hobby, so far, time-wise and other-wise). Of course I enjoy the compliments from readers, but the fact that there are about a dozen people out there who have told me that they take my book with them for comfort when they go to chemotherapy makes me feel honored, and that writing is the most worthwhile thing I’ve ever done. Boy, those letters kill me.
I just got a note yesterday from a reader who said she feels bad that she paid so little for my book, which she assumes has been remaindered (I would be the last to know), but I gave up trying to figure out book prices when I saw “used” copies of my book for sale on Amazon for five dollars the day after it was published.
So, so far, no; I don’t write for money.
You get ‘help with chemotherapy’ letters? I get ‘the federal poncho in the Civil War used hooks not buttons, you fucking lackwit.’
I’m clearly in the wrong genre.
Oh, yes, I get those hyper-critical personally insulting letters too, but just from family.
Thanks for the laugh! I needed one today.
It was great getting one big check for my writing, and I was very proud that I actually made some money writing, and I love my teeny royalty checks, but I would have done it for free…sounds naive, but true. I’m not sure why I’m writing, but it isn’t for money.
Do you write for money?
Yes. But that’s because grant writing is hard (as described at the link) and formulaic and no one will do it for free, or nearly so, and consequently there’s a large market for it.
If not, what?
For fun. I like writing about books and ideas, and evidently a lot of other people do as well, and consequently the low cost of distribution on the Internet means there’s almost no (paying) market for it. But I still a) like to and b) often learn something. So I do.
“justification for avoiding family obligations and for smoking (or drinking or eating) to excess.”
littered with speedbumps.
I write to find out what I know. Hoping to hell the whole time that readers give a shit, enough to shower dollars upon me so that once I get to the market, I can afford to buy groceries.
I have done both. Being paid is best.
I have a few stories I need to tell that is the most honest, if not the most cliched answer. That’s why i write.
Tried not writing and guess what? I was hell to live with.
That’s why I write too:) It may be cliched but I think for it’s a real answer. I’m working on getting an agent for the novel I wrote– so someday I’d like to get paid for what I write- but I feel I can’t write for money because I don’t know if i’ll ever get published– the art that I need to write has to be my reason for writing.
I’ve done both, though I have never been paid for my fiction. Filling in the blank on that one is tough, I think it depends on what kind of writing you are doing.
Technical writing? Boring. Copywriting? Rewarding. Getting paid to write fiction? For me that would be a dream come true.
Validating. I’ve been paid to write copy for a nonprofit and for a news website. I quit both jobs because writing is too hard for me to not write what I want. But I also want to get paid. So even though I’d do it for fun (slut), I can’t be a whore. I’d argue that writing for no return is more like masturbation, or exhibitionism—at least give me loyal readers! But most of all, I want to write for love (giving and getting), mutual support, and a long-term relationship with readers: a marriage.
I write to serve an ace. To pass my opponent with a beautiful cross court shot. To hit a perfect backhand return down the line. I feel most connected to myself when I capture the truth with the best words possible. But I would be lying if I didn’t say the act of writing also gives me a sense of control. By taking my experience and perceptions to create something somewhat the same yet entirely different is the closest I’ll ever come to giving birth to my own child. Would I like to get paid for it? Who wouldn’t? But writing isn’t about money. It’s about hitting the perfect drop shot. It’s about tennis.
I love this.
Of course writing is not “about” money, but when you consider it a trade, rather than an art (i.e. my copy writing work vs. my memoir), it makes sense to be compensated for it. And P.S., I expect to be compensated if my book is published and people buy it. Does that make it about money? No, it’s about supporting my sushi habit!
Interesting post, provocative question. I have been a journalist, a copy editor and lifestyle editor at newspapers. I know the gig, inside out. And it IS pay for writing, mixed in with a lot of other stuff — some not much fun for an introvert.
At heart, I’m a ficiton writer; didn’t choose it, was chosen by it. And once I was offered a very lucrative position writing PR, but guess what? I found I couldn’t prostitute my talent to sell crap to people, no matter how much it paid.
I always thought a “serious writer” and a “serious journalist were one and the same. Focused on truth, not money, and that writing something for PROFIT ONLY is definitely prostitution.
Yes. And I love it! This has got to be included in the the best things in life!
Getting paid for writing is necessary. All we prostitutes know that.
Does that mean you wouldn’t write at all if you didn’t get paid for it? I’m sure motive influences quality, what to speak of content, the same way a meal cooked by a five-star chef for his family and friends differs from one cooked for restaurant patrons.
Just back from vacation so I have some catch up to do here on Betsy’s blog… Was anyone else as astounded as I was to learn from the January 24th NYT magazine story on James Patterson (?sp) that he outsells Grisham, King and Brown combined? The feeling I had while reading that story was just a few notches down from what I remember feeling in junior high while reading about the Jonestown massacre…
Ever since landing my first job at a daily newspaper, I’ve decided that writing is not something I do without promise of payment, unless it is writing something on spec, which I have to feel will be worth doing whether or not the idea sells. I’ve also used my writing skills for advertising purposes. Since I have also taught belly dancing classes, I wrote a piece about the benefits for a local magazine. It was a win win scenario. The mag filled a page and I landed an ad that I won’t call entirely free, since my time is valuable, but I would not have been able to pay what they charge for space.
No professional writer should give their time and talent away unless they’re getting something out of it. It’s my opinion, of course, and you know what they say….!