My Brilliant Career: Writing Full-Time
July 10
Writing full-time is something that I still think of as a luxury – the freedom to actually spend the bulk of your time on nothing but words and books, to dictate your own hours, your own pursuits and, hopefully, make a stable income from your labour. But these thoughts never really go far beyond careless musings: wouldn’t it be great if…. Deep down, I suspect the reality of writing for a living is somewhat different. There would, for example, be the stress of meeting deadlines, of worrying about erratic workloads, of overcoming any doubts or lack of motivation and, as Professor Moody might say, a need for ‘constant vigilance’. Also, there is the very real and very frightening fact of what happens when your brilliant career goes bung.
This last point is something that befell fantasy authors Catherynne M. Valente and Tim Pratt recently when both their respective partners were laid off and unemployment took a turn for the worst. As full-time writers, Valente and Pratt found themselves unable to make ends meet, so they resorted to writing fiction online in return for donations. Each site comes with similar disclaimers – this from Valente’s:
‘I didn’t want charity, or something for nothing… I decided that in the world of new media and online literature, I could try to do what I do best: write a novel… Pay as little or as much as you wish—or just sit back and enjoy a good story. This is an absolutely free book—pay only if you want to, if you can.’
So if writing for a living is not all light and honey (and I’m excluding those lucky few that get six-figure advances here), what then are the bare logistics? How does income break down and how far do you have to push yourself to succeed? I should add here that of course not everyone wants to go full-time – it’s perfectly possible, even desirable, to have a day job and write. Christos Tsiolkas for example still works as a vet nurse, not only for financial reasons but also to keep himself grounded.
Jeff Vandermeer, who has written a very entertaining and frank blog post on the issue laid it out like this:
‘If you’re a typical fiction writer – just in the sense of the range of money you make –you live off of a series of (small to medium/large) jackpots otherwise known as advances for various books from domestic and foreign deals, filling in with income from short stories, teaching, book reviewing, etc. Right now, about 70 percent of my income comes directly from books and 30 percent is filled in by the rest. Some years that 70 percent will be higher; I hope it never goes lower.’
This, mind you, is in the US. In Australia, authors are extremely lucky if they manage to make enough to live on their writing alone. According to Dr Leslie Cannold and ABC News, the average Australian writer earns around $11 000 a year, which is peanuts and hardly enough to provide a steady income.
Aside from bare figures, there is also another side to writing full-time. John Scalzi makes this point:
‘Every writer who writes for pay is running a small business. You have to create product, track inventory, bid on work, negotiate contracts, pay creditors, make sure you get paid and deal with taxes… This is your job. This is your business.’
This is putting it bluntly but it’s true in many ways. Most authors will have to deal with contracts, marketing, royalties etc. at some stage with or without the help of an agent. Ditto for self-promotion, whether via blogs, personal websites, interviews, lectures and so on. Earlier this week, the Daily Beast reported that some ‘enterprising authors’ had taken to personally visiting book clubs in order to boost sales. One of them, Joshua Henkin, had visited over 175 groups and, at 10-12 people per group, sold around 1750 extra books. Apparently, he represented a ‘new breed’ of ‘author-hustler’, who tries to succeed through door-to-door salesmanship. I’m loathe to think you need to go to such extremes to make a living as a writer. But if some amount of business savvy helps, then how does this square with a profession that is so essentially creative? Some authors may not actually want to take part in so much publicity and being too mindful of the commercial side of things may interfere with the work that you’re trying to produce.
Writing full-time is a hard gig and I admire anyone who has managed to do it. Despite the pitfalls though, I’m still inclined to think that it is a luxury in some way. As Vandenmeer concludes: ‘If you’re writing for a living full-time rather than holding or looking for a day job, you’re privileged. You are not entitled to such a life, no one owes it to you – yes, you earn it, and you keep earning it daily, but in today’s world, you are, again, getting an opportunity. You keep it through will and talent and luck, but you try to remember the privileged part as well.’
JA
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Comments
10 Jul 09 at 0:55
I really dig this post JA. You speak with much wisdom, and each and every reference to other authors/blogs/articles is interesting and relevant. I re-read this post twice.
PS. I think you might thank the gods that the majority of readers of this blog are writers/interested in writing. The 'public' (icky as they are) would have a field day with "Despite the pitfalls though, I’m still inclined to think that it [a full-time regular hour gig] is a luxury in some way."
...10 Jul 09 at 9:49
This is an awesome article, and something that many aspiring authors, especially Aussie ones, should read. I go into my dream knowing that it may take years, and it may not ever become my day-time job, but I also still do go into it dreaming, and being a creative profession, I think dreaming is perfect for it. The key, I feel, is diligence. Like my reply to your how do we write question, I try to fill my day with as much writing as possible. I'm on a hot streak now of 48 hours yielding nearly eight and a half thousand words, and good ones at that, I think...but I know not every day is like this, and being a teacher I only get so many weeks of holiday a year, but at least I get them, it helps put me ahead somewhat. I think the fact that each day I have the words in me, and the ideas around me, makes me feel privileged every hour that I get to live inside my head. That and my fiancee is wickedly hot and even more so understanding and accommodating! Gotta love that!
...10 Jul 09 at 12:12
Thanks Sam, and thanks Ryan! Really glad that you enjoyed the post - this is something that's been on my mind for a while. Everyone talks about wanting to write, but the tension between the 'dream' and the practicalities aren't often discussed (or at least I haven't come across it).
...18 Jul 09 at 18:18
Great post. I often fantasise about writing fulltime, but having actually written fulltime before, I know that the fantasy doesn't live up to the reality.
Money is the most obvious issue, but there's also isolation, resorting to writing things you don't care about for cash (and often not much more cash than those things you do care about), and even productivity - it's much easier to procrastinate when you have all week to get something done, than when you have a couple of hours before work, after dinner, or a day or two a week.
The upside of writing part-time is that I only have time to write the things I really really want to write, which means my investment in each piece is higher - but the downside is that I don't get to write half an many things as I'd like to.
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