Itchy Bitesized 33: How Writers Make A Living

What works (sort of) and what doesn't.

Over and over again writers ask, ‘How on earth does anyone make a living as a writer?’ The question is sometimes rhetorical, sometimes bewildered, sometimes a straightforward request for enlightenment - and the most recent ALCS figures for author’s earnings are not cheering. ALLi is more positive about self-publishing, but it’s still very hard and insecure work.

I’ve blogged fairly substantially about this question already so, as befits the Itchy Bitesized series, this is the TLDR version. It sets out the different ways it is (sometimes, sort-of) possible to make a living, at least for a while, as a professional writer.

In This Itch of Writing’s cause of demystifying the business of writing, please feel free to share it as widely as possible.

• Writing books often enough, which deliver the same known-and-pitchable pleasures to the same readers each time, then getting them published, or self-publishing them.

  • ‘Often enough’ means at least once a year, probably twice if you’re self-publishing, and alongside that working to promote and publicise you and your work.

  • ‘Known-and-pitchable’ essentially means a known genre, with covers, pitches, blurbs/cover copy and audience to suit.

  • Advances for each new book are usually modest, but each should give your backlist and so your royalties a boost. (More on contracts and how publishers pay authors here)

  • Interviews and other media stuff, publicity and events (festivals, readings) rarely pay anything more than a token, which never pays enough for the time away from your desk, and the royalites on book sales won’t either. But they can be fun, and sometimes profitable in other ways.

  • Self-publishing literary fiction is very, very difficult indeed, because by definition lit fic resists being a set of known-and-pitchable-pleasures, and most of the publicity and sales routes (prizes, reviews, literary festivals) are closed to self-publishers.

• Writing books as often as you can, as saleably as you can, with writing-related freelance work making up the income gap. There is a bit more security when you don’t have all your eggs in one income-stream basket, although getting paid can be hard work:

  • ghosting, journalism, reviewing, copywriting, editing, script-writing and script-doctoring, business or technical writing; bear in mind that all of these are threatened by AI to some degree.

  • teaching, mentoring and coaching, including the various Royal Literary Fund schemes

  • funding from the Arts Council and other bodies

  • establishing a Substack, Patreon, membership podcast or similar presence, which consistently delivers the same known-and-pitchable pleasures to its paying audience

  • non-fiction authors: talking/teaching around your subjects, which also sells books

  • children’s authors: paid school visits also sell books

• Writing books in parallel with other, freelance or self-employed work not related to writing.

  • Some writers do much better not using up their writing brain and energy on other people’s writing.

  • ‘As often as you can, as saleably as you can’ still applies to the writing.

  • The other work being flexible makes it easier when you have a new book to publicise, or caring responsibilities surge up.

• Keeping the day job or finding a new other job. There’s a lot to be said for this, though it’s harder if you have caring responsibilities or health issues that take up time and energy.

  • Greater financial security means greater creative freedom, albeit within the ‘as often as you can, as saleably as you can’ boundaries.

  • If you can go down to four days a week, say, that can be as close to ideal as it gets.

  • Your writing life and work may demand a flexibility that the day job doesn’t easily accommodate.

• Inheriting or marrying money. Sadly, most of us are soppy enough to want to marry for love, and to keep our family members alive. But the brute truth is that many, many writers survive only because they keep their outgoings ruthlessly low, and/or have partners who earn more than they do, or some other small element of financial security.

And finally, as my main post puts it, in exploring how writers make a living, remember that

• Outliers - books and authors that have become phenomena, such as 50 Shades of Grey - tell you nothing useful.

• The careers of authors who started decades ago tell you nothing useful.

• The range of ££ for advances and incomes tell you very little: the vast majority are clustered at the bottom of the range.

• As a writer, your experience of books and how they are found and bought is entirely untypical of the reading public at large.

But I can honestly say that I have never regretted for more than about twenty minutes at a time (more like ten if I managed to lay my hands on a glass of wine or a bar of chocolate), that I decided all those years ago to build my working life around writing.

So if you decide to go for it - GOOD LUCK!