Do you know how many people tell me that if writing just one novel a year doesn’t pay enough to live on I should get a “real job”?
Leave aside the fact that writing is a job — it’s a skilled profession, editors expect us to act professionally, and we put in as many hours in it as in any other job. No, I’m not subscribing to the Marxist theory of labor. I know you can spend hours polishing a dog turd and it still won’t be worth much. However I also know my books continue to be published by publishing houses which are, presumably, businesses and don’t do this stuff out of charity. Therefore I am not, presumably, writing dog turds.
I also know that the business is broken. Even more so than other arts. And so the producers end up making very little indeed, even when people in the middle DO make money. (Have to. Come on, the stores and publishing houses don’t stay open on air and promises. Yeah, I know they’re failing, but still. And don’t get me on that subject, trust me.)
So, is the suggestion that I get a real job and write on the side a good one? Perhaps, from a monetary point of view. Except that in my own, personal situation, it’s almost impossible.
First of all I don’t write just a novel a year. There are many reasons for this, but the most important is that I can’t write just a novel a year or that novel will become unreadable. Maybe I’ll explain that in a future post… Just take me on faith for now.
More importantly, writing is not my only job. Oh, it’s my only paying job. But in the long road to publication, I became other things — mother, housewife, refinisher of furniture, cook, etc, etc, etc. Some days I can barely fit in the writing and I know from past experience if I have a full time job, I won’t be able to fit in the writing.
So what’s the solution? Danged if I know. I have to find new ways to market my writing, maybe, now that electronic publishing is available. I have to write new things and hope they pay better. And then, too, some of my other jobs will change — I mean the boys will move out eventually, right?
When I was a kid I used to think I would grow up and have it all and it would be effortless. Now I know better. I can have it all, but it will be effort-ful.
According To Hoyt 
I just love the “get a job” mentality. The big problem there of course is that most of those very same people wish they had a different job. Most of those people aren’t happy with their jobs and/or don’t think they are paid enough either. So what’s worse? Doing something you love, but not getting paid enough…or doing something that you hate, and still not getting paid what you think you’re worth?
LikeLike
That’s part of my understanding, too. Also, keep in mind that my degree was always somewhat generic, except for translation which I’m now so rusty at it’s hopeless. So when people say “get a job” I think they imagine me going out there, working forty hours as an executive, having the house cleaned and maintained with that money, so I would actually have more time to write. This idea is lovely, of course, but at this point most of the jobs my out-of-practice skills allow — like secretary or receptionist or telephone support, say — would not pay more than my lowest paid two books a year, would require me to be out of the house for 40h (minimum) a week and would add to my work load, period. Yeah, I could probably work up from that level, but at near fifty I’d get ahead just in time to retire. Meh. I staked all on writing, now I just need to find a way to make it pay.
As a reader this “you don’t write for money” mentality worries me even more. It means the books will be produced only by the very well off and by permanent dilletants. The hopes of connecting with a majority of readers become slim to none.
LikeLike