Or, do writers really have to make money from their writing to enjoy their craft?
Or, do writers really have to make money from their writing to be considered successful?
Sometime back in the 1970s, Lawrence Block asked questions very much like the ones posed above.
I don’t know what issue of Writers Digest his column originally appeared in, but you can read his thoughts in Chapter 6 of Telling Lies for Fun & Profit: A Manual for Fiction Writers.
Block notes that writing fiction is the only art that seems to demand payment as an indicator of success.
Certainly writing poetry does not. There is no money in poetry. One writes it because one loves to do so. I wrote poetry for around 20 years and was steadily and frequently published for a dozen, and made around 5 bucks. I had to find some other measure of success than greenbacks.
Block goes on to note that most painters paint simply for the enjoyment of painting and never offer their work for sale. And that probably goes for potters and jewelry makers as well.
Certainly the vast majority of people who play a musical instrument do so for personal enjoyment and not for money. How many actors and actresses perform without the thought of money? Certainly all those in community theater.
I dare say that most creative people are not paid for what they do. They create simply because they love to do so. They derive great personal pleasure from the act of creation. So why shouldn’t fiction writers do the same?
For some reason, though, they can’t. Every writer of fiction seems to think he or she must reach a point where they can quit their day job or they are a failure.
In reality, however, only a tiny percentage of writers ever make enough money to earn a living from their writing, and not necessarily a good living at that. Philip K Dick made money — just enough to not starve to death.
My writer friends hear this: Damn few of us will ever make enough money to quit the day job.
And I say, So what? If we love writing, can’t we just write for the sake of the enjoyment? Of course we can.
Especially in this day and age when the gatekeepers are gone. We can publish with abandon our masterpieces, as well as our drivel.
We fiction writers are free to publish our stories and let the public decide if they’re good, bad, ugly, mediocre, or okay.
There are countless outlets for publishing our work, and countless ways to tell folks where to find it.
This is truly a wonderful age in which we live.
So why do we think we have to earn a living from our pens, pencils, and keyboards? I really don’t know where this idea came from, especially when reality tells us differently.
How many painters earn a living from their brush? Exceedingly few. Most of the “successful” painters don’t earn their money from selling paintings, they earn their daily bread from teaching others how to paint.
How many potters sell enough pots to quit the day job? How many pianists, or guitar players make enough money to kiss goodbye the 9 to 5? My guess is next to none.
I’ve been thinking about this notion of the Sunday Writer, that is, the person who just writes because he or she loves to write, for some time. The Sunday Writer writes, not because he thinks he’s the next Patterson, or she thinks she’s the next Rowling, but simply because he or she has to. The Sunday Writer writes for the love of it. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Today, one can write and post his or her work on a blog, or read it on YouTube, or publish it on Amazon, Apple, Kobo, and Barnes & Noble.
Print On Demand paperbacks allow you to cheaply produce a print book, and you can stand on a street corner or at an intersection and sell your book to people. Or just give it away, if you prefer.
Heck, you can even DIY your own audiobooks with minimal investment, and sell or giveaway the MP3 of your fabulous fiction.
You can get your work into as many people’s hands as you want to put in the time and effort to reach. And if you never get paid a dime, is that any different from the poet who sees hundreds of his poems in print and never gets paid a cent for them?
Is it any different than the writer, looking to make the big bucks, who gives away 5000 copies of his first in series novel, hoping at least 10% go on to buy and read Book 2? No, not really.
My first published novels appeared on Amazon November 2014. To date, I’ve earned a little over $1800. Am I a failure? I don’t think so. People are buying my books. Some like them. Some don’t. But that’s how it is with any work of art. People have loved and hated every artist that’s come along. Why should I be any different?
Sunday Writers. I think it’s okay to be a Sunday Writer. I think it’s okay to write because you love writing and to share what you’ve written with anyone who wants to read it — whether you make any money from it or not.
I’m lucky. I’ve made over $1800. There are people out there who wish they made that much money from their writing.
I’ve taken many classes and workshops — and spent a lot of money doing so — to learn how to sell my books, how to make money at this writing gig.
I’m declaring here and now to hell with all that.
I am going to write and publish my work because I love writing. In the process, I hope to find those for whom my stories bring a bit of pleasure to their lives. In the end, we are entertainers and isn’t that the end goal of every entertainer? To bring pleasure to people’s lives?
If I make money entertaining people with my writing, great. I’m not going to turn it down, or throw it away. But if I don’t make money, I’m not going to view myself as a failure. Why? Because I’m a Sunday Writer. Greenbacks don’t determine if I’m a success or not. I and my readers do that.
Comments are always welcome. And until next time, happy reading! And I’d love it, if you were reading one of my books. 🙂
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