I came across this quote today:
“A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul, and that, I am sure, is why he does it.” – Roald Dahl
Well, absolute freedom is kinda relative. Sure you have total creative freedom in your writing, you can write whatever you want. You can even publish it. Whether or not it sells is totally up to your audience. If there are enough people who like what you write about and how it is written, you might be able to make a living. If your series on squirrels building nuclear bombs to overthrow the evil human beings dominating the globe and causing climate change takes off and pays your bills, more power to you.
You (usually) get freedom in how you spend your days and how you live your life. You’re free to write at 3:00 A.M. if that is when you are at your mental best and sleep until 2:00 in the afternoon. If you need to stop and go get groceries, you can do that. You don’t have anyone to answer to except yourself. Of course, that is if you live by yourself, and are good enough at writing that you don’t have to have a dreaded day job. Having to live with others, even pets, obligates you to have to deal with things like sudden changes in your schedule, or dealing with an obnoxious boss when you’d rather be writing.
Of course, absolute freedom isn’t the only compensation a writer gets. There are intangibles like when someone tells you how much they like your work, or even better, what your work means to them and how it helped them hang on in a bad situation. There is the potential for fame, which leads to speaking engagements or getting on talk shows. Heck, you might get a sandwich named after you at your favorite local deli.
And there is the potential for monetary compensation. Most writers don’t write just to make money. According to the Internet most writers make less than ten thousand dollars ($10,000.00) over their entire career. (I certainly fall into this category, but I’m just getting started.)
There is a smaller, but still sizeable number of authors who make a living wage from their writing. They aren’t making tons of money, but they have found their readers and keep putting out books. Their fans buy the books and keep the author going. It’s a nice little symbiotic circle.
Then there are the few authors who hit the big time. Well-known household names whose books get turned into movies and TV series and comic books and get merchandised out the wazoo – Stephen King, Danielle Steele, James Patterson, J.K. Rowling, Stephanie Meyer, George R. R. Martin and others. James Patterson is the richest author on the planet right now. Ten second spot ads run on national network TV when he has a new book coming out. He pays for those ads out of his own pocket, and the ads ain’t cheap. The average cost of a 30-second TV ad is three hundred and fifty thousand dollars ($350,000.00).
There’s a lot you can get out of writing. But it isn’t something you go into because you want to get rich. There are easier, less hazardous ways of becoming rich, like being a drug dealer. You do it because you love writing, and you have stories running around your head like squirrels on crack, and they all want OUT. And yeah, you hope you find an audience, your tribe, that will support you by buying your work. Because that pays your bills and lets you sit around all day, playing in your imagination, and having more fun than anyone should legally be allowed to have.
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