I didn’t get any writing done last weekend, as I was away with my family on a staycation up to Portrush, on the north coast of Northern Ireland. I spent my monthly writing royalties on a lovely holiday apartment by the beach so that we could enjoy a sunny getaway from Belfast, where we live. The cost of the holiday apartment was £120, the exact amount I had been paid at the end of August for my book sales from both KDP and Ingramspark, and incidentally when I booked the trip. It was meant to be.
But it got me thinking: £120 would barely cover any of my bills, never mind provide enough for a living wage. Disputes over how much writers get paid is current news, given the writers’ strikes in the US. It really begs the question: why don’t writers get paid a living wage?
A couple of months ago, I wrote a post about what royalties and expenses will I have as a self-published author? I worked out that my average royalties for sales of book sales over the past year amounted to £1.90 per book, when I divided the total number of sales (425) with the money I had been paid in royalties (£809). In my day job, working in secondary education, I get paid around £11.50 per hour, or thereabouts. Why is it that I am paid enough to live on from my job working in a grammar school, but not enough to even make a part-time income from my writing; never mind a sole income? It goes without saying that, as much as I enjoy my day profession, I would happily give up working full-time if I could make a living from my writing.
Why isn’t the work of novelists, and poets, valued more? Is it because, since writing is considered to be part of the Arts, it isn’t valued more as a ‘primary’ job – like teaching, or working in healthcare, etc? Entertainment is important – writing is one of the oldest professions in the world. Look at the Epic of Gilgamesh, for example. Yet, writers getting underpaid is nothing new. Here’s an article about 5 authors who dealt with poverty. There are many such articles – a quick Google search will show you all you need – but this one interested me because it included the author, John Steinbeck. The GCSE pupils at school are currently studying Of Mice and Men, so reading about Steinbeck’s reality gave me some much needed perspective about my own writing career and personal circumstances.
I don’t know the reasons why writing isn’t valued by society in the way other professions are, nor why writers don’t get paid a living wage. What I suggested above is conjecture. Not wanting to end on a negative note, I’ll finish by saying that there are definitely positives to having other full-time work – I’ll look at these in my next post. And luckily for me, I write for other reasons than simply financial; though getting well-paid for my writing would be appreciated. It’s tough going writing a book. Authors really should receive suitable compensation for all their hard work.
Leilanie Stewart 
Nice to come by your interesting bog. These days (since the age of copy-paste bloggers) even I don’t get paid for my organic writing/ photography work – once paid around 1000 dollars or more for 1000 words or more for a feature story with photos. Passion keeps me going. May I welcome you to visit my blog. Thank you. Bliss
Thanks for stopping by and sharing your stats. Definitely, passion has to keep us writers going. We do it for the love of the craft as sadly it’s just not financially rewarding for the majority.
If you want to earn a living wage from writing you have to write for a living. This doesn’t mean writing books for yourself, but as a job i.e. journalist, editor, reporter, copyeditor, scriptwriter, content marketing manager, Communications manager, Technical writer, Medical writer, P R Manager, Research analyst etc. You could always teach creative writing. Many classic writers had jobs while they wrote as novelists only afford to write full time once they had a bestseller, then writing became a job.
Indeed, I do have some friends who work in those jobs you’ve mentioned, and make a decent income – but none who make a living from creative writing. I think these days even the amount of novelists who make a living as best sellers is dwindling, and sadly there are even fewer poets, to my knowledge.
You know, this post of yours mirrored a lecture I once saw on TV. The said lecture was delivered by the dean of the college of arts and letters at the premier state university in the Philippines. He said this remark in Filipino, but here’s a rough English translation: “It is difficult to earn a living with writing, albeit one can earn money from it.”
If writing is difficult in the first world, more so in the third world. To illustrate, I have a long-time Filipino blog follower who just launched his first book. If writing did pay off for him, he would have stopped his medical practice and lived off of his royalties full-time. But as of this time, he’s still an oncologist with a full-time practice.
I actually don’t know any novelists or poets who make a full-time living from it, sadly. I hope your follower’s book is a big success, though sadly, successful book sales still don’t amount to much in the way of income. I know plenty of authors and, like myself, they all have day jobs. It’s really a shame. Literature is so important.
[…] This morning, I changed my job on my Facebook profile to: Writer, Editor, and Writing Community Leader. It feels good to proclaim that, to make it more real, because it is real — even if I don’t really get paid much for it. […]
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