Does writing offer good money, does it interfere with life?

[Alex]

Does writing offer good enough money that you can live off of it without being the next Rowling or Tolkien? Also, does writing interfere with hanging out with friends and one's girlfriend, seeing as how much time it takes? I apologize if this is a foolish question.

 

[Telcontar]

In a word? No.

I'm assuming here that you mean fiction writing, as in writing books and shorts and so on. Most published writers (even traditionally published writers) today do not make a living solely off of this kind of writing. To be sure, many of them are writing for a living - but copy writing, technical writing, etc etc.

Not really sure what you mean about interfering with life. It takes up time just as any hobby does. Anything you do in life comes at the cost of doing something else (known in economics as opportunity cost). It takes up precisely as much time as you want to devote to it, and chances are your skill and success with it will be directly proportional to that devotion.

The one caveat is that unlike many hobbies writing tends to be solitary. We can talk about writing with each other and eventually share the fruits of our labor with others, but the process itself is not - and in my experience, never has been - highly social. Perhaps others can speak up for some ways to counteract this and turn writing into a more social experience. I'd be interested in what they have to say.

 

[Spring-Gem]

Most writers don't make a living from their writing. They either have a day job or a spouse who has a steady income. If you expect to make a living from your writing, you have to treat it as a job. Writers are considered self-employed so you have to keep track of your expenses and income for tax purposes. You will need to learn the business side of writing whether you go the traditional route or self-publish. Dean Wesley Smith's blog has some good info on the business of writing.

You can and should have a social life. If you have a day job, you will probably juggle your writing time and social life. If you are writing full time, you will need to keep "office" hours and schedule time off from writing lest you become a hermit who talks to imaginary people.

Disclaimer: I'm not a published author yet, but I have done quite a bit of research on the business side of writing.

 

[Aegrus]

Does writing offer good enough money that you can live off of it without being the next Rowling or Tolkien? Also, does writing interfere with hanging out with friends and one's girlfriend, seeing as how much time it takes? I apologize if this is a foolish question.

No, the average writer makes only 20 thousand dollars a year. (I forget my source for that.) On top of that, writing can be a very long and exhausting process.

To be brief, if you want to write well enough to make a living off it, it will interfere with everything in your life. Writing is a huge commitment. It takes years to figure out how to get a good grasp of cause and effect and learn how to write realistic worlds and characters to immerse readers without breaking elegant sentence flow. Even once you become skilled enough to organize everything in your head, you still need to have a good grasp of grammar in order to write it out. Then, of course, there's the time factor. I can average about a page every fifteen minutes if I'm really pushing myself, and that's not including the much longer time I spend editing per page. At that rate, it would take a very long time to write a book of any length.

Obviously, a few people strike it rich, but there's a huge gap between almost everyone and them, without a whole lot of middle ground. Even people who write as well or better than them still may never be discovered simply due to the fact that publishers would rather stick to established names than risk money on new people.

 

[zizban]

No and not unless you let it.

 

[Ravana]

"No" to the first, unless you spend enough time at it to make the answer to the second "yes." Even then the answer will be "no," but at least you won't be spending as much on dinners.

 

[Kevin O. McLaughlin]

This is actually a very interesting pair of questions, because the answers range from "yes/yes" to "no/no" and all over in between. So the final answer is really "it depends".

First, let's tackle the question of what you need to live. Are you hoping to quit an $8 an hour job at McDonalds? Or replace the $500k a year income you make at your legal firm? Are you supporting just yourself, or a spouse and children as well? What counts as "enough to live" varies wildly. In my own case, as an RN I make about $25 an hour, which is *excellent* income where I live. About $50k a year before taxes. And working part time, I support myself, my wife, and three small children pretty comfortably.

To replace that income, I would need to make about $35k a year after taxes. You might feel that's more than you need - good! Or you might feel that's a piddling amount on which you could never survive. Which will make a career as a full time writer harder, but not impossible. Downsizing your life is often crucial to running your own business (which is, of course, what all writers are doing). I've known folks who've relocated to less expensive parts of the country and made other large changes to their lives to "right-size" their life for their goals.

OK, now the answers.

Writing is a small business generally started on a shoestring. If you're lucky and have a spouse paying the bills, or a big inheritance - congratulations, you've won half the battle already. This is the equivalent of some other small business getting big venture capitalists to invest; you don't need to worry so much about salaries during the start up period.

As a shoe-string business, writing will generally progress completely dependent upon how much time and effort and energy you put in. If you are OK with writing being a hobby which makes some money and doesn't interfere much with your life, then spending a few hours a week writing, producing a couple thousand words a week - say 100k a year - is fine. You'll be a book-a-year writer. Plenty of those around, and you'll get some extra cash for that work, and a few hours a week really doesn't interfere with one's life. Caveat: you will take longer to get up to speed, to get skills polished enough to actually sell. The average writer produces 2-5 unsalable books before producing work which will sell. That's quite a lot of practice if you're writing one a year, and it's a big chunk of the reason why so many people *want* to write, but fail.

The more time you put in, the faster you'll churn through those "practice books" to get your skills up, and the more material you'll produce per year once you are selling. Remember, there's really no upward limit. Some bestselling writers average 5-6 books per year; sometimes under their own name, sometimes under multiple pen names. The folks who make decent money at this game, for the most part, are the ones who exceed the book-a-year thing. The downside there is that it will eat up that much more of your life.

Dean Wesley Smith talks about (if I can remember this right) working two regular jobs in his early career, and still making time to write, edit, and submit a short story a week. Every week. Say that's 4k words - that's 200k a year, or two novels. And better believe that ate into his social life some, if he was working two jobs as well. But he wanted to write, wanted to be a pro, and after over a hundred traditionally published books over the last twenty years, I'd say he's there.

But it all comes back around to you. What are YOUR goals? What income level do YOU desire to reach? Do you want to write full time, or as a sideline? (Remember, writing might not be quite as much fun if the mortgage depends upon selling a few books a year!) How long are you willing to take to reach those goals? Are you OK with taking five years to practice writing a few thousand words a week before you sell? Or do you want to work through those "early pages" more rapidly? The latter will require much more of you than the former.

Know yourself, know your goals, and you should be able to answer those questions. Then the rest becomes self-evident.