From a recent op-ed at the New York Times:
Writers may always have worried about money, but now seems a particularly fertile time for writing about it. … This spate of talk about writing and money has opened up broader conversations about who can afford to enter the profession today, and who gets shut out.
My magazine Scratch is mentioned, and my Scratch co-founder is quoted:
Manjula Martin, the cofounder of Scratch, told Op-Talk that “there has always been this tension for writers around how to make a living and how to make art.” However, she said, growing job insecurity in writing professions and beyond may have led to a new wave of anxiety: “As the economy is changing and as things just feel more precarious in our culture, that bleeds through to the literary culture. And I think a big part of that too is a question of, ‘is literature and are the arts going to continue to be valued in ways that we have perhaps always just assumed they would be?’”
At a time when authors seem to be more divided than united, I hope we can at least agree: Sharing our publishing experiences with each other—with as much transparency as possible—helps us all make better decisions for the long term of our careers.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
[…] Historias Visuales / via Flickr From a recent op-ed at the New York Times: Writers may always have worried about money, but now seems a particularly fertile time for writing about it. … This spate of talk about writing and money has opened up… […]
I don’t believe any author can make a “living” at writing unless you are the likes of J.K. Rowlings, Sue Grafton, Janet Evanovich, etc. I write mysteries, The Ginseng Conspiracy, and I am traditionally published. After everyone takes their cut, there is little money left for the author. In this economy, I believe an author would have a better chance of making a go of it with self-publishing.
“When bankers get together for dinner, they discuss Art. When artists get together for dinner, they discuss Money”
— Oscar Wilde
Perfect. Tweeted.
Perhaps writers who speak to a particular community will do best in the dry years ahead. Writing fungible genre fiction will only place you in the midst of a stampede led by a few big names and swelled out with fanfic’ers and wannabes.