Salaries

"Write only if you have no choice"

Blake Morrison, quoted in The Guardian (United Kingdom)

While reading The Week magazine (British ex-pat publication) recently I noticed in their "Viewpoint" section a short commentary entitled, "Literary Poverty", which focused on how few books most authors actually sell.

This commentary went on to quote "two recent surveys" (the sources were not mentioned) which found that 60% of British authors earn less than US$20,000 per year and that the media earnings for all authors are less than a quarter of the national wage in the United Kingdom.

Clearly the author salary structure is a steep pyramid with authors like JK Rowling of Harry Potter fame at the top of the food chain with her millions of earnings while most authors live at poverty levels. This leads me to speculate that most authors have others jobs like the bestseller author, Vince Flynn, did when he getting started in the business. I used to play basketball with Vince many years ago at the Decathlon Athletic Club in Minnesota at which time Vince was a bartender and part-time writer.

The key point her is that Vince was not living off of some National Endowment for the Arts/Humanities grant courtesy of the American taxpayers. Instead Vince served up Americans' drink of choice while he pursued his writing career. Today -- Vince is a very successful writer and the world is a richer place because he chased his dream.

Write, paint, sing -- give it a go,

Todd