“The gift economy didn't give back. Every post I made was on a platform I did not own. My access was free, and my labor was free, but I was investing primarily in someone else's business.”— Susie Cagle, amazon.comTagged: Books, Money, Writers, Writers and money
“Exactly how much do I make writing other people's stories? For most books, I receive a flat rate -- anywhere from $10,000 to $40,000 in my case, plus or minus a percentage of the author's royalties.”— Sari Botton, amazon.comTagged: Books, Money, Writers, Writers and money
“Being an extremely social, sociable, accessible person should not be the price of being a professional writer, but for women it almost inevitably is.”— Emily Gould, amazon.comTagged: Books, Money, Writers, Writers and money
“Not only am I a phony, so is everyone I know!”— Emily Gould, amazon.comTagged: Books, Money, Writers, Writers and money
“Part of the fear of looking at the relationship between art and its financial context, perhaps, is the fear that something else is true as well: I am whatever these worlds paid me to be.”— Leslie Jamison, amazon.comTagged: Books, Money, Writers, Writers and money
“What if we stopped thinking of money as the dirty secret of creative pursuit and instead recognized money as one of its constituent threads? Whether we like it or not, money's presence in art doesn't depend on whether we consider its presence. It's always already there anyway.”— Leslie Jamison, amazon.comTagged: Books, Money, Writers, Writers and money
“Not thinking about money wastes my time, and I only have so much time to write. Thinking about money has saved me from writing another novel that probably won't sell.”— Kate McKean, amazon.comTagged: Books, Money, Writers, Writers and money
“I know so many writers who say, 'just tell me what to write and i'll write it!' I do have that information, but it's not that easy. I can follow a sure-to-be-marketable idea and realize I have zero passion for it. If I have no passion for it, the writing will suck.”— Kate McKean, amazon.comTagged: Books, Money, Writers, Writers and money
“After the excitement of finishing a whole novel had worn off, my agenting experience had kicked in: I could see the hook and the topic and theme of my novel wasn't going to work. And even if it worked it probably wouldn't sell. You'd think I would have caught this sooner, but I fell prey to what all…”— Kate McKean, amazon.comTagged: Books, Money, Writers, Writers and money
“Building my career as an agent ate every spare moment I had. There would be no writing on mornings and weekends. I was making barely $30,000 a year as an assistant and I was struggling to pay my $675 Brooklyn rent. A few years later when I became a full-time agent, I went from a small salary to comm…”— Kate McKean, amazon.comTagged: Books, Money, Writers, Writers and money
“It's also presumed Emily Dickinson's maid didn't go home and write poems after work. I bet she did.”— Manjula Martin, amazon.comTagged: Books, Money, Writers, Writers and money, Quote of the Moment
“I started to realize work wasn't what was holding me back; the ideal of The Writer's Life was. Once I let myself understand that statistically I would probably never -- yes, never -- be able to quit working, the hours I spent agonizing over having a day job became hours in which I could write.”— Manjula Martin, amazon.comTagged: Books, Money, Writers, Writers and money
“The separation of art and commerce, while a noble aim, is in reality to an endeavor akin, in the rarefied and impoverished professional universe where writers actually reside, to the separation of smoking and drinking. A nice thought, but yeah, good luck with that.”— J. Robert Lennon, amazon.comTagged: Books, Money, Writers, Writers and money, Quote of the Moment
“For most of us, writing is not particularly pleasurable, and publishing does not make us much money.”— J. Robert Lennon, amazon.comTagged: Books, Money, Writers, Writers and money
“Writing doesn't feed anybody.”— Yiyun Li, amazon.comTagged: Books, Money, Writers, Writers and money
“I think any kind of experience is good for a writer, except sitting at home all the time. If my students have a character who does nothing, I always ask them, 'Well, where does the money come from? How does he live?' And they cannot answer.”— Yiyun Li, amazon.comTagged: Books, Money, Writers, Writers and money
“Here are a few other things younger writers don't hear about this career: if you're going to become a writer, you have to start introducing yourself to people. You have to know how to talk. People need to like you in this business, to remember you well.”— Richard Rodriguez, amazon.comTagged: Books, Money, Writers, Writers and money
“I was supported by various people early in my writing life. I spent a lot of time lying by swimming pools at other people's houses, housesitting, looking at Italian fashion magazines.”— Richard Rodriguez, amazon.comTagged: Books, Money, Writers, Writers and money
“Selling fiction feels like I've cast a spell on the world and made it give me something that didn't exist before. It's the closest thing to actual magic I can think of.”— Alexander Chee, amazon.comTagged: Books, Money, Writers, Writers and money
“I wanted to be around people who wrote no matter what they were paid and yet I also wanted to make a living at writing. I was young enough to think this was a serious approach.”— Alexander Chee, amazon.comTagged: Books, Money, Writers, Writers and money