“How much do you make?”

Down the many years when I have vis­it­ed schools, talked to my read­ers, and tak­en their ques­tions, I have been often struck by how com­mon is the belief among young peo­ple that writ­ers are rich. True, this part­ly occurs because when I vis­it schools, I (and my fel­low writ­ers) am pre­sent­ed as a celebri­ty, and “celebri­ties” by youth’s def­i­n­i­tion are wealthy. That is why when asked about mon­ey, such as, “How much do you make?” I wel­come the ques­tion and take the time to explain how writ­ers make a liv­ing, that what I do is work, and that writ­ing is a hard way to make a living. 

In the Novem­ber 30, 2013 New York Times, in an arti­cle titled “The Real Human­i­ties Cri­sis,” there were these comments: 

“Even high­ly gift­ed and rel­a­tive­ly suc­cess­ful writ­ers, artists and musi­cians gen­er­al­ly are not able earn a liv­ing from their tal­ents. The very few who become super­stars are very well reward­ed. But almost all the others—poets, nov­el­ists, actors, singers, artists—must either have a part­ner whose income sup­ports them or a “day job” to pay the bills. Even writ­ers who are reg­u­lar­ly pub­lished by major hous­es or win major prizes can­not always live on their earnings. 

“Human­i­ties majors on aver­age start earn­ing $31,000 per year and move to an aver­age of $50,000 in their mid­dle years. (The fig­ures for writ­ers and per­form­ing artists are much lower.)” 

It is, I think, a sad fact that artists (and that includes writ­ers) are cel­e­brat­ed for what they do, but rarely get their due.