Writing and Money

Photo by 愚木混株 cdd20 on Unsplash

I think a lot about writing and money.

For a long time, I was a full-time academic with a regular salary. Like most academics in my situation, I earned little money from my publications. But writing and publishing were part of my job description, so my writing time was paid time.

When I went freelance my situation changed dramatically. I only earned money if clients paid me. As I transitioned to being a freelance editor and translator, my writing became something I did in my own time.

At first I didn’t think much about this unpaid writing. Being my own boss gave me the freedom to write what I wanted, to branch into new kinds of writing, not to worry about the requirements of a particular academic field or peer-reviewed journal, to write this newsletter that allows me to explore topics I’m interested in and share them with other writers and activists without worrying about who will publish my ideas.  

But all the while, I was aware that this is a privileged position. I am, in effect, subsidising my own writing career. This is not a sustainable model for professional writers.

The writer and activist Yasmin Nair has been making this point for many years. In a 2014 article, she argued that people who publish for no or low pay so they can expand their readership undermine the professionalism and income of freelance writers by allowing the outlets they write for to expect all writers to write for nothing.

The main target of Nair’s critique is the media outlets themselves. Her list is long and US focused, and includes a number of “left” and “progressive” companies that don’t pay their freelance writers, or pay them a pittance, an amount that in no way reflects the time and labour it takes to research, write and edit a good piece of nonfiction.

The second object of Nair’s wrath is the “public intellectual,” the “academic(s) desperate to make themselves seen in publications other than academic journals”. These people are not only willing to write for free in exchange for the perks of having an audience outside the university world. They can afford to do so because they already have a full-time salary. Nair calls these people scabs.

Ouch.

But what about people who don’t yet have a salary and want to develop a full-time writing career, who start out writing for free to build up a portfolio? That’s still a problem, says Nair. That’s because “it’s not their free writing and ‘exposure’ that got them their jobs; it’s their ability to survive without having to depend on writing for a livelihood that guaranteed they could even hope to become professional writers in the first place”. Anyone familiar with debates about unpaid internships will hear echoes here.

The point Nair is making is that writing is work.

But whether it is only work is another question.

Like Nair, I’m wary of the romantic notion of writing as a noble hobby, a purely creative pursuit, something that emerges from tapping into one’s unconscious, as if writing were akin to a spiritual calling. For me the best writing – whether fiction, poetry or nonfiction – is engaged with the wider world. That doesn’t mean it has to be factual or didactic or even historically accurate. But it does mean that the writer must take an active interest in the world beyond her experience and feelings. That takes time, research, reading. In other words, it takes work.

As a researcher, I know that the kind of quality non-fiction Nair produces is time-consuming and draws on years of professional experience and training. As an editor, I know how many drafts and edits a good piece of writing has to go through before it can rightfully be published. As a reader I can tell quickly whether a writer has paid careful attention to language and structure, and whether a piece of writing has been properly edited and proofread, either by the writer herself or by a professional editor.

But I’m also aware that a lot of writing, including much that is politically or artistically risky and creative, or highly personal, is unlikely ever to earn the author enough money to live on, and that lots of people write for reasons other than money. Even though we should avoid the romanticisation of the starving writer, I believe we need these other kinds of writing.

The problem of who gets paid to write and how much, and who has the time and space to write, are issues of concern to all writers. As I wrote in post last year on writing time and activist time:

Rather than – or, at least, in addition to – obsessing endlessly about how we can jealously guard our hard-won solo writing time, we might ask ourselves what we are doing in our day-to-day lives to make more time available for everyone who wants to write.

That post ended rather cryptically, calling for a radical redistribution of time. As a rather belated New Year’s gesture, this one ends with some suggestions for action:

* Join a writers’ union and learn their recommended minimum rates.

* If you publish for an outlet that pays its writers, demand a fair rate.

* Ask your publishers what rates they pay their freelance editors and proofreaders.

* If you read work in translation, find out what the translator has been paid.

* When doing research, make sure you also research whether the authors you cite have been paid. In Nair’s terms, commit to the ethical consumption of writing.

* If you can afford it, donate or subscribe to writers or media outlets you read or listen to regularly, especially if you cite them in your own writing.

* Finally, and from an activist perspective, most important: support the campaign for a Universal Basic Income. UBI would not mean publishers or any employers should stop paying their other workers. But if done properly it would be a step towards eliminating the system that allows a small number of people to write for free while preventing many more from writing anything at all.

Pen in Fist is written by me, C Lou Hamilton, aka Dr Carrie. To find out more about my activism, follow me on twitter. You can access my other writing, and information on my editing and translating work, on my website. If you haven’t already, please subscribe to Pen in Fist for free here.