The Impecunious Life of the Literary Novelist

Posted 19 October, 2007 in Writing Life |

Blake Morrison, writing in the Guardian, wonders how literary novelists can possibly make a go of it:

Let’s suppose that a realistic sale for a literary novel these days is 2,000 copies in hardback and 8,000 in paperback. At current cover prices, that will generate royalties of around £9,000. Serialisations, film or television options and sales of foreign rights might push earnings up to £12,000. But this isn’t annual income, it’s the proceeds from the three or four years spent writing the novel. Two recent surveys have found that 60% of British authors earn less than £10,000 a year - and that median earnings are less than a quarter of the national wage. You wonder how they, and publishers and agents, keep going.

The short answer is: marry rich, or arrange to inherit a whack of money.

The more nuanced answer, of course, is that they don’t, at least not exclusively on the income earned from their writing. Most literary writers in Canada — even established and relatively well-known ones — supplement their income with other jobs. Many teach. A couple are doctors. Others work variously as train conductors, editors, civil servants, bookstore clerks, and librarians. For these people, writing is a vocation, something they are compelled to do, but not something that provides anything close to a living wage.

Mordecai Richler used to talk ruefully about being asked as a young man what he wanted to do with his life. He’d always answer that he wanted to be a writer. To which the follow-up question was always, “Yes, but how are you going to earn a living?” Stopping off at a local bar for an after-work beer last night, the bartender mentioned that her son was receiving an academic award today and that he is in line for a scholarship. She wants him to be a doctor. Her son wants to be a writer. “Great,” she said, “he’ll spend the rest of his life starving.”

It’s an unfortunate reality that our pseudo-sophisticated society loves the products of artists — the paintings and sculptures, the works of literature and film that people consume to feel like cultured aesthetes — but is not terribly enamoured with artists themselves. Sure, Scotiabank will sponsor the Giller Prize and the Bank of Montreal will sponsor the GG’s, but these awards do little on a day-to-day basis to put food on writers’ tables. There is a granting system in Canada through the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council, among others, but the system for awarding grants is not without its flaws and the money earmarked for literary work is not sufficient to support too many full-time writers.

Even if a writer is able to scrape by an existence on his or her writing, other things that salaried workers take for granted — such as medical benefits, paid maternity leave, and a pension — aren’t available to them. The Writers’ Union of Canada offers a benefits package, but if you’re not a member, you’re on your own. Russell Smith often talks about his mother’s response to the question of what she thinks of her son being a writer: she wishes he had a job with dental benefits.

And yet writers continue writing, doing whatever they can to supplement their income while still allowing themselves time to create. It should of course be pointed out that the writing life is a choice: no one forces it on anyone, and if material riches are the uppermost desire in a person’s mind, that person would be well advised to look elsewhere when selecting a career.

Personally, I do feel that it wouldn’t hurt if artists were valued more in our society — true, they don’t save lives on a daily basis (okay, Vincent Lam does), but the function of artists is essential to a vibrant society, since, if they’re doing their jobs properly, they act as the conscience and weathervane of that society. However, nowhere is it written that they are entitled to untold adulation and riches.

I, for one, feel privileged to spend my time in literary pursuits; the relatively meagre income I reap from this lifestyle is the tradeoff that I have made in order to keep doing what I’m doing. But don’t think for a moment that this isn’t a conscious choice on my part. And that’s really the bottom line, isn’t it? A writer writes. It’s what he or she is compelled to do. And, like any compulsion, ultimately profit will never be the motivating factor behind it.

6 comments to “The Impecunious Life of the Literary Novelist”

Zachariah Wells, October 19th, 2007 at 2:49 pm:

• Christ, just imagine how many shitty writers we’d have if it actually paid well!

Steven W. Beattie, October 19th, 2007 at 3:05 pm:

• True dat.

patricia, October 20th, 2007 at 7:26 pm:

• Gawd – so what kind of drek would we get in the children’s lit world if it was actually a lucrative venture? The lack of money hasn’t yet deterred the phlanx of talentless celebrity authors…

Zachariah Wells, October 22nd, 2007 at 3:36 pm:

• You mean kidlit pays badly too? Shit, with my kid’s book coming out next year, I thought I’d finally be on easy street!

Steven W. Beattie, October 22nd, 2007 at 5:04 pm:

• Not unless your initials are J.K.R.

patricia, October 22nd, 2007 at 10:59 pm:

• Ha ha. So true.

  So are you serious, Zach? You got a kid’s book coming out? Cool.

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