Careers for Writers: Will Passion to Write Pay the Bills?

During a recent meeting of a professional writers group to which I belong the topic of careers in writing came up. It was surprising to hear that there was interest in finding out about the types of jobs that writers could do. You might expect a group of writing professionals to be experts on this topic, wouldn't you? Not really so! Like most of the rest of us, we tend to concentrate on what we know best. In this group, members are probably most familiar with the types of materials they create or whatever other writing related work they do, whether it's writing books and articles, editing, publishing, proofreading, and perhaps helping others with writing tasks. The topic of careers in writing is important to a group like this because of interest in expanding personal job opportunities, as well as in being knowledgeable enough as a group to provide guidance and community support to aspiring writers including students considering pursuing writing as a career.


Monetary concerns may play an important role in writers' desires to know more about career expansion. Based on a recent article in Publishers Weekly, the median income for full time writers in 2017 was $20,700 for all publishing related activities. Can you believe that? In 2017 that was $100 above poverty level for a family of 4 in the U.S.  Writing-related median income for those publishing since 2013 was $8,170. When factoring in newer authors the figure drops to $6,080. So much for making a living from the books you've written! Sure, some books hit it big, but that may be more like winning the lottery. Of course median income doesn't reflect those who make higher incomes, but it also doesn't represent almost the whole lower half of writers' earnings which are below poverty level.

So, we can probably figure that most people who sustain at writing careers love to do it. I certainly love that portion of the work I do. It's a passion, and of course that's what I write about in my book RELAUNCH! Finding passion and meaning in work is addictive. Yet if writing is your passion, how can you do it and make a living? This is an important question for writers and writing related professionals in all stages of their careers. The field has changed enormously bringing in new jobs and careers, and making old ones obsolete. This is important information for experienced writers, many of whom are struggling both with the changes and resulting financial instability. It may be even more important for new and aspiring writers who will need to take advantage of the new landscape of opportunities to guide their careers in directions that make writing lucrative enough to sustain as a full time career.

Moving forward, future blogs will look at the variety of current and emerging writing jobs, and how to take advantage of them. This is an ideal series to actualize my own work passions, since my career has focused on helping others make career decisions and lately on writing books about it.