Writing and Money

WRITING AND MONEY

There's a sucker born every minute.
Phineas T. Barnum

It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous.
Robert Benchley

I got to thinking about the point in every freelancer's life where he has to decide whether he wants to A, have a social life, and do art in his spare time, or B, do art, and have a social life in his spare time. It has always seemed to me that if you have any hope of making a living as an artist – writer, musician, whatever – you absolutely must learn to tell people to leave you alone, and to mean it, and to eject them from your life if they don't respect that. This is necessary not because your job is more important than anyone else's – it isn't – but because a great many people will think of you as not having a job. 'Oh, how wonderful – you can work whenever you want to!' Well, yes, to a point, but generally 'whenever you want to' had better be most of the time, or else you won't have a roof over your head.
Poppy Z. Brite

Most writers can write books faster than publishers can write checks.
Richard Curtis

Writing is turning one's worst moments into money.
J. P. Donleavy

Stories may well be lies, but they are good lies that say true things, and which can sometimes pay the rent.
Neil Gaiman

There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money either.
Robert Graves

Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man wanted to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion.
L. Ron Hubbard

I never had any doubts about my abilities. I knew I could write. I just had to figure out how to eat while doing this.
Cormac McCarthy

Writing is its own reward.
Henry Miller

Writing is the hardest way of earning a living, with the possible exception of wrestling alligators.
Olin Miller

Almost anyone can be an author; the business is to collect money and fame from this state of being.
A. A. Milne

In the same way that a woman becomes a prostitute. First I did it to please myself, then I did it to please my friends, and finally I did it for money.
Ferenc Molnar
...after asked about how he became a writer

Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money.
Jules Renard

Writing isn't generally a lucrative source of income; only a few, exceptional writers reach the income levels associated with the best-sellers. Rather, most of us write because we can make a modest living, or even supplement our day jobs, doing something about which we feel passionately. Even at the worst of times, when nothing goes right, when the prose is clumsy and the ideas feel stale, at least we're doing something that we genuinely love. There's no other reason to work this hard, except that love.
Melissa Scott

The only two kinds of books could earn an American writer a living are cookbooks and detective novels.
Rex Stout