The Creative Hustle: How artists make it pay. Interview 5 - The Writer

The Creative Hustle: How artists make it pay The Writer Profile: 005 // Gender: Female // Age: 37

My income varies quite enormously. Last year was my best year for a little bit - which is kind of horrible, obviously, since it was in a pandemic, but that was £57,000. The highest it's ever gone because of a book advance I got - was £110,000, and it can go down to around £25,000. It varies a lot - it's definitely not on a trajectory, either up or down.

and also because of having a baby this year, so I'll be taking time off for that. You have in your head that [your salary] should always go up [each year].

I feel anxious about the fact that my earnings don’t follow a pattern.

I supported myself with a variety of non-writing-related jobs for several years while working on my writing, and when I gradually quit those jobs one by one, there was no big flourish - no big moment of ‘now I am a writer!’ I figured I had enough writing income to see me to the following year, and then maybe I’d have to go back to another job. That was 7 years ago, and still all the jobs I do are connected to my writing. But I still have it in my head that maybe next year, or the year after, that won’t be the case.

And I shouldn't - because obviously when it's a year when you earn more you just save [some of] it. I’ve been freelance my whole life, I went straight from doing per hour work - waiting tables, working in a call centre, that kind of thing - to being freelance. I've never had a salary, never had sick pay, never had holiday pay in my entire life.

So I'm quite used to not relying on a monthly income or even an annual income. Sometimes it makes me anxious, and sometimes it makes me feel like a failure because like I know for a fact that [my income] this financial year is going to be significantly smaller than last - because of the way that my book advances have worked out,

I’ve never dared to think that being a full-time writer is anything other than temporary.

About a third to a half of my income comes from writing - so book advances and royalties. And then the remaining is split between teaching (through universities, or freelance mentoring, or editing

for different people), and events: festivals, readings, and one off things like writing a short story for radio or for an anthology.

Every uni that I've worked for, every single time, there's some kind of issue with payment. I'm sure I've spent more time trying to get paid than doing the work.

My book advances have ranged from £1,500 to £120,000.

And that, again, is not a trajectory in either direction - for me at least, you can get more money for one book and then significantly less for the next one. An agent will always push to try and get more [money] for you [from a Publisher, when agreeing an advance]. But you, the writer, have no control whatsoever. I 'm actually really fortunate in that I do get decent advances for my books. Publishing is not a meritocracy – lots of writers who are better than me, who work harder than me, don’t get big enough advances to live on. A lot of it is luck, timing, trends – things you can’t control. The difficult thing about writing a novel in particular, or a long form book, is that you spend one to five years writing it, having no clue about not only if anybody will buy it, but also how much money you’ll get. So that's quite precarious.

I don't actively seek out any of the freelance work at the moment.

I'm aware that that's something I will have to do in the future, probably. But right now I just wait for people to come to me, which they do to the point that it keeps it ticking over. I have taught for a few different universities on their Creative Writing masters course. I don't like lecturing, but I do like one-to-ones with students, where they send their work and I read it and we discuss it, that kind of thing. To be honest, I'm stopping doing that because the pay is awful, and the level of bureaucracy [to get paid] is also enormous.

During the pandemic I’ve been teaching online for private institutions. And actually, they're great to work for, because they've already got all the systems in place, and they just organise everything, which is really nice. The pay really varies - for a week-long course where I shared the teaching with another writer I was paid £950, and then for a one-day thing, it was £450. And then for a two hour slot, it was £500, so it’s really random. I try not to go below £250 for one hour of teaching. The only time I ever go below that is if it's a Scottish Book Trust event because they have a set fee, which is £175 - but I like them, and I think it's good the way that the organisation only has to pay half [of my fee, with the rest covered by the Scottish Book Trust], and it's usually libraries and schools and stuff.

With book festivals and events, there's such a grey area. A lot of places will try not to pay you at all because they say it’s promotion, which it is - ish. But even if you have a good conversion rate [of selling books at events] you don't actually see the money directly from that – it doesn’t go directly into your pocket. It goes towards paying off your advance, and you don’t get royalties until your advance is paid off. Apparently, only 20% of books actually earn out their advances, so it’s important for your agent to negotiate as good an advance as they can. That might be the only income you get directly from that book. Festivals in Scotland all pay a fee, but I know in England, a lot of festivals don't pay. And I have spoken to my publicist about this and said as a matter of principle, I don't think that's right. So I'm not going to do any festivals that don't pay

a fee. Edinburgh Book Festival will pay a writer either £150 or £200, and they’re really good to work with. Other festival [fees] can be tiny, it can be £50. To be honest, I will probably [always] do a festival, as long as it pays something, because I enjoy doing events, and reading my work aloud, and meeting readers. Also it's nice to have a trip, and it's nice to meet other writers as well.

members and a mortgage - but that’s just the way that it worked out.

Working for free isn't a hard line, because it depends if other people are getting paid.

I naively assumed that everyone basically in a similar situation to me, in that they kind of support themselves. I wish that we were all a bit more open and honest about that, just so that aspiring writers could have a realistic view of the writing life. I have never been supported by a partner or supported a partner. My partner and I earn similar amounts, so the good thing about that is - if we had to, if one of us couldn't work at all - we could get by on one of our wages. It would be difficult, but we could do it. But we do keep our finances quite separate. We’re having a baby soon, and I don’t know how that will affect our finances - I’ve never done this before. We started trying to get pregnant about four years ago, and it took a really, really long time, so we've been saving [money] for quite a long time.

I don't like feeling like the piss has been taken, or that the writer is the least important person in the situation. I don't like feeling like everyone's making money off your back, but you're not making any money. I did a mentoring project for about three years, where I mentored women and non binary people. I think I must have mentored about 12 or so writers. And it was just fantastic. There was really no prestige, there was no money, but I just really loved it.

Some of the writers I mentored have gone on to publish short stories and even get book deals, and it gives me so much pride to feel that I helped them on that journey in some way.

I think it's important to know that I currently don't have any dependents or any debt. So that takes a lot of pressure off. And that means that if I do have a lean year, I don't have to go into debt, because I don't have a huge amount of things I have to pay out. And I think what's also important to say is that I own my flat outright, so I don't have a mortgage. So even if everything else crumbles around me, I have a roof over my head, always, nobody can take that away from me. And the way that I got that was I had several family members all die, very close to one another. I feel very grateful to have this situation, but clearly I would rather have my family

It's really only in the past year that I've come to realise how many writers have either rich families or they're supported by their partners.

[When the baby comes] I know that my income will definitely drop long term.

My partner and I have planned very carefully that it's all going to be even [in terms of caring responsibility]; my partner can go down to working four days a week. But even so, I know that because I work from home, and because I'm freelancing, I don't work to specific hours. So if there's an emergency, and the baby's sick, it's going to be me that has to take the day off and look after the baby, even with our best intentions of keeping everything even.

However, luckily, I spent all of last year writing a book, which is out in 2022. And I spent all of the previous couple of years writing a book as well, which will come out in 2023. And I just for the first time sold a book on pitch. So usually I write the whole book and then sell it, but this time I pitched what I intended to write and then sold it on that basis. So that book will be out in 2024. So I'll have money coming in, even though I won't be actively earning it [when the baby is first born]. So that's worked out quite well.

My partner and I will both be off full time with the baby for the first three months. And then my partner is going to go back to work and I intend to go back to work. Am I just being hopelessly naive thinking I’ll be able to work with a three month old baby? I don’t know. I know that my income will be affected. But I don't know how yet. I'm hoping that because of the nature of the industry that I'm in, it won't be affected too much. I won’t be claiming any government money for maternity leave. We’re going to do shared parental leave, so my partner will basically take the maximum allowance from work. It’s four weeks paternity leave, which is better than a lot of places, where I think it's one week. After that, it's not full pay - it’s 90% [of the salary for a period] and then 50% [after that]. But we've already budgeted for that - we've just balanced our finances to take care of that shortfall.

within 30 days. And if they don't pay you, then you can add a late fee. So I always do that now, to make the point that they can't just pay you when they feel like it or when they get around to it. And I also don't feel guilty about it anymore. Because I think it's so awkward to talk about money. And it's so awkward to ask for money.

There is a real attitude around writing in particular [where people take the attitude of] ‘Don't you love it?’

And I mean, I do love it. But it's work, and it's work that I have done, and they've agreed to pay me a certain amount - I don't know why we always feel like we have to justify it.

Being healthy - being an able bodied person massively works in my favour. Because of travel time, energy levels, everything like that. I think anyone who doesn't have a disability or chronic illness has a huge advantage.

I wrote three or four novels before I sold one. And that's not wasted time, because it's learning time. But financially, even with a very good book advance - If I broke that down in terms of hours of work that’s way below minimum wage. It took me 10 years to develop the skills to do that. I don't think anybody would become a fiction writer to make money.

Knowing other writers and talking openly to other writers really helps. A friend recently told me that you have a legal right to be paid

The Creative Hustle is a research project conceived and delivered by Kathryn Welch (www.kathrynwelch.co.uk), delivered with support from Creative Scotland’s Stay, See, Share fund.