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How To Support Your Writing Career

There is no one way to support yourself while building your writing career. Many people have full-time non-writing-related jobs. Some people teach writing. Some people have spouses who support them. Others freelance write and edit. Still others are lucky enough to make a living selling books. Next week, I will examine different options writers can pursue in order to pay their bills while writing the Great American Novel. This week, I’d like you all to take a survey to let me know how you support your own writing careers. Thank you for taking a minute to click through the responses. Happy Tuesday!

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16 comments to How To Support Your Writing Career

  • Lol that survey was kind of hard to answer, given my upcoming transition out of employment and onto living-off-savings… But hiiiii, I'm back!

  • Very cool, can't wait for the results.

  • Hope you get a bigger sample than the three of us!

  • Kristan, you're back! YAY! And sorry, that wasn't meant to be a trick survey.

    Sierra – me, too!

    Travener – I hope so, too! I'm going to e-mail it to all my writer friends, so I'm hoping to get at least 20-30 responses.

  • julia

    the last two questions stumped me. there is no average income. it's feast or famine. my income has ranged from nearly $0 a year to over $100,000 lately (working on a nonfiction book).

  • Elena

    Thanks for doing this survey. I am very interested to see how it turns out.

  • I took the survey! Looking forward to your next post! 🙂

  • Julia – thanks for the comment. That's why I asked writers to average their income over three years. If I asked what your income was during a particular year, it would be misleading ($0 or $100k).

    Elena – I'm interested, too! I haven't see the results yet.

    Stephanie – thanks for taking the survey! See you soon!

    Ryan – thank you!

  • Done! The one thing that occurred to me is that there was no option for being supported by grants and the like. In any case, looking forward to seeing the results!

  • Meghan,

    What a great idea for a survey. I eagerly await the results 🙂

    Christi Corbett
    http://christicorbett.wordpress.com

  • I agree, hard questions to answer. Even with averaging income for three years it's difficult to say–the variations go from almost nothing to nearly six figures.

    But I'm glad someone is taking this topic on! Look forward to seeing what you come up with.

  • Laura – doh! Would have been good to have included grants and scholarships! Next time I'll create a more thorough survey based on all your suggestions.

    Christi – 59 people have taken the survey, so will be interesting to see the results. I haven't looked yet!

    Tara – I know, like Julia said it's feast or famine, but how else would you ask the question other than taking an average?

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