SCRATCH: WRITERS, MONEY, AND THE ART OF MAKING A LIVING

If you’re writing as a career, then Scratch: Writers, Money, and the Art of Making a Living, edited by Manjula Martin, is a must-read.  In 33 essays and interviews by Martin, writers talk about the subject that is often not discussed in polite society: money.

Some of the authors are vague on the money issue, but there’s still a lot of honesty in these pages. And Martin’s selection of authors is incredible; many of them are today’s “it” authors—Roxane Gay, Cheryl Strayed, Susan Orlean, Jonathan Franzen, and Daniel José Older.

Roxane Gay is one of the most honest, even telling Martin her salary in 2014 ($150,000). But of that, only 30 percent came from books. Forty percent of her income came from teaching and another 30 percent from speaking fees.

Even the big numbers don’t seem so big once authors explain what happens. Cheryl Strayed received an advance of $100,000 for Torch, but it was paid over four years. After the agent’s cut, she got $21,000 a year—before taxes. In the meantime, she had accrued $50,000 in credit card debt to write the book.

If there’s a message that winds throughout the book it is that artists are not paid well, and many authors only survive because of a second job, whether it is teaching, editing, or journalism. Alexander Chee writes that nonfiction has become his other job, apart from teaching. Malinda Lo admits that her wife’s job as a corporate lawyer provided some breathing space.

And while authors write for the love of writing, literary agent Kate McKean writes that it might be important to also look at the commercial aspects of the business. After writing a first novel, she realized it would not be sellable. “Not thinking about money wastes my time, and I only have so much time to write. Thinking about money has saved me from writing another novel that probably won’t sell.”

While much of the book touches on money, there are also essays about the author-agent relationship, first books (that are left in the drawer), and diversity (or lack of it) in the publishing industry.

Not only is this an honest book, but a hopeful one. As Chee says, “Selling fiction feels like I’ve cast a spell on the world and made it give me something that didn’t exist before.”
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And that, it seems, is priceless.