Rose-tinted Thinking?
Two things happened to me over the last week that got me thinking about the world of writing. The first was this. A friend informed me that I was wearing rose-tinted glasses if I thought I could make a living as a writer and that I should just get a 'normal' job. This wasn't a personal slap-in-the-face but rather this person's opinion of writers in general. Secondly, a worried writer friend sent me the link below. The article that had so chafed on her emotions appeared in the Guardian, From bestseller to bust: is this the end of an author's life? by Robert McCrum. This article uses the story of a handful of successful authors ( Rupert Thomson , Paul Bailey , and Joanna Kavenna ) to discuss whether it is profitable, or even sustainable, to write for a living nowadays. With the onslaught of Amazon, the ongoing worrying financial climate, the growing popularity of ebooks and the increasing availability of free material online, can writers support themselves fi...