Ten ways to make money as an author aside from writing books!
If you have a day job and you’re thinking of giving it up to chase your dream of becoming an author, then I hope you either have a sizeable inheritance or a rich partner. Because guess what? This ain’t a gig you do for the money! The average Australian yearly income for an author according to Macquarie University is $12,900. Want to be a professional poet? You’re looking at an average yearly income of $4,000. So when authors say they write for passion not money, they speak Gospel truth.
As an author signed to one of Australia’s biggest publishers, writing commercial fiction - the highest selling genre, I still need to find ways to supplement my author income, as do the majority of my friends who are popular well-known authors. Advances aside, if you’re traditionally published in Australia, you earn an average of just under $2.50 per book before paying tax and your literary agent if you have one. If you do the maths, that’s A LOT of books you need to sell to make decent money!
Like many professional authors who still have day jobs, I work part-time as a physiotherapist. I’m friends with about a hundred Aussie authors. To give you an idea, only four of them would earn the same as what I did when I was a full-time physiotherapist (and physios aren’t exactly known for their riches.)
But all hope is not lost! You can still earn a decent income as an author. The average income for an Australian author inclusive of ALL their income is $67,000.
So how can you make money outside of book sales? I’m glad you asked. Here are ten ways to do that. And don’t forget, you don’t have to wait to be invited, you can instigate these things yourself! Approach people and let them know you’re keen, submit blog ideas when you think of them, make it known on your website that you’re available for workshops and talks and can be booked, put yourself out there on Facebook – basically just hustle :)
1. Write articles and submit them to magazines, newspapers and websites.
This is the most common way for authors to earn a quick buck. Many magazines, newspapers and websites pay for freelance submissions for their publications. I haven’t done this myself but loads of my writer friends regularly do. Writing a short article (300 - 1000 words) could take you an hour or a full day depending on the speed at which you work and the amount of research required for the article.
Pay rates vary, but you can expect to be paid between $150- $350 per article – again this would depend on where you submit.
Articles can be around trending topics, how-to guides or personal essays. Here’s a list of publications (online and/or in print) that pay for freelance articles or blog posts that people I know have successfully submitted to:
Cosmopolitan
The Guardian
Mamamia
Motherish
KYD
Overland
Meanjin
The Boston Globe
The New York Times
Woman’s Day
Elle Magazine
Marie Claire
Good Housekeeping
Oxygen
Daily Life
Slow
The Big Issue
2. Library Talks
Now these I have done loads of! Depending on the shire and how funding is distributed, many public libraries pay for author talks. These events are also a wonderful way to connect with readers. If you’re self-published, often you can take your book to sell there. If you’re traditionally published then your publishing house will organise a bookseller to be at your talk so you get the added bonus of selling books as well as getting paid to be there meeting potential readers!
If it’s a library that pays authors, then they usually go by ASA (Australian Society of Authors) rates of $350 per hour for a 60 - 80 minute event which is usually a forty-minute talk followed by an audience Q and A session and a book signing.
3. School Workshops
Schools will also pay for authors to give workshops on a multitude of topics. If you’re a children’s author, you’ll be in high demand in primary schools – especially around Book Week. If you write for Young Adults or have written a relevant non-fiction book, you can give talks about your book to high school students.
Schools may ask you to present workshops for career days or just come in and spend an hour talking about what an author life involves.
You can also do writing workshops – I’ve done workshops for senior high school English Literature students on skills needed for good creative writing pieces to help them prepare for ATAR exams. If I can do it, you can do it!
Schools also follow ASA rates as follows:
· Whole school day (max. 3 sessions) = $600
· Half school day (max. 2 sessions) = $450
· Per school session (max. 1 session) = $300
· Weekly school rate (max. 5 days - average 3 sessions per day) $2500
4. Take part in conference panels and present conference workshops
There are writers’ conferences and festivals all around Australia, all year long. Don’t be afraid to submit ideas and share your knowledge with other writers.
Different conference committees will pay you different amounts, depending on how much money they have set aside for presenters, but to give you an idea, I’ve been paid $150 to do a shared 45-minute workshop for one conference that I presented with another author, $400 for a one-hour workshop that I ran on my own at another conference as well as $150 to be part of a one-hour panel discussion.
Here’s a list of the literary festivals and conferences in Australia in 2017. Not all of them pay their presenters, but lots do. Festivals and conferences can select presenting authors over a year in advance so odds are you’re too late for this year’s gigs, but you can always put on your thinking cap and decide what valuable stuff you have to offer other writers next year as many of these are annual events.
https://jasonnahrung.com/2017-australian-literary-festival-calendar/
5. Organise a writers’ retreat
Many writers love going on retreat to immerse themselves in the world of writing, away from life’s daily distractions. Why not organise one? It’s a lot of work and you need to be highly motivated and committed to take this on, but it’s also a great way to top up your income, get yourself free accommodation somewhere beautiful and scenic and connect with other writers.
I’m running an overseas writing retreat at the end of the year in Wales and planning a local retreat for 2018. Even though it’s quite hard work to organise, I’ve loved the small community bond formed with the other writers who have all become friends. The excitement leading up to a shared adventure is really special and unique and I hope that the adventure itself will be amazing.
Financially for my family, organising a retreat in Europe has covered our airfares to get there, which is pretty good money, hey?
Here’s some information about running a writing retreat, a link to some retreats happening around the globe and to give you an idea of how I run my retreats, the link to my retreat page on my website:
This is a great article about how to plan a retreat:
http://www.wow-womenonwriting.com/22-FE3-CreateYourOwnRetreat.html
Here’s a list of some of the writing retreats around the world this year:
https://thewritelife.com/writing-retreats/
All you need to know about how I am running my Winter in Wales writing retreat:
http://www.tesswoods.com.au/retreat.html
6. Take on manuscripts to assess
Lots of authors have critique partners – friends who critique each other’s manuscripts. Sometimes this works really well and sometimes not so well for various reasons.
Instead of a critique partner, I used an independent manuscript assessor when I was writing my first novel, Meredith Whitford of Between Us manuscript assessments. She was an author too, but unknown to me so we weren’t mixing writing advice with friendship. I paid her to read my work and to give an author’s opinion. It was invaluable to me as a writer and I think more authors should offer this sort of work. There’s certainly a market for it!
Meredith charged me around $300 to read and critique (not edit) my manuscript almost 10 years ago. I think it would be safe to say you could charge at least $500 to read and critique an average length (85k words) book now.
If you have critiqued for friends and have experience in this area, why not use that skill to help other writers and make money?
7. Run courses online or at writers’ centres
Most writers’ centres in Australia pay authors to run courses on everything from the craft of writing, to branding, to how to best submit manuscripts to agents and publishers. Courses run both online and in classes that people attend in person.
Rates of pay vary depending on the organisation. Authors can be asked to set an hourly rate. If this is the case for you, I strongly recommend asking for ASA rates – it just keeps things fair, and don’t forget to factor in your research and preparation time not just the amount of hours your course runs for.
There’s an almost palpable lack of self-worth among authors, especially Australian authors. It’s almost as if authors think THEY need to be the ones to be paying libraries they visit or places where they’re given a voice like writers’ centres. Remember that you have a sought after skill and a unique experience and knowledge to share when setting your rates. That said, sometimes accepting a lower rate than ASA rates can be the way to go if it’s for charitable causes or when writers’ centres heavily promote you and your books to their members, especially if they have a huge member base.
And it’s not just writers’ centres that seek authors to run their courses. Other organisations, like the Romance Writers of Australia for example, also pay authors to teach in their online programmes. Worth exploring I reckon!
8. Offer to mentor new writers
If you’re a published writer, then you have lots of knowledge you can share with new writers. Offering a mentorship is a great way to earn extra cash and help other writers at the same time. Mentorships can be as full on or laid back as you like and it’s up to you to work out your fees. Charging ASA rates of $350 per hour would make seeking mentorship out of the price range of most writers so it’s a good idea to charge less here.
Some authors who have had best-sellers charge $250 per hour for one on one mentorship. Hours charged can be for time spent reading the manuscript as well as emails, phone calls, Skype calls or meetings in person. Authors with more modest success might charge less at $100 per hour. You can make your own decision about what your time is worth, but have a think about this - if you only mentored one author for only one hour a fortnight, charging $100 for each session then over the course of a year you just pocketed an extra $2600.
9. Apply for a writer in residence grant
Being a writer in residence not only means you get to write in peace away from ratty kids (or cats crawling on your keyboard), but you get paid to do it too! Many writing centres give grants out for short and longer term writers in residence both locally and overseas.
For an example on what you can expect to earn, a WA writer in residence position was advertised earlier this year for $2,500 a week plus all food and accommodation on top of that. Often writers in residence grants come with the expectation to teach a class or run a workshop but sometimes it’s just a “we want to shower a writer with money to encourage the arts” kind of deal.
Schools and universities around the country also offer writers in residence programmes (these almost always come with the expectation of lectures or workshops.)
Writing WA put together this great list of residencies:
http://www.writingwa.org/poetry/residencies/
10. If all else fails, you can always just sell drugs
Kidding! I’m kidding! Calm down people, sheesh. Gawd, you’re going to email me a complaint now aren’t you?
As an author signed to one of Australia’s biggest publishers, writing commercial fiction - the highest selling genre, I still need to find ways to supplement my author income, as do the majority of my friends who are popular well-known authors. Advances aside, if you’re traditionally published in Australia, you earn an average of just under $2.50 per book before paying tax and your literary agent if you have one. If you do the maths, that’s A LOT of books you need to sell to make decent money!
Like many professional authors who still have day jobs, I work part-time as a physiotherapist. I’m friends with about a hundred Aussie authors. To give you an idea, only four of them would earn the same as what I did when I was a full-time physiotherapist (and physios aren’t exactly known for their riches.)
But all hope is not lost! You can still earn a decent income as an author. The average income for an Australian author inclusive of ALL their income is $67,000.
So how can you make money outside of book sales? I’m glad you asked. Here are ten ways to do that. And don’t forget, you don’t have to wait to be invited, you can instigate these things yourself! Approach people and let them know you’re keen, submit blog ideas when you think of them, make it known on your website that you’re available for workshops and talks and can be booked, put yourself out there on Facebook – basically just hustle :)
1. Write articles and submit them to magazines, newspapers and websites.
This is the most common way for authors to earn a quick buck. Many magazines, newspapers and websites pay for freelance submissions for their publications. I haven’t done this myself but loads of my writer friends regularly do. Writing a short article (300 - 1000 words) could take you an hour or a full day depending on the speed at which you work and the amount of research required for the article.
Pay rates vary, but you can expect to be paid between $150- $350 per article – again this would depend on where you submit.
Articles can be around trending topics, how-to guides or personal essays. Here’s a list of publications (online and/or in print) that pay for freelance articles or blog posts that people I know have successfully submitted to:
Cosmopolitan
The Guardian
Mamamia
Motherish
KYD
Overland
Meanjin
The Boston Globe
The New York Times
Woman’s Day
Elle Magazine
Marie Claire
Good Housekeeping
Oxygen
Daily Life
Slow
The Big Issue
2. Library Talks
Now these I have done loads of! Depending on the shire and how funding is distributed, many public libraries pay for author talks. These events are also a wonderful way to connect with readers. If you’re self-published, often you can take your book to sell there. If you’re traditionally published then your publishing house will organise a bookseller to be at your talk so you get the added bonus of selling books as well as getting paid to be there meeting potential readers!
If it’s a library that pays authors, then they usually go by ASA (Australian Society of Authors) rates of $350 per hour for a 60 - 80 minute event which is usually a forty-minute talk followed by an audience Q and A session and a book signing.
3. School Workshops
Schools will also pay for authors to give workshops on a multitude of topics. If you’re a children’s author, you’ll be in high demand in primary schools – especially around Book Week. If you write for Young Adults or have written a relevant non-fiction book, you can give talks about your book to high school students.
Schools may ask you to present workshops for career days or just come in and spend an hour talking about what an author life involves.
You can also do writing workshops – I’ve done workshops for senior high school English Literature students on skills needed for good creative writing pieces to help them prepare for ATAR exams. If I can do it, you can do it!
Schools also follow ASA rates as follows:
· Whole school day (max. 3 sessions) = $600
· Half school day (max. 2 sessions) = $450
· Per school session (max. 1 session) = $300
· Weekly school rate (max. 5 days - average 3 sessions per day) $2500
4. Take part in conference panels and present conference workshops
There are writers’ conferences and festivals all around Australia, all year long. Don’t be afraid to submit ideas and share your knowledge with other writers.
Different conference committees will pay you different amounts, depending on how much money they have set aside for presenters, but to give you an idea, I’ve been paid $150 to do a shared 45-minute workshop for one conference that I presented with another author, $400 for a one-hour workshop that I ran on my own at another conference as well as $150 to be part of a one-hour panel discussion.
Here’s a list of the literary festivals and conferences in Australia in 2017. Not all of them pay their presenters, but lots do. Festivals and conferences can select presenting authors over a year in advance so odds are you’re too late for this year’s gigs, but you can always put on your thinking cap and decide what valuable stuff you have to offer other writers next year as many of these are annual events.
https://jasonnahrung.com/2017-australian-literary-festival-calendar/
5. Organise a writers’ retreat
Many writers love going on retreat to immerse themselves in the world of writing, away from life’s daily distractions. Why not organise one? It’s a lot of work and you need to be highly motivated and committed to take this on, but it’s also a great way to top up your income, get yourself free accommodation somewhere beautiful and scenic and connect with other writers.
I’m running an overseas writing retreat at the end of the year in Wales and planning a local retreat for 2018. Even though it’s quite hard work to organise, I’ve loved the small community bond formed with the other writers who have all become friends. The excitement leading up to a shared adventure is really special and unique and I hope that the adventure itself will be amazing.
Financially for my family, organising a retreat in Europe has covered our airfares to get there, which is pretty good money, hey?
Here’s some information about running a writing retreat, a link to some retreats happening around the globe and to give you an idea of how I run my retreats, the link to my retreat page on my website:
This is a great article about how to plan a retreat:
http://www.wow-womenonwriting.com/22-FE3-CreateYourOwnRetreat.html
Here’s a list of some of the writing retreats around the world this year:
https://thewritelife.com/writing-retreats/
All you need to know about how I am running my Winter in Wales writing retreat:
http://www.tesswoods.com.au/retreat.html
6. Take on manuscripts to assess
Lots of authors have critique partners – friends who critique each other’s manuscripts. Sometimes this works really well and sometimes not so well for various reasons.
Instead of a critique partner, I used an independent manuscript assessor when I was writing my first novel, Meredith Whitford of Between Us manuscript assessments. She was an author too, but unknown to me so we weren’t mixing writing advice with friendship. I paid her to read my work and to give an author’s opinion. It was invaluable to me as a writer and I think more authors should offer this sort of work. There’s certainly a market for it!
Meredith charged me around $300 to read and critique (not edit) my manuscript almost 10 years ago. I think it would be safe to say you could charge at least $500 to read and critique an average length (85k words) book now.
If you have critiqued for friends and have experience in this area, why not use that skill to help other writers and make money?
7. Run courses online or at writers’ centres
Most writers’ centres in Australia pay authors to run courses on everything from the craft of writing, to branding, to how to best submit manuscripts to agents and publishers. Courses run both online and in classes that people attend in person.
Rates of pay vary depending on the organisation. Authors can be asked to set an hourly rate. If this is the case for you, I strongly recommend asking for ASA rates – it just keeps things fair, and don’t forget to factor in your research and preparation time not just the amount of hours your course runs for.
There’s an almost palpable lack of self-worth among authors, especially Australian authors. It’s almost as if authors think THEY need to be the ones to be paying libraries they visit or places where they’re given a voice like writers’ centres. Remember that you have a sought after skill and a unique experience and knowledge to share when setting your rates. That said, sometimes accepting a lower rate than ASA rates can be the way to go if it’s for charitable causes or when writers’ centres heavily promote you and your books to their members, especially if they have a huge member base.
And it’s not just writers’ centres that seek authors to run their courses. Other organisations, like the Romance Writers of Australia for example, also pay authors to teach in their online programmes. Worth exploring I reckon!
8. Offer to mentor new writers
If you’re a published writer, then you have lots of knowledge you can share with new writers. Offering a mentorship is a great way to earn extra cash and help other writers at the same time. Mentorships can be as full on or laid back as you like and it’s up to you to work out your fees. Charging ASA rates of $350 per hour would make seeking mentorship out of the price range of most writers so it’s a good idea to charge less here.
Some authors who have had best-sellers charge $250 per hour for one on one mentorship. Hours charged can be for time spent reading the manuscript as well as emails, phone calls, Skype calls or meetings in person. Authors with more modest success might charge less at $100 per hour. You can make your own decision about what your time is worth, but have a think about this - if you only mentored one author for only one hour a fortnight, charging $100 for each session then over the course of a year you just pocketed an extra $2600.
9. Apply for a writer in residence grant
Being a writer in residence not only means you get to write in peace away from ratty kids (or cats crawling on your keyboard), but you get paid to do it too! Many writing centres give grants out for short and longer term writers in residence both locally and overseas.
For an example on what you can expect to earn, a WA writer in residence position was advertised earlier this year for $2,500 a week plus all food and accommodation on top of that. Often writers in residence grants come with the expectation to teach a class or run a workshop but sometimes it’s just a “we want to shower a writer with money to encourage the arts” kind of deal.
Schools and universities around the country also offer writers in residence programmes (these almost always come with the expectation of lectures or workshops.)
Writing WA put together this great list of residencies:
http://www.writingwa.org/poetry/residencies/
10. If all else fails, you can always just sell drugs
Kidding! I’m kidding! Calm down people, sheesh. Gawd, you’re going to email me a complaint now aren’t you?