Make Money Writing Quotes & Sayings

It's a privilege to be able to have an idea and go into a group of executives and say, "I really want to write about this, and I really am interested in this," and for them to say, "Yes," and give you the money to make it. — Ryan T. Murphy

Every agent has a Sig Weiss - as a rosy dream. You sit there day after day paddling through oceans of slush, hoping one day to run across a manuscript that means something - sincerity, integrity, high word rates - things like that. You try to understand what editors want in spite of what they say they want, and then you try to tell it to writers who never listen unless they're talking. You lend them money and psychoanalyze them and agree with them when they lie to themselves. When they write stories that don't make it, it's your fault. When they write stories that do make it, they did it by themselves. And when they hit the big time, they get themselves another agent. In the meantime, nobody likes you. — Theodore Sturgeon

You want to write a book for so many reasons ... The main reason ... is because it will make you well-known and beloved and popular and successful and famous and respected. You also write ... to make money, but that motivation is not first on the list. — Helen Gurley Brown

Well, yes, as I was a rather bad actor then and I wasn't making enough money, I thought, to make enough money to not make money as an actor, I'd better do some writing. — Val Guest

People should practice an art in order to make their souls grow and not to make money or become famous. Paint a picture. Write. — Kurt Vonnegut

The worst part of writing fiction is the fear of wasting your life behind a keyboard. The idea that, dying, you'll realize you only lived on paper. Your only adventures were make-believe, and while the world fought and kissed, you sat in some dark room masturbating and making money. — Chuck Palahniuk

He used to think things like, This organic soymilk will make me healthy and that'll make my brain work better and that'll improve my writing. Also things like, The less I eat the less money I spend on publicly owned companies the less pain and suffering will exist in the world. Now he thinks things like, It is impossible to be happy. Why would anyone think that? — Tao Lin

Real writers-that is, capital W Writers-rarely make much money. Their biggest reward is the occasional reader's response ... Commentators-in-print voicing big fat opinions-you might call us small w writers-get considerably more feedback than Writers. The letters I personally find most flattering are not the very rare ones that speak well of my editorials, but the occasional reader who wants to know who writes them. I always happily assume the letter-writers is implying that the editorials are so good that I couldn't have written them myself. — Malcolm Forbes

Book authors are in high demand for speaking engagements and appearances; they are the new 'celebrity' and celebrities gain access. Authors not only make money from royalties or book advances but from their keynotes, presentations and strategically branded product lines. This includes entrepreneurial ideas for you to extend yourself beyond just writing and prepares you to add speaking and consulting to your revenue stream. You have to begin to look outside book sales and towards the speaking market. There are radio, interviews, news, television, small channel television keynotes, lectures, seminars and workshops. These types of events have the possibility to be much more lucrative than just selling books. In essence, the book builds and brands you in the public eye. It gives you credibility and the opportunity to be more than you are. It enables you to now be a voice, a teacher, a leader, an expert - after all, you wrote the book on it! — Kytka Hilmar-Jezek

Every year I write a tax advice column and I used to always make fun of that. One year, one of my favorite IRS commissioners, I think his name was Roscoe somebody, wrote that one of the most often-asked questions by taxpayers was, "How can I contribute more?" Well, I tell ya, ol' Roscoe's really been doing situps under parked cars again. I've heard a lot of people ask a lot of questions about taxes, but I never heard anybody say, "How can I, the ordinary person, send more money for no reason?" — Dave Barry

Y'know, we're all wasting our time writing this hack science fiction! You wanta make real money, you gotta start a religion! — L. Ron Hubbard

I can speak of my own criterion for judging whether or not a book is good or bad. I ask of it a single question, From how deep and true an impulse did it spring? Was it written merely to shock? Only to make money? Or was it written to create something more perfect and more lasting than the life experience from which it came? — Lawrence Clark Powell

A good list of questions to ask your advisor will include the following: Where will my money be held? Right answer: Somewhere else! Are you a broker? Right answer: No! Are you a dually registered advisor? Right answer: No! Do you or any affiliate have proprietary investments of any kind? Right answer: No! How are you compensated? Right answer: Total disclosure in writing and never make commissions on any investment product. What are the credentials of you and/or your team? Right answer: If planning is involved, a CFP is ideal to have on the team. What is your planning and investment management approach? Right answer: The firm should follow a coherent philosophy rather than a bunch of different strategies (unprincipled) and should follow an approach that does not involve market timing or active trading. — Peter Mallouk

Imagine a world where speaking or writing words can literally or directly make things happen, where getting one of those words wrong can wreak unbelievable havoc, but where the right spell you can summon immensely powerful agencies to work your will. Imagine further that this world is administered: there is an extensive division of labour, among the magicians themselves and between the magicians and those who coordinate their activity. It's bureaucratic, and also (therefore) chaotic, and it's full of people at desks muttering curses and writing invocations, all beavering away at a small part of the big picture. The coordinators, because they don't understand what's going on, are easy prey for smooth-talking preachers of bizarre cults that demand arbitrary sacrifices and vanish with large amounts of money. Welcome to the IT department. — Ken MacLeod

To make a deliberate falsification for personal gain is the last, worst depth to which either scholar or artist can descend in work or life.
(Letter to Muriel St. Clare Byrne, 8 September 1935) — Dorothy L. Sayers

People like to say their songs are like children, but you gotta get those kids out there so they can make some money and pay the rent. — Amanda Shires

I didn't get into writing to make money or get famous or any of that. I got into it to hit hearts, and man, when I get letters not just from the soldiers but from their kids, especially their kids, it makes it all worthwhile. — Tim O'Brien

Singer/songwriters spend two or three years making an album, and then it goes up for sale and everybody pirates it and you don't make any money. Whereas, writing a film score you still get presented with a paycheck. — Cliff Martinez

Everything can be learned, including, to a very large extent, to be what you are not. You can learn to be pretty if you are plain, charming if you are dull, thin if you are fat, youthful if you are aging, how to write though you are inarticulate, how to make money though you are not good with figures. — Henry Anatole Grunwald

People ask me, 'Why are you still writing books?' Like I'm still only writing to make money and as soon as I have enough I'll quit and go fishing? I like to write books. It's the most satisfying thing I do. — Elmore Leonard

The only thing you should have to do is find work you love to do. And I can't imagine living without having loved a person. A man, in my case. It could be a woman, but whatever. I think, what I always tell kids when they get out of class and ask, 'What should I do now?' I always say, 'Keep a low overhead. You're not going to make a lot of money.' And the next thing I say: 'Don't live with a person who doesn't respect your work.' That's the most important thing - that's more important than the money thing. I think those two things are very valuable pieces of information. — Grace Paley

problems, your challenges, your obstacles, your goals, and your ideas in writing. Make small lists such as a: To-do list. Everything you need to do, big and small. To-call list. Everyone you need to call, major and minor. To-get over list. Baggage in your life, empty and full. To-resolve list. Things that need decision or resolution. To-pay list. All matters of money you think about, paid and unpaid. — Jeffrey Gitomer

In my profession it isn't a question of telling good literature from bad. Really good literature is seldom appreciated in its own day. The best authors die poor, the bad ones make money - it's always been like that. What do I, an agent, get out of a literary genius who won't be discovered for another hundred years? I'll be dead myself then. Successful incompetents are what I need. — Walter Moers

Selling is crucial to your success because without the sale, you do not make any money. The great thing about writing a book to position yourself is that the book does a lot of the selling for you. People read the book and come to you for more answers. If you have products created to match the theme of your book, your platform (website) will do the selling for you. Automate as much of the process as you can with opt-in boxes, video sales landing pages and special offers. Make it as easy as you can for your fans and followers. Once your products are created, simply write about them, talk about them, and create articles from the content and say, "Yes" to interviews. The buzz created will point people back to your site where your automatic sales team is ready to take orders 24 hours a day. — Kytka Hilmar-Jezek

It is a transition, from modelling to singing, but for me it's a natural progression. The modelling was something I did to travel the world and make some money and end up doing what I want to do. It was a way for me to go gather the experience to write an album and now sing about it. — Erica Packer

I finished 'Ice Age: Continental Drift' in 2012, and I'm living in my agent's guest bedroom in Los Angeles because you don't make a ton of money writing an animated film. The movie makes a billion dollars, and you make 'twelve cents.' — Jason Fuchs

I write a song because I want to. I think the moment you start writing it to make money, you're starting to kill yourself artistically. — Pete Seeger

It's immoral that people make money out of writing crap, but I try not to obsess about it. I don't want to spend my life being angry. — Stella McCartney

Learning is not the consequence of teaching or writing, but rather of thinking ... so a playful, provocative, unclear but stimulating book could actually be more worth your money than a serious, clear book that tells you what to think but doesn't make you think. — Brian D. McLaren

I would assume that there is a greater amount of joy for you in being able to write and help produce your own stuff and make a decent living, but not get rich versus always doing the other stuff that you don't write, and make more money. — Julie Delpy

If your purpose is to make money, you shouldn't get into writing. — Amish Tripathi

People always try to make self-published authors feel insignificant. I have more respect for self-published authors, because I know the adversity they faced. They didn't just write a manuscript, query letter, and blam book deal. These authors had to do it the difficult way. There is no publisher, or agents, investing time, and money into making their book. Just the indie author's manuscript, own currency, and persistence. — Mary Sage Nguyen

I used to get letters from guys in prison. Anymore now I don't even open them. They'd ask me to please sign a couple of cards for their children. Then I see them on eBay two weeks later. Or the people that write and say, "You is one of my favorite cartoonists. I would like a drawing, please." I guess they encourage inmates to write letters to celebrities. It's like a way to make money by selling autographs or something. Give me a break. — Mike Royer

I honestly think if I had made a ton of money as an actor, I wouldn't have done anything else. (Hah!) Then I turned to writing plays. If that paid me well, I don't know if I would have turned to TV. Or coaching. I've now devised a combination of things partly because I'm having fun, and partly because I'm piecing together a way to make a living. — Steven C. Harper

I wonder why anyone would hesitate to be generous with their writing. I mean, if you really want to make a living, go to Wall Street and trade oil futures ... We're writers. We're doing something that is inherently a generous act. We're exposing ourselves to the muse and to the things that frighten us. Why do that if you're not willing to be generous? And paradoxically, almost ironically, it turns out that the more generous you are, the more money you make. But that's secondary. For me, the privilege of being generous is why I get to do this. — Seth Godin

If you want to make a little money, write a book. If you want to make a lot of money, create a religion. — L. Ron Hubbard

When I got to LA and was with the James Gang, I got the opportunity to write a lot, to play in front of large audiences, make some money. — Tommy Bolin

You know how some people will say to writers, "Why don't you just write a romance novel that sells a bunch of copies and then you'll have the money to do the kind of writing you want to do"? I always say that I don't have the skills or knowledge to do that. It would be just as hard for me to do that kind of writing as it would be to learn how to do any number of productive careers that I can't manage to make myself do. — Lucy Corin

At least initially, the relationship took on a nineteenth-century epistolatory quality. The only way they could stay in touch was by letter. In 1991, while South Korea was becoming the world's largest exporter of mobile telephones, few North Koreans had ever used a telephone. You had to go to a post office to make a phone call. But even writing a letter was not a simple undertaking. Writing paper was scarce. People would write in the margins of newspapers. The paper in the state stores was made of corn husk and would crumble easily if you scratched too hard. Mi-ran had to beg her mother for the money to buy a few sheets of imported paper. Rough drafts were out of the question; paper was too precious. The distance from Pyongyang to Chongjin was only 250 miles, but letters took up to a month to be delivered. — Barbara Demick

The studios don't seem to foster good writing. They're not so interested in that, but they're more interested in what worked most recently. They're definitely very serious about making money, and that's not a wrong thing, but you don't have to make money the same way all the time. — Bill Murray

Fortunately, I'm able to make a living from comics, so I'm privileged enough to be quite choosy, though most cartoonists can't afford to be. It's really an uncomfortable situation, since I'm not an illustrator, though I do get calls from morally indefensible businesses offering me money to decorate their ambitions. It's extremely rare, almost unheard of, in fact, that I am asked to do a comic strip. Do writers get calls to pen Toyota advertisements? Do composers get asked to write chamber pieces about exercise machines? — Chris Ware

If you want to write a book that's very successful and famous, then it's hard. If you just want to get published, all you have to do is convince an editor that your idea will make them money. — Kate Cary

A writer's primary goal is to make sense. The bookstore's is to make cents. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Google AdWords help with targeting people. Social media makes it easy to find people. A lot of people write blogs as a hobby. Others do it to make money. Instead of advertising on a blog, do a revenue share where you give them a 10-percent share for the business you receive. — Cameron Johnson

Did I grow up thinking I'd ever be paged at the Beverly Hills Hotel? Did I ever think I'd make so much money writing ads? No. — Jerry Della Femina

After a while the business end of writing takes too much of the writing time. Better to pay someone ten percent and find that you're still more than ten percent ahead in the end. Which is true. My present agent says that he always feels that a good agent during the course of a year should earn back for his client at least the ten percent he takes by way of commission, so the client's really nothing out. And what he should ideally do is make him more money than the ten percent. — Roger Zelazny

I stayed with him for three days, and he then asked: 'Do you know any craft by which to make your living?' I told him: 'I am a lawyer, a scientist, a scribe, a mathematician and a calligrapher.' 'There is no market for that kind of thing here,' he replied. 'No one in this city has any knowledge of science or of writing and their only concern is making money.' 'By God,' I said, 'I know nothing apart from what I have told you. — Anonymous

I took Eugene Sue's Arthur from the reading-room. It's indescribable, enough to make you vomit. You have to read this to realize the pitifulness of money, success, and the public. Literature has become consumptive. It spits and slobbers, covers its blisters with salve and sticking-plaster, and has grown bald from too much hair-slicking. It would take Christ of art to cure this leper. — Gustave Flaubert

I haven't modelled since I was 12 - that was a one-time thing, and I did it as a kid to make a little money to save up for university. Acting is my first love as well as writing and eventually producing and directing. — Kyle Schmid

When I write, I make decent money doing it, but I don't wake up dreaming about writing. — Grant Heslov

How much there is I want to do! I always feel that I haven't time to accomplish what I wish. I want to read much. I wanted to write a great deal. I want to make money. — Irving Fisher

Not to say people shouldn't get rich from art. I adore the alchemy wherein artists who cast a complex spell make rich people give them their money. (Just writing it makes me cackle.) But too many artists have been making money without magic. — Jerry Saltz

When I graduated college I needed to make money while I was pursuing acting, so I read screenplays and made a living writing coverage on them for studios. — Sasha Alexander

I don't understand why anyone would collect my work. Please understand ... it's like writing Our House. It took me an hour, it was 30 years ago, get over it! But people say, No, no, it changed my life, and I don't understand that. I can't take that seriously as a producer of what I consider to be art. If they want to collect it, fantastic. If you see what I saw when I took it and it means something to you, then by all means collect it. If I make some money, um, fine. — Graham Nash

I would recommend, definitely, developing a 'day job' that you like - don't expect to make money writing! — Lydia Davis

When I started, I was pretty sure I was going to be writing some goofy little wizard novels that might make me some part-time money and would hopefully lead to something I could do better. — Jim Butcher

I never had to plan what to write and I never calculated the amount of money I can make with books. Since I started writing, God has put into my life more experiences, knowledge and interesting people than what I can describe in my writings. — Daniel Marques

The first step - especially for young people with energy and drive and talent, but not money - the first step to controlling your world is to control your culture. To model and demonstrate the kind of world you demand to live in. To write the books. Make the music. Shoot the films. Paint the art. — Chuck Palahniuk

How many people make a career out of writing anyway?' Cath snapped. She felt like everything inside her was snapping. Her nerves. Her temper. Her esophagus. 'I'll write because I love it, the way other people knit or ... or scrapbook. And I'll find some other way to make money. — Rainbow Rowell

Before you can write a check, you must first make out a deposit slip; before you can draw money out of a bank, you must put money into a bank; before you are entitled to a living, you must give the world a life; if you want to make a first-class living, learn to give the world a first-class life. — William J.H. Boetcker

I had a very high opinion of my father's judgement of things and he said, "You better get a job that pays the bills because a writer doesn't make any money. If possible, get a job that allows you to write in your spare time." — Andrew Davies

Nothing induces me to read a novel except when I have to make money by writing about it. I detest them. — Virginia Woolf

I don't understand blogs. People used to write to make money, no? You didn't give it away. I have nothing against blogs. I don't have a problem with them. But it's like, 'What are you doing? Why aren't you working? — Frank Deford

Well, I've never met an indexer any more than I've met a real writer. I'm impressed." Miss Finch's tone had changed, and she was suddenly leaning toward me, almost half over the counter. "Tell me, do you make any real money at this job, writing indexes for books? — Larry D. Sweazy

For example, instead of being asked to write an article, suddenly editors wanted me to make super-short videos. The assumptions of those video gigs was that kids don't read as much news and basically need to be read to, which I found really problematic and kind of insulting. I thought, Isn't it just that you don't have any money and that's why you want me to make some crappy "content" for your website? — Astra Taylor

I fell into playwriting accidentally, took some classes in it, and also took creative writing classes, but I really didn't expect it to be a career because I didn't believe there was a way to make money as a playwright without being lucky and I didn't feel particularly lucky. — Orson Scott Card

Compelling a man by law to pay his money to elect candidates or advocate law or doctrines he is against differs only in degree, if at all, from compelling him by law to speak for a candidate, a party, or a cause he is against. The very reason for the First Amendment is to make the people of this country free to think, speak, write and worship as they wish, not as the Government commands. — Hugo Black

I want to make money, and I would like to have a lot of money, but I still believe that the only reason to write is that somehow it will make something or somebody better. — Aleksandar Hemon

The sisterhood of librarians is a non-profit organisation and our goal is to keep imagination alive, not make money. — S.A. Tawks

I don't find a lot of people actually saying things through music any longer. They are not trying to say anything with their music, they just want to make money with it. I think it's important to actually say something real, something meaningful, rather than just write some trash and try to sell it. — Robben Ford

I didn't make any money from my writing until much later. I published about 80 stories for nothing. I spent on literature. — Naguib Mahfouz

I'm blessed to be living this dream of writing and singing, but that's not the real dream I had. The real dream was to make enough money to take care of all the pain and suffering that my mother has been through. — Missy Elliott

For me, writing is a solitary thing and a personal thing. And it's weird, because when you make something that requires money and collaborators, you have to talk about them. I don't enjoy that part of it. I still want to keep it to myself. — Mike White

I have enjoyed writing my own stuff, and it's been a privilege to be able to scrap some money together to be able to make films from my own scripts. — Lisa Cholodenko

Writing is not the easiest way to make a living. Your work long hours, usually all by yourself. It is not a way to make money. — Stephen Ambrose

Everyone would like to be on Broadway, cause if a show works, you make a great deal of money and it allows you to write other shows. — Stephen Sondheim

The Hank Williams Syndrome: Come to Nashville, write some good songs, cut some hit records, make money, take all the drugs you can and drink all you can, become a wild man and all of a sudden die. — Waylon Jennings

You come out of your MFA program with a cogent clutch of stories, trying to get an agent interested, and she or he admits these are quality, sure, but this agent actually needs something the publisher can make money on. So you get kind of bullied by the market into writing a novel. — Stephen Graham Jones

I would not recommend poetry as a career. In the first place, it's impossible in this time and place - in this culture - to make poetry a career. The writing of poetry is one thing. It's an obsession, the scratching of a divine itch, and has nothing to do with money. You can, however, make a career out of being a poet by teaching, traveling around, and giving lectures. It's a thin living at best. — Maxine Kumin

Paul and I, we never thought that we would make much money out of the thing. We just loved writing software. — Bill Gates

I cherish the review-as-literature; as lapidary journalism in the eighteenth-century mode, the last hard sparkling diamond in theessayists's tarnished crown. To me, writing a good review is not just a way to make extra money, but a sacred duty. — Florence King

If I could make money making armpit farts, I would. But since I can't, I teach. And write. — Richard B. Knight

I review novels to make money, because it is easier for a sluggard to write an article a fortnight than a book a year, because the writer is soothed by the opiate of action, the crank by posing as a good journalist, and having an air hole. I dislike it. I do it and I am always resolving to give it up. — Cyril Connolly

Movie making is not like other art forms, like painting, or writing a novel, because that can be digested or interpreted ... It takes two years to make each one of these, and it's always judged on money. — M. Night Shyamalan

For a living I write stuff that I know is gonna sell to a studio and make a lot of money at the multiplex. — Robert Ben Garant

Writers don't make any money at all. We make about a dollar. It is terrible. But then again we don't work either. We sit around in our underwear until noon then go downstairs and make coffee, fry some eggs, read the paper, read part of a book, smell the book, wonder if perhaps we ourselves should work on our book, smell the book again, throw the book across the room because we are quite jealous that any other person wrote a book, feel terribly guilty about throwing the schmuck's book across the room because we secretly wonder if God in heaven noticed our evil jealousy, or worse, our laziness. We then lie across the couch facedown and mumble to God to forgive us because we are secretly afraid He is going to dry up all our words because we envied another man's stupid words. And for this, as I said, we are paid a dollar. We are worth so much more. — Donald Miller

What's the use of writing poetry for your peers? I don't think I should sell my poetry to other poets. If that's who my audience is, I'm dead, I'm not going to make any money. — Harley King

The funniest thing people say to me: "I wish I had your life". Hello! I make a living writing about it. — Daniel Marques

True authors don't write for fame or to make a name or money, they write to make impact — Bernard Kelvin Clive

I realized you might make money at writing, and you might even make a living at it. So after that I didn't write stories just for the class but wrote them for the purpose of submitting them somewhere, and at some point in the process, I began writing them just to please myself and that's where you begin to see the real value of a life of writing. — Dean Koontz

You can get away with breaking all of the other rules at least once in a while, but you can't get away with breaking this one. Readers will accept almost anything from you if you don't make them feel they have wasted their time and money. Remember, you can bore readers in a lot of different ways. It doesn't necessarily take a dearth of action; too much action can get you the same result. Everything in writing, like in life, requires balance. — Terry Brooks

I'm fortunate enough to act in a TV show that makes me a lot of money so I can pay for my own movies. I don't have to wait for anybody and that's more of what I like doing. But I still think that you don't have to be connected in the industry to make your movie. You just have to write something that is meant to be made cheaply. — Mark Duplass

The difference between you and I Dre is that i can take a bad experience and make money off it, You just have to live with yours until time blurs your memory of the details.
Most writers i know aren't beautiful by society's standard. Writing is not modelling but Writer's do have beautiful souls. — Crystal Evans

There is only one way to make money at writing, and that is to marry a publisher's daughter. — George Orwell

Ways to be actively involved in the solution: 1. Consider adoption. 2. Be a regular giver of your money to Crisis Pregnancy Centers. 3. Volunteer in a Crisis Pregnancy Center. 4. Be involved in spreading truth with good literature. 5. Make your presence know at the abortion clinics in town (by) writing or phoning or visiting and talking, if you can, with those who work there. 6. Dream a new kind of ministry. 7. Pray! — John Piper

Directing is a more pragmatic experience, where you have to deal with the restrictions of time and money that force you to make certain decisions you don't have to make when you're writing. — Charlie Kaufman

My assumption when I began writing was that you were never going to make any money. And you were never going to reach everyone. Therefore you had to do as much as you could in the service of something you genuinely believed in. And if you do that and people get upset, well, there you go. — Dorothy Allison

The window on the right featured contemporary bestselling authors like Brad Meltzer, James Patterson, David Baldacci, Nelson DeMille, and others who make more money writing about what I do than I make doing what I do. — Nelson DeMille

Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man wants to make a million dollars, the the best way would be to start his own religion. — L. Ron Hubbard

My senior year of high school, I was voted 'Wittiest.' So, several years later, I decided to try my hand at writing humor to see if I could be witty enough to make some money. — Barbara Park