Hi. I'm looking for someone who has been writing long enough to know where the money is and isn't in this craft. I was surprised to see how the Writers Guild of America has attached rates to all writing projects in the film and TV and Theater industries. Wondering how writing can make you a multi-millionaire. Is the answer only in Novels that do very well and become movies? (like you know who) Thx!
I'm unpublished, but from what I understand, if you want to get rich, writing isn't the way to go. Try heavyweight boxing instead. You stand a better chance of making a million bucks and it doesn't hurt as much.
If you're in this for the money, you'd be better off banking money you make working at McDonald's. The blockbuster success you are seeking only comes to a very small percentage of authors -- just like actors going to Hollywood hoping to become the next Tom Cruise. Not many of them make it.
Where the money is: the miniscule fraction of a percentage point of writers who are good and got lucky or mediocre/terrible and got very lucky. Where the money isn't: everywhere else.
humor aside, revo, multimillionairehood occurs [albeit only for a miniscule percentage] most commonly for novelists and screenwriters... and, even more rarely, for self-help book authors...
The best ones do, though admittedly only the top fraction of the field. You can say that about any type of writing, though. If you're just looking to make a decent living with writing, rather than become a multi-millionaire, and you're not bothered about what you write, I'd still recommend advertising as the way you're most likely to manage it.
can you name me any ad-writer who was paid millions for a piece of work?... who'd be paying those millions?
Clayton Makepeace. Gary Bencivenga. John Carlton. There are more. Some direct mail ad writers receive royalties - usually a few cents for every letter they write that gets sent out. If their letter does well, it can get sent to tens of millions of people, for years. That adds up. And the people who commission those ads will happily pay that for as long as those ads are profitable.
