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Great breakdown. Of course as you say it's so easy to forget what a privilege it is to be published, and all published writers need to try to remember that (so we are debating privileges on top of privileges) But as you point out, writing as a job is not consistent either. There's no health care, or benefits. Etc. So total amount of money, unless it reaches ludicrous levels, doesn't really matter at all. You could earn 250k on a novel, but if you publish one every 10 years, that doesn't amount to a livable wage.

So the real unremarked-upon privilege in the writing world is if you are not the main income-earner for your household. Quite simply, there is essentially no way to be the main income-earner from writing books (outside of maybe a couple hundred living individuals - you might as well try to govern a small country as a career path). So most published authors either a) teach writing at a college as their main job and write on the side or b) are not the main-income earner. Being (b) is by far the biggest advantage in the industry you can have in the long run, imo. But it's the kind of invisible privilege all too easily skipped over.

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Agree completely. Yeah part of the reason money is such a taboo topic in publishing is b) or perhaps also a c): family money and author doesn't have to work full time.

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It's not a career. It's an expensive hobby. Some hobbies end up paying off, but you don't go into one expecting that to happen. With AI writers coming down the pike, the content glut is going to get even worse.

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Given the underwhelming nature of what I’ve seen so far from the field of AI, I’m not at all worried about AI writers.

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