Sponsor Goes Here: When Writing Doesn’t Pay the Rent

“One book isn’t much for a man of thirty,” Katherine Hepburn observes to Jimmy Stewart in the movie The Philadelphia Story. Stewart’s struggling writer then patiently explains to Hepburn’s clueless heiress that in that day and age (1940), writers need other means to pay for their life, hence his job writing celebrity pieces for a scurrilous rag. Stewart later rejects Hepburn’s patronizing offer that he use one of her extraneous houses for his writing, saying, “Well, you see the idea of artists depending upon a patron Lady Bountiful has more or less gone out.” Well, yes and no.

Yesterday Salon published an article by writer and author Ann Bauer called “’Sponsored’ by my husband: Why it’s a problem that writers never talk about where their money comes from.” In it, Bauer challenges the writers (note: some writers, not all) who underplay or outright hide the critical factors that have made their books successes: independent wealth and influence.

Bauer’s main point is how unfair it is to current and burgeoning writers for some established writers to maintain a pretense that they are able to make their entire living solely on the back of their writing, when in reality they actually have other sources of incomes that foot the bill for their art, or to pretend that their influence, fame, or connections had little to do with the success of their books.

Not being independently wealthy or famous herself, Bauer honestly and openly details what she has done over the years to pay for and promote her writing career and then throws down the gauntlet, saying, “OK, there’s mine. Now show me yours.” Bauer’s piece was retweeted and linked to and it inspired other writers to rise to her challenge and admit their “sponsorships,” including myself. Over a series of Tweets I detailed just what my financial Lady Bountiful looks like:

The dream of living in an artist’s garret, living off apples like Jo March and writing to the exclusive of everything else in life is not my reality. I simply cannot afford it (my hair wouldn’t bring too high a price in today’s market) and, over the years, it’s been entirely due to my salary and benefits or my husband’s salary and benefits or my own freelance editing that I have been able do a lick of writing at all.

But to Bauer’s other point about influence, the passé Lady Bountiful Jimmy Stewart’s character alluded to didn’t just provide the financial stability an artist needed to produce their work, she also knew, and made certain the artist met, all the right, influential people who could guarantee the artist’s success.

I have zero fame and not much influence, either. At least not the kind of influence that was going to ensure my first book was read by millions of people when it came out. However, I worked what connections I had and I worked them hard.

Because of my connections, I got email addresses and introductions and I used them to pitch articles and interviews and bookstore readings and talks. Some worked out. Others didn’t.

Because of my connections, I have a letter from the CEO of Let’s Move saying he’d be happy to give First Lady Michelle Obama copies of my book. I don’t have any idea if she ever read it, but I’m satisfied that I did everything in my power to make it happen.

I worked really hard to write my book and I worked just as hard to promote it as much as I could without making myself completely insufferable to my friends. (I hope.) I will do the exact same for my next book.

Once I learned that having a New York Times bestseller wasn’t going to make me a millionaire, it actually took a lot of the pressure off being an author. I’ve accepted that I’m never going to be a Stephen King with a bibliography that can pay for an entire lifestyle. (Or five.) Most of us are not going to be Stephen Kings, but that doesn’t mean you stop writing or stop trying. You very well might be a Stephen King, but that’s not why you write.

You write because you have something to say and something you want to share, hopefully with a lot of people, or maybe with just a few who take the time to tell you how much you’ve touched them or spoken right to where they are at that moment.

You write because you can’t stop even if you’ve tried.

You write because you love it and hate it, but mostly love it.

And that’s the unvarnished truth. At least, it’s mine. The idea of writers depending on a Lady Bountiful hasn’t disappeared at all, she has just taken on other forms, and some of us, like Bauer, are willing to own up to the fact of them while others continue to maintain their own fiction.