The Economics of Being a Brooklyn Writer: or Writing Has Become a Privileged Profession
One of the more commons accusations flung at media outlets is that very few media offices have significant employee diversity. And while that usually is meant to be an indication of racial and/or ethnic diversity, it is also an indictment of the lack of variety in socio-economic background. This isn’t to say that everyone who works in media in New York is objectively well-off. Far from it, in fact. I mean, even many people who are gainfully employed don’t have such basic things as health insurance, let alone a 401k. However, many of them do come from secure enough backgrounds that they can feel comfortable taking certain, calculated career risks (aka being a creative professional) in order to try to attain their professional dream job, or something close to it. And so even people who work on a permalance basis and barely make four figures a month manage to scrape by in Brooklyn because they’re still on their parents’ family cell phone plan, or they live with half a dozen roommates, or maybe with just two roommates, but those two roommates? Are their parents. Which, there is nothing wrong with any of that. There is nothing wrong with getting help from family or friends who can afford to give it. But with the economy still being in pretty desperate shape (it was revealed yesterday that the median income in America has dropped by 8.3% since 2007) and rents reaching record highs, it becomes more and more clear that in order to succeed in a career that pays little and makes absolutely no promise of future financial or job security, that the only people who can really afford to risk entering the fold are those who have the least to lose if they fail. Because, lest we forget, this is a city where people can be working two different jobs, and still be living in a homeless shelter because there isn’t any available affordable housing.
And so writing. Let’s say a writer has no intention of entering into the unstable, not at all lucrative field of print or online journalism, and instead just wants to work on a novel, or poetry, or a memoir; well, what then? Then, it seems, that writer had better be prepared to have another job, preferably a full-time one at that. Few are the writers in Brooklyn who can afford to write only books, especially if those books comprise poetry. Many well-regarded authors (even Jonathan Safran Foer!) teach as well as write, and few of those writer/teachers have made anywhere near the money Safran Foer did from his books. Beyond teaching (which, that’s the safety net of the MFA right there!), writers work in publishing, have their own magazines, work in bookstores, work for startups, write ad copy, babysit, tutor, give piano lessons, and do all sorts of things that have nothing to do with their literary aspirations but everything to do with, you know, eating and clothing themselves. All of which is to say, fuck. It’s not easy to carve out a profession in a field that wholly favors those who were born with distinct advantages in life, including inherited wealth and connections.
Which, you know. Surprise! Privilege begets more privilege. There’s nothing really that new there. And of course, I’d be remiss in acknowledging the other kind of privilege that allows writers to become successful, namely the privilege of intelligence and talent. And make no mistake, those are privileges. While a well-meaning, connected average thinker can probably muddle his or her way through in fields that don’t need smart, trenchant, compelling content produced in quantities unknown in the age before digital media, that same average thinker would quickly be shown the door in most journalism establishments. Most of the writers who succeed are smart and gifted and deserve to have risen up from whatever low-paying (or no-paying) job they started out in. The problem of course with the economics of being a writer is that the field of people who are starting out are already self-selected, featuring young people from incredibly similar backgrounds and without a ton of racial or ethnic diversity. A study done earlier this summer revealed that the number of minorities in newsrooms has dropped since the 1980s, the number of women has stagnated, and economic diversity is almost non-existent. It’s pretty easy to feel hopeless about the economics of being a writer in Brooklyn in the year 2013. Writers (no matter what they’re writing) are expected to generate more content and more influence for less money and less job security, and it’s hard to see a major change happening all that quickly, because for every writer who finds themselves ultimately priced out of New York, or unable to continue in their chosen profession, there is someone new, who has financial support, and so can take the unpaid internships or low-paying jobs.
This is, to say the least, frustrating. But it’s not the end of the story. Not really. The best way, the only way, for writers to push back against the unfair economics of being a writer is to ask for more. This sounds simplistic maybe, but it is something that is actually rarely encouraged. After all, when you are working in a competitive industry and manage to get a job or an internship, you’re supposed to be grateful. But fuck grateful. Get paid, and then get grateful. Unless there is a concrete value attached to something (and, no, “exposure” is not a concrete value, the only people who think so have never needed to worry about rent), don’t do it. But don’t walk away quietly. Ask for more. When you aren’t making that much money to begin with, you have less to lose, and everything to gain. I guess if there’s one thing that the economy of the Brooklyn writer can teach everyone who’s struggling in this city, writer or not, it’s that no one should work for free, and that even if you think you won’t have another opportunity, it’s better to skip out on a troubling system with foundational problems than it is to actively agree to participate in a field that doesn’t recognize your worth. I mean, all of this is moot if you get a great paying job at Condé Nast, of course. Then just go for it. You’ve won the Brooklyn writer’s sweepstakes and you should enjoy it. It could happen to you, and all that. But if it doesn’t? Never settle for less than you’re worth, and never, EVER write a post about getting a rodent stuck in your butt for xoJane. Nothing is worth that. Not even fifty bucks.