Writing A Book Is Like Going To Grad School

Two goals that come wrapped in poverty, personal fulfillment, and professional gain.

Illustration by J Studios.

Once, years ago, a few years after I published my first book, a young man I was acquainted with through social media sent me a friendly message. That book was called The Oyster War, and in the course of asking what I was up to, he said—and I will never forget this—“are you still living off that Oyster War money?”

That Oyster War money. This was hilarious to me. Writing the book had cost me a significant amount, not just personally and logistically, but financially. The reporting took a few years, during which I had to pay for travel expenses and transportation. I had to clothe and house and feed myself. Sometimes other people housed, fed, and transported me. Some friends of mine lent me their 1970s German camper van, which I used while investigating oyster farms and seal haul-outs on the misty California coast. They cooked me eggy breakfasts and even lent me a windbreaker or two. Another California-based friend let me crash on his couch.

At that point, despite being armed with a book contract from a well-respected small publisher, I had only received a payment of $2,500 to write the book. That was after working on it for a few years already—enough to knock a decent nonfiction book proposal into shape. That $2,500 was half of my book advance, minus agent’s fees. A few months before the book was published, I received the other $2,500, which helped defray the costs of my $6,000 multi-state book tour, which was organized by my publisher but paid for entirely by me. Sometimes generous bookstore owners provided bottles of wine and paper cups.

Despite how it may sound, I am not in the least bit resentful or bitter about any of this. In fact, I count myself lucky. My first book was a (modest) success. It was widely and favorably reviewed in publications like National Geographic, Men’s Journal, and The Guardian. I was interviewed on NPR, on drive time radio, and at Google HQ. The book was shortlisted for several literary prizes, including the prestigious Orion Book Award. I had a number of packed readings, including one with live music, and another with an oyster bar and a fog machine, which we had to disconnect almost immediately because it made it look like the bookstore was on fire. My family was proud of me, and I dedicated the book to my father, who carried it around with him the week it came out like the littlest Darling kid in Peter Pan, holding his teddy bear. I sold out my advance, so that only two years after publication I was able to receive my first ever royalty check. It was enough to buy a nice-ish dinner. The checks keep arriving, twice a year. The amounts vary. Sometimes it’s enough to pay the gas bill. Sometimes, if some saintly bookstore employee has decided to put it on the front table or include it as part of a display on oceans, environmental issues, or California history, it’s enough to buy a new coat.

For most authors, this is what publishing success will look like, especially for a first book. But I often see a fair amount of shock expressed on social media when people learn how much an author has been paid by their publisher. This is because most people still have an unrealistically rosy view of the experience. I have written about this before. They imagine quit-your-day-job advances, lavish parties, free boozy lunches, and all-expenses-paid book tours with suites booked in swanky hotels. A bouquet of flowers and a fruit basket will be waiting for you in the room. High school bullies will catch wind of your successes and hang their heads in shame. Everyone who has ever rejected you will come back and beg to be given a second chance. Surely the fact that you have published a book means that you have made it—right? Surely you will at least be able to buy a house?

This is why I laughed when my social media acquaintance asked me if I was still living off my Oyster War money, years after it came out. The Oyster War money, such as it was, barely covered two months of a three year process. And the book was considered successful! But while the payment I received for writing the book remains far less than what I spent writing it, publishing it still changed my life—creatively, personally, and financially.

Publishing a book is not like winning the lottery or becoming a movie star. Not usually. This kind of success does happen to some authors, people like Colleen Hoover, who, I suspect, may have done a deal with a mysterious stranger at a crossroads in Mississippi somewhere, but for the most part writing and publishing a book is not like that. There is a big difference between becoming an author and becoming a celebrity author. For 99.9% of people who manage to do it, writing and publishing a book is more like going to grad school. It’s difficult, often expensive, sometimes soul-crushing, but potentially life-changing nonetheless.

I went to grad school, and it was okay. It took a lot of hard work to get there, and then once I was there, that was a lot of hard work too. I worked long, weird hours. I had to take supplemental jobs, like bartending and nannying, and even then I had to go into debt. Like, a lot of debt. It was sometimes exciting, sometimes tedious, and I was extremely poor the whole time. At the end there was a party where I wore an outfit made entirely of synthetic purple fabric, and I received an object made of paper that signified my accomplishment. (At least on my book tour I got to pick my own clothes.)

I often used to say that books are like loss leaders for writers, but I think going to grad school might be a more apt comparison. Even in the instances when someone actually pays you to do it, you won’t make much, and most of the time it just costs a lot. But if you’re not unlucky, it does change your prospects, sometimes dramatically. It changes how the world sees you. You become qualified—or at the very least you will now be perceived as being more qualified—in ways that you weren’t before.

Going to grad school and getting a master’s degree helped me to get jobs that I wouldn’t have gotten otherwise, and writing a book accomplished much the same thing. I was an author now, and was asked to speak on panels, write blurbs, and give workshops. After I published my first book, editors at newspapers, magazines, and websites reached out to me and asked me to write articles or essays for them. I published a second book, and then sold a proposal for a third, and these requests continued. A longer piece at one of these publications might pay more than my first book advance check. My rate for writing the book was about $0.06 per word, whereas writing essays and articles can pay as much as $2 per word, depending on the outlet.

In many ways, publishing is not unlike academia. There are things we do that reach a broader audience, and things we do that are mostly for our peers. Sometimes all of what we do is for our peers, and that is okay. That is to be expected. Writers are readers too. Our poetry chapbooks or experimental essay collections may not hit the New York Times bestseller list, but that is fine, because there are other measures of success. It helps to build our professional profiles, or at least it can. Sure, more people will probably read me when I publish in New York Magazine than in The Paris Review, but it still counts. All of it counts.

Being a professional writer often means actually working in academia, too. Even many of the most commercially successful writers are also university professors and writing instructors. That’s just the way the system is built. They lead workshops and give seminars. People get MFAs not just to become better writers, but so they can teach at a college and perhaps be given a small faculty cottage to live in that smells only slightly of mildew.

The fact that writing a book is like going to grad school, or that being a writer is similar to being an academic, does not make writing “a scam,” as I’ve sometimes seen it called, any more than anthropology or English literature or fine art is a scam. The arts and humanities are not trades. They are not and never will be “big business” for the majority of their practitioners, even though big businesses are sometimes built around them. Yes, the competition is fierce, but in our modern economy and media landscape, it is easy to become confused about their value, or to denigrate those who toil away in their trenches.

I laughed when that acquaintance asked if I was still living off the earnings from my first book, but the reality is that nine years after it came out, I am self employed as a full time writer, which wasn’t the case before. I write books, articles, and essays, teach workshops, and publish a newsletter for a living. Much of my life in the past decade has indeed been shaped by the fact that I published that first book all those years ago. In a way, I guess I am still living off that Oyster War money, after all.

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