The Cost of Writing

by Erin Brown

“I must write it all out, at any cost. Writing is thinking. It is more than living, for it is being conscious of living.” —Anne Morrow Lindbergh (American writer and aviation pioneer). 

As writers, we all know that writing is art, it is life, it is passion! It is beyond cost, beyond measurement, worth any price! Not.

So let’s talk dollars and cents. What is the cost of writing? Zero. Zilch. Only the cost of your blood, sweat, and tears is required in order to create a manuscript. Well, okay, if you need to buy a computer and printer paper, it costs a bit. But if you’re willing to go the longhand route, you can always steal a pencil and a few scraps of paper and your bottom line will be zero pesos (and no, I’m not actually advocating stealing, I’m just making a point, people!). 

But wait, you say, writing costs a lot! There’re conferences to attend, stamps to buy, and that’s not to mention self-promotion! But wait, I say back to you, what you’re thinking about is money spent on getting published. The writing itself is free. Now that we’ve established that even a pauper can write a manuscript, let’s cut to the nitty gritty about what it will cost on the road to getting published—what are legit expenditures and what are not. 

The only true expense that is absolutely necessary is postage and printing costs. Even if you submit a query by email, you will need stamps for that SASE if pages are requested. I always hated getting manuscripts by email—printing it out was a pain and I always preferred hard copies. That’s where printing costs for the writer come into play. But beyond postage, everything else is optional: writing conference costs, self-publishing costs (see my past article on self-publishing for my thoughts on this wallet-breaking process), cost for hiring copyeditors, self-promotion (so you heard that a major publisher pays for everything you want to do promotion-wise? Hah...so cute, so naïve), books on writing and how to get published, etc. These are all things that are good to investments, but they’re not necessary by any means. 

Remember, if you are going the traditional publishing route, you will not have to pay money to get your book printed and on the shelves. No, you do not have to pay an agent. Yes, they will

Illustration by Jennifer Paros - Copyright 2010