Do Writers Earn a Lot of Money?
As Margaret Atwood once wrote, “When I found myself a writer at the age of sixteen, money was the last thing on my mind, but it shortly became the first.” And it’s true, in a way. When professional writers get together to gossip, they talk about their favorite books and recent scandals. Then they invariably land on the subject of money.
So perhaps you’re ready for a career change and were considering whether it’s possible to write for a living. Or maybe you’re just curious about how much money writers earn. The old cliche of the impoverished, ink-stained wretch endures, but it’s very outmoded.
The reality is writers can make bank, whether working for a literal financial institution or in education or information—sometimes even by writing a novel. But to make money as a writer today, you need hustle, resilience, comfort with uncertain prospects in a down economy, and a few other qualities that those with a steady 9-5 don’t require.
Here’s a quick rundown of the average writer's salary, where to make money as a writer, top-paying cities for writers, and more on the money of writing.
The Big Ideas:
Writers have an annual take home of $81,120, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, with the top writers making $133,580 per year. Of course, many writers make far more than that, and many make less.
Most professional writers work in information, financial services, and movie industries
The best states to get a well-paid job as a writer are California and New York
Several Northeast U.S. states combine the lower cost of living and well-paid writing opportunities
What is a Writer or Author Salary?
In this context, it’s the annual income for a writer or author who creates or prepares content or writing. It’s a broad definition. It can include:
Screenwriters
Ad writers
Novelists
Authors
Essayists
Grantwriters
Computer designers
Poets
Copywriters
For this breakdown, “author or writer” doesn’t include technical writers, journalists, or PR specialists. We’ll talk about those another time. But in general, these industries can make significantly more money.
How Much Do Writers Make?
Nationwide, 49,410 writers are at work earning an average annual salary of $81,120, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
However, that isn’t the whole story. The median annual wage was $69,510. Don’t remember the difference between mean and median? Neither did I, but I Googled it, and this number means that half of the writers make more than $69,510, and the other half of writers make less than $69,510.
The top 10% have an average salary of $133,580 a year. At the lower end, some writers earn just $38,500 a year.
What is an Average Writer's Salary?
Most writers work in the following fields and make these salaries:
Information writing salary: $80,560
Writing services for scientific, professional, and technical work salary: $65,210
Writing salary for religious, grantmaking, civic, professional, and similar organizations: $64,280
Educational service writing including state, local, and private institutions: salary of $61,940
Do Writers Earn a Lot of Money?
Of course authors who get major book deals, or if their books become best-sellers, can clear hundreds of thousands of millions of dollars a year.
Successful screenwriters, similarly, can end up making enormous sums, but it’s uncommon.
Meanwhile, the majority of working writers do more service-oriented work. So writers working in advertising or information earn some of the top dollars in the field—around $80,270.
But to really make a lot of money as a writer, you need skill and luck and hustle, and you probably need to work in the film or television industries, where most professionals clear about $124,120.
The pay structure for writers (and actors, actually) on television and film has changed in recent years, so most people are paid a flat fee for services and do not earn “residuals” down the road. In the old model, if you wrote an episode of Murder She Wrote, you’d get royalty checks for the rest of your life every time that episode aired. That type of contract is extremely uncommon now.
The next top-paying industries are clustered around finance. Writing about any of these topics earns over $100,000:
Securities, Commodity Contracts, Investments and Related Activities: $117,420
Nondepository Credit Intermediation: $108,180
Cable and Other Subscription Programming: $ 105,070
Federal Executive Branch (OEWS Designation): $ 105,000
However, there aren’t many of these jobs. For example, Only 90 people worked as writers in nondepository credit intermediation, which focuses on lending funds or issuing credit as it relates to credit markets, mortgages, or check cashing services. This writing job may not be what you had in mind when you wondered if writers make a lot of money, though.
Unsurprisingly, writers in California make more than writers in any other state, with an annual mean wage of $111,110. This is followed by writers in New York (home to finance, discussed below).
The top-paying U.S. regions for writers are the west coast (California, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii) and Northeast (New York, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Vermont, Delaware, Connecticut, and Rhode Island). In all of these regions, writers make at least $75,870 a year.
Where Can I Get a Job as a Writer?
While you can get a remote writing job from almost anywhere, most writers and authors are clustered in a few specific states:
California: 10,020 writers
New York: 6,140 writers
Illinois: 3,150 writers
Texas: 1,970 writers
District of Columbia: 1,620 writers
In California, the L.A. metro region alone has 6,580 writers working on screenplays, scripts and movie treatments. Many of the remainder are working in San Francisco and San Jose metro areas and are likely working in tech. In Illinois, most writers are based in Chicago.
The states with the fewest writers may offer very little competition. States with just 30-180 writers are:
Delaware
Idaho
Kansas
Maine
Mississippi
Montana
New Mexico
North Dakota
South Dakota
West Virginia
Wyoming
Note that a few of these states also benefit from higher-than-average wages—specifically Maine and Hawaii.
If you want to live somewhere rural and become a writer, some non-metro areas may be calling. A high concentration of writers and authors live in
West Central and Southwest New Hampshire
Central East New York
Northern Vermont
Northeastern Ohio and North Ohio
Mountain North Carolina
There are quite a few in the region. In fact, in North Carolina, writers and authors outnumber school psychologists. That can’t be good.
Top-paying cities for a writer salary
To make the most of your writing career, think California. Four of the top-paying metro areas for writers and authors are based in California.
Metro Area
Mean wage
San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA
$118,620
Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA
$117,170
San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA
$116,030
Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, CT
$100,610
Ithaca, NY
$98,820
New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA
$93,120
Washington-Arlington-Alexandria,
$90,520
Boston-Cambridge-Nashua, MA-NH
$89,390
San Diego-Carlsbad, CA
$88,160
Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY
$87,740
Living somewhere less expensive while making a decent salary could lead to a very nice standard of living, no matter which type of writing you specialize in. Popular nonmetropolitan areas that also pay fairly well with a mean salary of about $57,000 to $ 74,290 per year include:
Northern Vermont
West Central and Southwest New Hampshire
Southwest Maine
Southeast Minnesota
Piedmont, North Carolina
FAQ
How much can I make as a writer in Hollywood?
As I mentioned above, most writers in Hollywood average about $133,000, almost double the national average. The California number doesn’t just include writers working on the latest HBO series, but also lower-paid copywriters for hair coloring products or matchmaking services and part-time newsletter writers.
But you can indeed make quite a salary in the entertainment industry, according to WGA stats. An original screenplay typically sells for between roughly $77,500 and $145,500, depending on the film’s budget.
Network TV scripts might sell for between $15,900 and $30,780, but streaming could pay more, particularly with more than 20 million subscribers. At minimum, staff writers make between roughly $4,000/week to $5,000/week. When a TV show is being developed, one of the early phases of the process is called the “mini room.” The writers gather together in a room and hash out the plan for the whole season of that show, organizing arcs and breaking plots into episodes. If you make it into a mini-room, the take-home pay is often around $20,000 per writer per week (most rooms last 1-2 weeks).
In contrast, in Hollywood, Florida, writers earn an average salary of $60,670, less than the national average.
How much do writers make per hour?
Based on BLS data, writers and authors make an average hourly wage of $39/hour. However, writers work in a variety of ways, including, being paid:
Per word
Per piece of work
Per episode
Paid by overall contract
Paid for a project, such as a book