Do you think writer can live on writing only?

I think it can be possible but it depends on how talented you are, the kind of writing that you write about and your confidence in yourself. As for me, I am a published poet and I know that for a poet it would be very, very hard. I got my first poetry book published with Publish America. I know some people don't recommend them but I am very happy with them. I don't make a whole lot of royalties but that's okay because I just started. I am just happy to have my book published. That was my childhood dream come true. I have been in three newspapers, and being nominated for the best poem of the year 2006 in Muses Review and in the nomination for the best poetry book design 2006. I should know either tomorrow or Monday if I won or not.

I believe it is possible. If you a good writer, you can write a book per month and also write articles for magazines and web sites. You have to be very fluent in the language you are witting thou.

Plenty of journalists make their entire living at writing, but out of all the thousands and thousands of authors of full length works out there only a tiny percentage have been able to give up the dayjob. If you write a bestseling novel, then fine, but most of us find writing is a great second income, not our main one.

I would say if you want to be a writer,, I would sugest doing it first as a hobby and taking on something else in the mean time and then when your writing takes off! If you are lucky enough to get some work published, then by all means go for it. Though I am not a writer, I speak through personal experiences, I am a photographer and really want to make a living in that area, but as I have leared it is difficult trying to get that break through. Now I am looking for paid work to give me an income to use to build on.. Besides the paid work i seek, I am also doing a few programmes on the net that is earning me some money too. Lynn-Marie

I went to creative writing courses with Cardiff Uni for several years. I thoroughly enjoyed the courses, but all the teachers said the same thing, "it's not easy and you will get used to having rejection slips" A group of friends still meet once of week to discuss writing, perhaps write a little - in fact we have one excellent writer, and we all agree that he has a natural talent for it, but cannot get published. So maybe we should remember to "not give up our day job!" :-)

I'm a student writer and my teacher says that it takes several years to become a 'regularly paid' author. I understand what she is saying because it takes some editors several months to get back to you and that is if they even accept your manuscript. I just think at the beginning you would need a back-up job. I know several good websites that have ideas for getting by for struggling writers if you're ever interested. I know it may take some time, but it's what I really want to do. You should go for it too! It will pay off eventually.

I know I have always wished to be a Published author someday with a Book or two out there, but I am sure unless you have a lot of Books and such published, and coming out all of the time, it would be hard to live off of just your Writings. But back when they used to have a site online once called Themestream.com I earned enough in like 3 months to have to pay Taxes on my earnings from that site. In all realities, I am sure it is possible. You just need to know where to go, and keep the writings coming so you would be able to live off of only that.

well it was my dream to become an author when i was young, sometime around 10-12 years age... but as i grew up, the interest faded away and i was pulled over towards more technical aspects than the mesmerisation of words.. But frankly I don believe many people can live just by writing, though lots of people have proved that they can, say J K Rowlings, or micheal crichton or other famous writers, its a very risky affair.. I ve had friends who tried a life of a writer and quit, not thet they did not write good, but that their reachability to audience was not that good, they were not able to reach the kind of audience they targeted.. so there is a lot of risk and competition..

i want to be a writer too before but then I realized on how hard life is and it's difficult to earn a living by writing only. It's best to be a side line for me ...

Wow! thats a great plan. I support u and wish u all the best for being a successful writer. Well its really a luck game. If ur writing is a sentimental hit, and is read by maximumn people ur life is made. However as a friend i must tell u the truth. Very few authors are able to do iot this way, so do some work in addition till u r sure ur writing has made u famour and is a best seller. aLL THE BEST

I've done this, but I had to wear many hats in order to earn a living. For example, I had to edit books, write a lot of business material (press releases, book proposls, business plans, brochures, etc.), write for the web (web site copy, newsletter copy, articles, etc.), write for magazines (articles, book reviews, interviews, etc.), contribute to books (interviews, personal experiences, short stories, etc.) and market books (book reviews, press releases, web site copy, etc.). It was a lot of work and, at times, a lot of hours. Health reasons caused me to reduce my efforts quite. I'm getting back into the swing of things slowly, but surely with web writing (mostly articles), book contributions (the latest was Creatively Self-Employed by Kristen Fischer), book reviews and magazine articles. The key is to query daily. When I was working in the capacity I noted above, I had at least ten strong queries out per day. I queried from sites such as: (1) writersweekly.com (2) absolutewrite.com (the forum and the newsletter) (3) fundsforwriters.com (4) mediabistro.com (5) poewar.com (6) sunoasis.com (7) journalismjobs.com (8) craigslist.org/wri (I visited each major city's writing job section) (9) freelancewriting.com (10) writersmarket.com I also kept an idea file going in a notebook, which eventually was transferred to my computer. I carried this notebook wherever I went so I could keep track of every thought that I came across that could be turned into write-able material. I hope this helped!