34K

Tonight I found out, on that darn internet thingy, the average salary for my current job. I’m a Housekeeping Manager at a hotel in Portland. Before getting this job, I had over eight years experience in hotels, including 3 ½ years in a similar position, the other time in Front Office operations - all management. The average, across the country, is just over 34k. In Portland, it's about 35k. Without telling you what I tore down last year, let’s just say, I was average (Don’t feel sorry for me, I chose this profession).

This got me thinking… my goal in life is to become a paid writer. This means, outside of the 40-50 hours I spend on my “job”, I put an average of about 20-25 hours a week in writing. This doesn’t count the equal amount of time I spend thinking of writing, my characters, or my stories.

To the writing -- Yes, I do it out of love.

To the job -- No, I don’t do it out of love. Picking up hairs(from all regions of the body) and wiping up stuff, is not fun. Take my word on that.

Back to writing…

I love stories. The characters I invent and the characters I read, or watch on screen, are special to me. Whether I write them or see them on the screen, they will always be special. That’s why I write, to share my stories and characters. STOP! Not the point.

My point is this, what if I was able to sell a piece of my writing tomorrow? Could I quit my day job? What kind of money could I make? Upon my research, I pulled some quotes out of an ongoing discussion about making money in writing, comparing screenwriting to novel writing.

I don't know who said this, but I found it interesting.


-- If the movie is never released (either theatrically or at a festival or on the internet or on DVD or on --say-- the Sci-Fi Channel of Lifetime Network, etc) it is incapable of making money. If the director or prodcuer leaves it sitting in his harddrive, there will never be one single nickel made by that film. And sadly LOTS of films never see the light of day.

But of course, this is all assuming that the movie actually gets finished in the first place.

--Hundreds of thousands of scripts get written every year.
--Only a minority of those get read by interested parties --such as production companies-- capable of financing them (the rest languish in wannabe-land)
--Only a minority of that minority that get read actually get optioned (the rest get trash-canned--something like 90% of all scripts lucky enough to get read are jettisoned as garbage)
--Only a minority of the optioned scripts actually enter into "development hell" while the rest sit "in the vault" and never see the light of day again (development is lengthy process capable of lasting months or even a year or longer when a room full of executives sit around and tell the writer how to rewrite the script to their liking -- this is where a lot of writers lose their integrities, lose their souls, lose their in minds, etc. -- a writer should feel very very lucky to enter into the soul-robbing and mind-breaking priviledge of development hell, where they must resign themselves to the advice: "abandon hope, all ye who enter here")
--Only SOME development efforts result in a committee-rewritten script that FINALLY gets a greenlight to shoot, the rest fizzle out into oblivion; but of those that DO result in an "acceptable" script, it usually required the production company to bring in another writer to replace the original writer (again--writers should feel lucky if a greenlight finally happens, even if it meant they had to get fired and another writer brought in to take their place)
--Only SOME movie productions actually even happen (once a greenlight is given, then pre-production process involves raising money, getting the cast, securing a crew, scaring up locations and equipment -- sometimes it never comes together and just gets abandoned)
--Only SOME produced movies find distribution of any sort (be it a festival or a sraight-to-DVD release -- the Holy Grail is theatrical release, but THAT is one tough trick to make happen!)
--Only SOME released films actually turn a profit (the general rule-of-thumb is you need to make back DOUBLE your production costs, so a $5 million dollar budget --mere penies by Hollywood standards-- means you need to make $10 million before you're in the black)



From the standpoint of a lit agent, movies might very well be a far better deal. But from the standpoint of a writer, movies are a very deeply anguished proposition. But we do it anyhow. We love the art form. We are deeply jazzed at the idea of seeing our vision up on that screen one day. I wish I could remember the name of the guy (writer?director?producer?) who said it, but I read it in an interview about five years ago. He said: "The film industry SUCKS, but the art form is just amazing."


For the average non-professional, sitting in a room somewhere, turning out unsold novels or screenplays, the monetary returns stacks up about the same -- double zero, double zero.


For a feature writer, one can write "spec" sceenplays -- that is you simply write an original screenplay and try to sell it. Having done that, it may be optioned -- that is, you get a small fee up front and you don't get the full fee unless the project is set up -- that is, they get the financing for actually making the movie. Or they may buy the movie up front, if the demand for the project is high enough.


What a screenwriter writes, even a spec script, he does not license, but sells. The producer buys all rights, and thus has the right to do with the underlying material whatever he wishes, including demanding whatever changes he wants, bringing in new writers, completely altering the direction of the script -- whatever he wants. Then the director may be hired and change it all again (and the director may have his "favorite writer, who he brings along to rewrite whatever script he happens to be directing). Then the star, if he's big enough, may come in, and do it all again (and the star may have his "favorite writer" that he'll bring in to do the rewrites that he wants done to make the script over the way he wants it done).

(me talking here; I wrote this) - This is what happened to the movie Little Miss Sunshine. The writer spent over 5 years writing (one of his first scripts), getting it to people who, ultimately, hired other writers to finish the project. He was kicked off the set, seeing little coin coming his way. Luckily for him, he was re-attached back to the project... the rest is history. If you consider, around 10 years from pen to paper, to actually getting the film made...



-- It is an industry that is remarkably conservative -- which means that it is very risk averse.


-- from an artistic viewpoint, novels have it all over screenplays. even then you're likely to be asked by the publisher for revisions.

from a monetary standpoint, i think you *may* see some better actual living wages writing screen- and/or teleplays. that's part of why the WGA exists now, isn't it, to provide writers with the ability to make a real living writing? i think there's a trade-off, though: true, you sell a script to a prodco signatory for $34 grand and, hey, that's not too bad considering you probably didn't have to work forty hours a week, fifty-two weeks a years to do it. $34G divided by 2080 hours (52 x 40) comes out to be $16.35 an hour, and if you can't live on that your lifestyle is more expensive than mine. (naturally, your actual wage would be a LOT less than this after taxes, membership dues, insurance, etc., but once you get rolling it also probably won't take you an entire year to do an average script. i hope not, because that script might not sell).

then again, nobody may buy it.

OUCH! (me again). Don't worry. I could still squeeze in an hour or two writing... but then again, I have a very busy day tomorrow. It will be over 100 degrees (the AC is broken at the hotel. Great for me.) and I have dozens of rooms to inspect.

Boo Hoo!