10 Literary Money Quotes That Don’t Appear in Any Quote Book

The Career Indie Author Quote Book has been in the works since the 1980s, even though I didn’t realize it.

I’m a pack rat when it comes to news, stories, quotes, and images. Before the home computer, I squirreled them away in file folders, and now I use the electronic version as well. My first book, Writers Gone Wild, was composed from these snippets.

When I started writing Career Indie Author, may of these quotes showed up there, but I realized that they deserved a book of their own.

It’s an idiosyncratic work. Some categories only have one or two entries. Others, like “Characterization,” and “Fiction, Function of” go on for pages. Very few quotes were hunted down; they came to me during my daily reading of blog posts, newspaper stories, magazine profiles, even (in later years) YouTube videos and podcasts.

To celebrate the book, and to give you an idea of what’s inside, here’s 10 pieces of advice about money and work that haven’t migrated to Brainy Quotes or other quote books:

Know What You’re Worth

Instead of hitting the block like we used to, we hit the laptops. I know what every word is worth. So while I’m writing, I’m like: “Okay, there’s a hundred dollars. There’s a thousand dollars. There’s five thousand dollars.”
Ashley Coleman

Consider the Market

No writer is entitled to earn a living from his writing, or even to be paid for his writing; once you seek payment, you have to consider the market for what you’re producing, especially during a time when supply outpaces demand.
Jane Friedman

Pay the Writer

A good deal of advice is given to authors. They are told their work ought to be written with a view to elevating the public taste — write literature, have style, no matter whether it pays or not; money is a matter that should never be considered in connection with writing. All I can say in reply is that I write to please my public, and I write to make a living. A dead man does not get much satisfaction because his work happens to have caught on with posterity, mainly because what he has written is sold in a cheap, attractive form. Some publishers appear to exist on dead men’s brains; I prefer a publisher who pays cash down to living authors.
Nat Gould

What Readers Want

My work is important to me, and I have never written for the money. But I do understand I’m working in a marketplace, and I have to produce stuff that people actually want to read or watch. That’s not the same thing as writing commercially.
Nick Hornby

MFA vs. NYC

The most interesting part of the MFA vs. NYC model … was never the question of literary culture (Brooklyn brownstones vs. Midwestern dive bars; obscure short stories vs. high-profile debut novels) so much as the question of money. The binary points to the two major means by which American writing is funded: the publishing industry and the university system.
Leslie Jamison

Joys of Wealth

There is no downside. Money allows you to whine to your heart’s content, and to be as happy or miserable as you choose. If your friends don’t want to listen to your complaints, cast them aside! There are plenty of people who, for a large fee, will listen to the whines of the wealthy.
Frank McCourt

Keep Milking

Spenser was a cash cow. And we felt that Bob would want to see Spenser live on.
Joan Parker, widow, on hiring a ghostwriter to continue the series

Know Why You’re Writing

If you’re not writing for money, you’re just jacking off on paper.
Teresa Peschel

Educate Yourself

If you want to see something sad, ask a room full of freelance writers about their tax strategies. It’s like asking a pack of baby kittens about space travel.
Choire Sicha

Ambition in the Literary World

Commerce and literature are still meant to be separate in England. If you’re writing mass-market fiction, it doesn’t matter your price: you can be as vulgar as you want in terms of money. But somehow that isn’t the same for literary fiction.
Peter Straus, literary editor, about the uproar over Martin Amis seeking a six-figure advance for The Information

These aren’t the only quotes never seen before in Career Indie Author Quote Book. My personal collection of writerly knowledge and advice also has David Lynch on the pleasures of writing, Chuck Palahniuk on repurposing your fiction, Robert B. Parker on outlining, Susan Orlean on freelance writing, and James Patterson on first drafts (there are a lot of advice you’ve seen before as well). Reading Career Indie Author Quote Book is a lot like sitting down with writers over a refreshing drink and learning what it’s like to write down the voices in your head.