Quote:
Originally Posted by kennyc
Yes, it has always been thus and not only writers, but in the other arts as well.
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Only the top tier like Steven King, etc. are able to live on it and even then we have the vast disparity between the incomes like his and the rest who have to have that day job just to survive.
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As I said before: If you wish to be sure of being able to support yourself with a profession, you have to choose a profession that produces stuff that people need (= provide products or services that people *must* buy, or they're in trouble), not stuff that you must hope that people want and are willing to spend some money on.
I'm not saying I like that, but this is the way it has been for a long time.
There is not a lot of middle ground in the arts; either you don't earn enough to support yourself (or just enough to barely support yourself), or you are world famous and are earning money by the millions.
It's the same for photographers; most of them support themselves by photographing stuff that others need them to take pictures of: weddings, products, whatever. Very few photographers can live off something like street or landscape photography. (The ones that can, are almost certainly famous to some extent.)