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There is the rather pernicious concept of the "artist's lifestyle": going to all the right parties, meeting all the right people, traveling to all the right places and having plenty of free time. It's pernicious because because so few people can live that lifestyle - just a few who have made a lot of money from their art - or people living off trust funds.
It's also strange because it coexists with the concept of the starving artist. There are a number of people who recognize that people who spend their lives in the arts tend not to make a lot of money, but feel that they should be among the small number who do, even if the peasants don't actually want to buy their work. Perhaps they feel they should be given grants just because their work is so deep and culturally significant that we just need to support them.
I know people who live on what they can make from their art, and they tend to have chosen a rather minimalist lifestyle. They bought cheap houses in unfashionable neighborhoods, rather than try to live in live in a more expensive neighborhood. I'm told that South London isn't cheap. The idea of a writer having a day job isn't remotely new. There are books that we may not think highly of, but if they are selling, the author must be doing something right.
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