“Words have the power to change moods instantly, and because of this, we should respect their importance.” – dimitrireyespoet.com
The starving artist is such a thing of the past and I sometimes think this is still perpetuated so there aren’t so many large fish in a small pond. As a writer it’s a good idea to track your finances with your career to see how much money you are investing into your passions. Many immediately say that this is a business in which you are at a constant deficit because of submission fees, book-buying, AWP attendings, etc, but this chart is proof that this isn’t the case. Even if I haven’t won any large poetry competitions like the Ruth Lilly or the Whitman Award— although, you should come see me, the Academy, I’m doin’ the real work out here!— I still manage to avoid being in the negative each year.
For the accounting I do in my poetry life, I use GoogleSheets where I break down my debits/ credits into 6 columns:
- Date
- Venue
- Function
- Time
- Invested/Earned
- Notes
Diversification of your skills are important. So you will see that my opportunities deal with many things beyond making money from publishing poems. There’s a large misconception that poets are to only make money from their actual writing and this couldn’t be farther from the truth. Poet Tatiana Figueroa Ramirez and I discuss this on my YouTube Channel.
The following is a very short list of possibilities for income through writing and poetry:
Poetry Workshops
Features
Food
Rewards / Prizes / Scholarships
Donations
Book Sales
Editing Services
Book Reviews
Art Projects
Teaching
Voice Overs
And these are just based on some of what’s featured in my YouTube video. I encourage you to watch it in its entirety to catch extra nuggets of professionalism.
Teespring
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