Is Being An Author Really A Job?

Well the short answer to that question is of course 'yes' and 'no'. Confused? Me too sometimes :)

In many ways being an author, or to perhaps be a little more accurate, being a writer is a job. You toil, you sweat, you agonise and you try, oh so hard, to get it all right. But that's where it all goes 'off the grid' so to speak. Because what, exactly, is 'getting it right'? How do you ever truly know if what you're writing is any good, that anyone (besides your loved ones who 'have' to) will ever even read what you've written? And even if by chance someone (apart from the obligatory loved ones) thinks that what you've written is actually good, is actually worth reading, at the end of the day you always know that you will only ever appeal to certain people. The sad but true fact of a writer's life is that no matter how 'good' you may be you will always only ever be good to some people, you can never be good to everyone. Let's be honest, even the titans of writing such as Shakespeare or Tolkien still only appeal to a specific audience.

That's where writing differs enormously from being a job. When you have a job, whatever it may be, from waitressing to rocket scientist those positions all have very specific criteria that you can either meet or not. Your job description is laid out very clearly - do this, that or the other and you're doing a 'good' job. If, by chance, you are unable to meet those criteria, whatever they may be, you are doing a 'bad job' and you typically get fired. Unlike writing where the only 'job description' we have is to write something people will want to read and only J. Q. Public can 'fire' us as such by either not buying and reading our work or by reading it and giving our work a very poor rating.

And that's where most writer's really go off the grid because for most of us a bad review or slow sales are simply not enough for us to consider ourselves 'fired'. We accept that we will face all of that, especially those of us who chose to be Independent, but we still keep writing. Why do we do that? Why can't we, as some might say, 'take a hint'? Because while writing is in some respects 'a job' in that is very often bloody hard work we don't do it because we're looking for a pay cheque or even really recognition; we do it because we can't not do it. It really is as simple as that. So is being an author really a job? Yes, and no.