Anyone could be a writer today if they really wanted to. You can write a book and upload it to the internet in just a few clicks. You can start a Substack and blat about your niche areas of interest and probably find an audience for it. The internet has liberated the dream of being a writer from paper, ink and traditional publishing houses and led to a multiplicity of writerly identities.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And yet the pervasive perception around being a writer is that it\u2019s far from accessible. Despite the increasing democratisation of the vocation, to be a writer remains, for many, a dream, before the concept of being a writer as a job is even reached.<\/p>\n
I am going to assume that most people are dreaming of being a successful writer, meaning that their work is financially viable. I\u2019m also going to assume that what most people are dreaming of writing is a novel.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But what does a successful New Zealand writer look like?<\/p>\n
The brute reality of publishing in New Zealand is that the market is small and because of that there\u2019s not much money in it. Even if your book sells well (2,000 copies is good going) it\u2019s unlikely you\u2019ll break even unless you\u2019ve also had multiple residencies and a grant to support your labour. Breaking even in this context would mean you\u2019ve earned out your advance and are getting ongoing royalty payments until all the hours you worked on the book, including all the marketing and publicity and admin, have been paid for. Without one\u2019s own money to spare, a \u201csuccessful writing career\u201d looks a lot like a different job entirely while writing in the early hours of the morning.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There are very few full-time writers in Aotearoa and they come in three broad categories: 1) fiction writers who have gained international success, meaning they\u2019ve managed to sell their book in multiple territories including the US where the large market means larger returns; and, sometimes, such writers have diversified into writing for film and TV (see: Eleanor Catton and Stacy Gregg as examples); 2) alternatively and on the other end of the publishing spectrum, you\u2019re a successful self-published writer skilled enough to write multiple, bestselling novels a year for your overseas audience, usually through Amazon; 3) you\u2019re a ghost writer doing multiple contracts a year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They\u2019re broad categories but only a handful of writers (if that) would fall into each one.<\/p>\n
Successful novelist and screenwriter, Eleanor Catton. (Photo: Ebony Lamb.)<\/p>\n
Of the three types, really only the \u201cjobbing\u201d writer has any kind of ongoing stability. Publishers always need ghost writers (for celebrity and sports memoirs, for example) and they\u2019re often the most lucrative writing contracts, at least where traditional paperback publishing is concerned, because they sell so much more (a successful ghostwritten memoir would be expected to sell upwards of 10,000 copies). On the more artistic side, the most financially viable writers I know are self-published authors with multiple pen names who sell their books via Amazon to a largely American market. But even they are only as financially viable as their audience size: and that kind of audience needs to be fed a steady diet of product, which often means churning out 4\u20135 books a year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As for that first, most desired category (local bestseller with international representation \u2013 like Catherine Chidgey), I suspect many New Zealanders believe domestic household names can also make a living. But the household names with the traditionally published books you see in shop windows and awards lists and print reviews are in a constant cycle of hustling freelance contracts, residencies and grants to buy writing time; or they\u2019re simply writing outside of their fulltime other work.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While the commercial side is unviable on its own, it\u2019s also increasingly hard to get grants and residencies because funding has decreased while competition has increased. Funding has dried up because Creative New Zealand hasn\u2019t had a boost in income for decades: it\u2019s hardly even kept up with inflation while demands on their funds are at an historic high. The government\u2019s investment in CNZ \u2013 where every hopeful novelist in the country applies for money to write \u2013\u00a0is currently $16.689 million. Literature will get a very small percentage of that total. By way of comparison, High Performance Sport New Zealand is investing $163 million<\/a> to prepare athletes (who can\u2019t make a living from their sport) for four years in the lead up to the next Olympic Games. <\/p>\n The main reason for that lack of investment (despite the government saying it wants to develop the export market and talent pipelines in an arts strategy that does not include any cash<\/a>) is, in part, to do with the ongoing and terrific tension between art as a vocation and art as a profession; and, entangled in that, a general atmosphere that insinuates that art isn\u2019t legitimate, or valuable, work. <\/p>\n On the one hand art should be part of everyday life: everyone should have access to it, practice it. Art is good for you, like going for a walk or playing social netball is good for you. Doing a painting, scribbling out your innermost thoughts, composing a story, picking out a tune on a gat with your mates in the garage. That\u2019s bloody healthy for your brain, your body and your wairua. Art is part of your god-given package as a human and it should be cultivated in us just as much as sport.\u00a0<\/p>\n On the other hand it\u2019s the work of professional artists that feeds participation in art. A book, a painting, a play, a song, a film. You need professionals to set a standard, create beauty, strive for excellence, show the way, build a world.\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s just that in New Zealand we seem to have a chronic struggle with the very idea of a professional artist. If you do manage to get a grant to write your novel you\u2019re probably going to get some side-eye if not outright harassment by the likes of the Taxpayers\u2019 Union. The pervasive attitude of full-time art work being \u201cinaccessible\u201d in my opinion is directly related to a perception that art shouldn\u2019t be paid for because it isn\u2019t real work. It relates to the toxic view that art = indulgence; or, even worse, art = irrelevant.<\/p>\n In this environment \u2013 financial scarcity on one end and side-eye on the other \u2013 what happens is only people with both financial and psychological space can pursue their creative calling.<\/p>\n If writing is not funded and requires the means (finance, time) to undertake it alone, who is creating New Zealand\u2019s literary canon?<\/p>\n In 2025 there will be 16 literary novels and short story collections traditionally (meaning, by a local branch of a commercial publisher for the domestic market) published in New Zealand. Of those 16 only two are written by people of colour. Zooming out, since 2000, five people of colour have won the fiction award at the Ockhams. You could argue that 20% is a near reflection of the population (32.8% of the population are people of colour) and leave it there. However I think this would too easily overlook intersectional and systemic issues that limit who is able to write (and therefore, what we are able to read).<\/p>\n In New Zealand we have rising wealth inequality; systemic racism; chronic ableism; and a colonially skewed arts valuation system. All of those things cloud psychological space: the more immediate and pressing threats a person has, the harder it is to focus on long-form literature, like the novel, which requires stretches of focussed time and relentless motivation. Even if you take money out of the equation, the local and global political environment gives rise to inequalities when it comes to having psychological space.<\/p>\n I am a traditionally published novelist. I have a couple of part-time jobs, a child and a supportive partner (also an artist). I can\u2019t say I don\u2019t worry about money or that I can give adequate space for my creative work. But what I don\u2019t have to worry about is attacks on my language and my culture; I don\u2019t have to fight the system for my basic needs to be met; I don\u2019t have to worry about affording a place to live or food to eat; I don\u2019t have to think about caregiving for multiple dependents; and I don\u2019t, often, have to battle with people who suggest that taking time to write is a selfish or indulgent thing to do in the face of everything else.\u00a0<\/p>\n So what do we do about it? How do we make these dreams come true?\u00a0<\/p>\n What I am about to propose is so unlikely in this current political atmosphere, that I\u2019m almost too weary to speak it. But in the ideal world what we would have is an artist basic income scheme. Yes there would be argy-bargy on who could qualify. And yes why not just the universal basic income. But let me, for a moment, imagine what it would be like if we were a country that wanted to find the best artists in the same way we want to find the best All Blacks.\u00a0<\/p>\n Who would suddenly find the headspace to write? What would the literature of Aotearoa look like?\u00a0<\/p>\n In Ireland, that island of arts investment, they\u2019ve been trialing a basic income scheme since 2022. Two thousand artists and art workers are being given 325 euros a week (the equivalent of NZD$650) until February 2026. To nobody\u2019s surprise the scheme has proven to boost production and ease the stresses<\/a> of those receiving it.\u00a0<\/p>\n Money buys time, buys brain space. Receiving money offers validation and temporary relief. It buys work.\u00a0<\/p>\nSuccessful novelist Catherine Chidgey, who writes in the morning before her other work begins, seven days a week. (Photo: Ebony Lamb).<\/p>\n