The question of whether one can make a living in Thailand as a writer depends pretty much on whom we are talking about. Established writers with literary agents and big publishing houses behind their backs can probably live a comfortable life here in Thailand. But for freelance writers and authors who haven’t scored it big yet things are not as rosy as one might tend to believe.
I have a well-paid full time job which offers me the liberty of using all my free time pursuing my dreams and hobbies. For me, 2012 was the year of archery, when I put my big writing projects on hold. Still, I continued to do small freelancing gigs for a few English language magazines published in Thailand and I put quite a lot of effort in developing my blog.
The report below looks at the money I made selling fiction and non-fiction both online and in print media in 2012.
Fiction:
1. Book sales: US$5.50
I have six self-published books out there on the internet that can possibly bring me income: two books of non-fiction, one story for children, one book of short fiction (co-editor), and two anthologies of short stories (co-author). The US$5.50 in royalties refer strictly to the money that has already been transferred to my bank account and do not take into account the money that Lulu and CreateSpace haven’t transferred yet (about another US$100). These poor sales do not surprise me at all as these are quite old projects that I haven’t marketed at all in the last year. A time will come when I will make all these books available on Kindle and Smashwords and will work on actively promoting them. But that time hasn’t come yet.
2. Short story sold: US$25.00
In late 2011 I made my first international sale to an anthology of short stories that paid contributors a fixed sum of money. In January 2012 I received a check of US$25.00 from the agency that published the anthology and after I paraded the check in front of all my colleagues, I went to the bank to cash it. Unfortunately, to cash 25 US dollars I had to pay 800 baht in banking fees, which was more than the check was worth. My only choice of seeing the money in my pocket was to go downtown to the main branch of my bank and cash the check without paying any fees. The check is still in its envelope in my desk at home…
Non-fiction:
3. Google AdSense: US$108.07
2012 was the year when I rebranded my blog and switched its literary focus to something that would bring more readers and, at the same time, would reflect my new interest in archery. So, instead of literary musings, I started writing about archery (plus sports in general) and wrote more travel related articles. Even if archery is not a very popular topic on the internet, travelling has always been on everyone’s mind and my blog traffic gradually increased to about 400-500 unique visits a day. More visits means that there’s a higher likelihood that internauts click on my Google AdSense ads. But, all the hours that I put in redesigning the blog and making sure it’s SEO friendly did not really pay up. A mere US$108.07 for the 214 posts I had published in 2012 brings the income for each post to almost 2 US dollars. It’s nothing compared to how much time I put in developing the blog…
My collection of autographed books
4. Advertorials on my blog: US$105.41
Now, “real” money on the internet comes from advertorials. Basically, an SEO company pays you to post on your own blog an article with a link to their client’s website. Of course that nobody is interested in an amateur-looking blog on a free platform that receives ten visitors a day, so I guess all the hard work I put in redesigning my blog actually paid up in the end. But another hundred bucks for the hours I spent in front of the laptop is next to nothing considering that I could make that money doing a few private lessons with a student preparing for the entrance university exam. But I guess that just posting an article researched and written by someone else and getting paid for doing this is a pretty decent deal.
5. Articles “on command:” US$180.94
I am a member of a network that pays bloggers to write about specific topics (adding the customary links, of course) that relate to the niche of their website. I landed quite a few of these gigs in 2012 and even though the pay is not that great, you finally get to publish something on your blog that brings you more than US$2/post. Actually, at US$180, it was this network that brought more cash home than any of the previous two methods mentioned above.
6. Website photo sales: US$18.92
The only money that I succeeded in making out of my archery hobby was, funny enough, not by writing anything but rather by seeling the rights of a photograph of an Asian archer that I took at the Archery World Cup in Shanghai. It was not a very good photo, but apparently I was the only one on the internet who had photos of that specific archer. Once again, the time I spent making my blog SEO friendly paid up… sort of…
7. Print magazines in Thailand: 36,000 baht (US$1,200)
Lastly, the most profitable writing activity of 2012 turned out to be the old-fashioned article for Thailand-based English language magazines. Luckily, I was given the freedom to choose the topics of my articles and writing these pieces was by far the most rewarding experience of my life as a freelance journalist and writer living in Bangkok.
TOTAL: US$1,643.84 (49,315 baht)
Conclusion: When the total amount of money I made from my writing in the whole year is a bit more than half of my monthly salary, then no, being a part-time freelance journalist in Thailand is not worth the money. Not to mention that as a fiction writer and author of non-fiction books, I failed miserably on the financial side of things. To add to this, I did not keep a record of how much I spent on commuting, research (books) and editing (for fiction only). Probably it would add up to almost half of my yearly earnings from writing.
But, and this is a big but, writing for me is not something that I do exclusively for money but rather something that I’ve been doing ever since I was a high school student back home in Romania simply because I like writing. There’s nothing wrong in getting paid for your work but in a world where the internet already abounds in more information than a human being would ever be able to skim through in a life time, being a writer doesn’t always pay up.
Thanks, Voicu, for such an informative article and for being so honest and straightforward about the realities of freelancing. Something interesting to note is that pay for freelancing has come down markedly in the last 10 years or so. I spent a few years freelancing in Australia in the 2000s, and I could make a reasonable living from it by working very hard. However, now, I would not be able to make a living. An example: in 2001, a major city newspaper in Australia paid $500 for a travel story, plus $100 if your picture was used on the cover, plus $50 for each picture used inside. Some newspapers paid more than this. By 2010, this had gone down to $200 for a story and nothing for photos. I hate to think what it is now. Another example: in 1999, a major Australian women’s magazine paid $1 a word for stories. In 2006, they were still paying the same (effectively thus, paying less).
A UK publication is paying the same money for a column in 2013 as it did in 2008, except because of the exchange rate and the strong Australian dollar, I get far less for a story than I did five years ago. It’s a case of “Don’t give up your day job”!
Totally agree with your last sentence!
There are other ways to make it more profitable as a writer but you need to know how to market it…especially online.
Agree, but apart from know-how, it’s also a matter of time…
Dear Sir
I want to write articles and features to make a living without leaving my country, Bangladesh. How can I get in to the international market? I seek your advice.