Getting Paid

And why I’m launching the Supporter Sidebar to celebrate one year of the English Republic of Letters

Man behind a writing desk (1763) by Benoit Louis Prevost, after Charles Nicolas Cochin (II).

The enthusiastic amateur

The notion of the supposed superiority of not being paid for something you devote a lot of time to (and might be quite good at) was hard for a snobbish, class-ridden country like England to give up.

In the sport of cricket, the English began a national fixture in 1806 of “Gentlemen vs Players.” This contest always conjures an image of paid toilers striving to beat the effortless amateurs of independent wealth. It seems astonishing now, but the fixture lasted well into the 20th century. Indeed, the very last of these matches played at the principal venue for cricket in England, Lords (modestly dubbed the “Home of Cricket”), ended on the day of my birth. 

Amateurism continued for a long time in elite sports. In rugby union, it ended officially in 1995 in England and was vehemently defended until the very end. For years, an amateur player “turning pro” wasn’t exactly a class traitor but might be seen as “letting the side down.”

There were not only gentlemen cricket players but also gentlemen explorers, gentlemen historians, and, of course, gentlemen writers. (Of course, historically, the majority of gentlemen did nothing at all and were greatly admired for that.)¹

My father, though a keen cricket fan, would not have been watching that last “Gentlemen vs Players” at Lord’s. Quite apart from the birth of his sons (me and my twin), he would have been preoccupied with looking after the farm. He didn’t get a single day off for years at a stretch during that period of his life.

Despite the relentless workload, my father loved farming and was good at it. Keen to learn, he’d attended an agricultural college in his teens to learn more advanced methods and ideas than he could pick up on the job as a farmworker.

He enjoyed his studies and found them valuable. But he always said that the one thing that they never taught him at the college was how to make a living from farming. He had to work that out for himself.

The First Grand Match of Cricket Played by Members of the Royal Amateur Society on Hampton Court Green (1836). Artist unknown.

Cashing the cheques

Samuel Johnson famously declared that “no man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.” There have been many such blockheads of all genders before and since, as we know. Sometimes I’ve been one of them, sometimes not. Like my father and farming, when and how to write for money is something I’ve had to work out for myself. 

A less reliable story about Johnson was that he wrote his novel Rasselas (1759) in order to pay for the funeral of his mother. In fact, this appears not to have been the case. But the story reminds me of when I did some ghostwriting—a book of jokes of all things—to pay off the loan I had taken out to cover the fees of a professional training course. 

But that wasn’t the first time I’d been paid for writing. While at university, I’d received small sums for poems that kindly editors had published. I wish I could say that I’d framed the cheques I’d received and kept them with me, but they were swiftly cashed and no doubt spent on books or food. 

A few years later, while I was a teacher, I earned a promotion purely on the strength of the teaching materials I’d written. In my new role, I was paid to write classroom materials for other colleagues to use.

Then, as my series of jobs gradually coalesced into a career, I moved away from the classroom. But I still wrote. Producing speeches, lectures, and articles for magazines or newspapers was part of my job, but it was just one duty among many others. It didn’t occur to me to think that I was, in part, “writing for money.” But, of course, I was.

Brandy and summer gloves

After I retired from that career, I conceived the idea that I wanted “to write.” My “retirement” hasn’t quite matched the poet Jenny Joseph’s charming vision:

I shall wear purple

With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves

Not all of my pension is going on brandy and summer gloves. But I’ve still come up against the need for additional income. So I took another training course—this time avoiding getting into debt—and moved into copywriting and science writing. This occupies much of my time now, and I greatly enjoy it.

At the same time, I began writing a blog—despite being warned that I was a decade or so too late. I wanted to write, intransitively as it were, about topics of my own choosing.² With great deliberation (and a little trepidation), I changed my profession on LinkedIn to "writer.” And the word looked just fine on the profile page. Was it really that easy?

Well, no, not really—nobody read the blog. I was just an essayist in search of readers until Substack came along.

Oversubscribed at the Substack

These thoughts are on my mind as I embark on my second year on Substack and have just started offering paid subscriptions. Brought up in the cultural aftermath of the English love for the enthusiastic amateur on the one hand and the Johnsonian dictum about blockheads on the other, I’ve found that reality for me has been more nuanced than any such simple dichotomy might imply. As I said above, sometimes I write for money, and sometimes I don’t.

Writing serves many purposes. Among many other reasons, we do it for fun, we do it to earn a living, and we do it because we feel compelled. For me, the decision about turning on paid subscriptions was always more of a pragmatic one—would it be worth the effort? Would it distract from the other writing I need to do? Would anyone actually pay?

In the end, the balance has probably been tipped towards a paid offer on Substack by my reading rather than by my writing. I am an enthusiastic reader of other newsletters. I have probably subscribed to too many, and I have certainly taken out more paid subscriptions than was sensible. But with the talents of

Katherine May

,

Eleanor Anstruther

and

Candace Rose Rardon

, to name just three of so many on here, how is one to remain sensible?

So no, I don’t regret the subscriptions. But if I am to continue supporting the work of others in this way and keep myself in summer gloves, I need to find a way to make it viable. 

You could say that I have a Substack reading habit to support. 

ERL Supporter Sidebars

Which brings me finally, having perhaps exhausted your patience, to talk about the creation of a special edition of the ERL called Supporter Sidebar.

Supporters are what I call my paid subscribers and the Sidebars are tokens of appreciation for those who choose to support the ERL in this way. (The regular posts and comments section will remain free and accessible just as they always have!) 

These Sidebars will consist of behind-the-scenes details, research, and close-knit community conversations, especially curated for the Supporters of the ERL. You can read a couple of examples of what I have in mind here. 

The cost of Supporter status of the ERL will be £40 per year (or £4 per month). I’m currently discounting this to £20 per year. You can gain access to that discount here. 

I’m deeply grateful to those of you who have already been generous enough to sign up as Supporters. I’m truly touched.

I’ve loved my first year on Substack (well, most of it), and I’ve enjoyed learning on the job. I hope the essays I write now are better than the ones I wrote when I first started.

I’ve enjoyed delving into my past and sharing anecdotes from my international life with you. And I’ve really enjoyed learning about your experiences and opinions, too. Above all, I’ve found a lot of fulfilment in being part of a wonderful community here. 

My main hope for the next year is to continue to be part of that community, to contribute to it, and to carry on learning about writing. I want to write better and more ambitious essays.

With your help, I think I can do it. My sincere thanks to all of you for your support. 

1. In 1821, the essayist William Hazlitt wrote of the contemporary gentleman: “He is relieved from the necessity of following any of those laborious trades or callings which cramp, strain, and distort the human frame. He is not bound to do any one earthly thing; to use any exertion, or put himself in any posture, that is not perfectly easy and graceful, agreeable and becoming. Neither is he (at the present day) required to excel in any art or science, game or exercise.”

2. The former language teacher in me can’t resist giving a link about transitivity in verbs.