This doesn't reflect how writers and musicians are actually paid, though. You might be in a band but have a side project or a solo album, but you still receive royalties or concert revenue for it, same as for your role in the ordinary band. Most writers make nearly all their money taking the risk that someone will publish their work and pay them for it. In either case, there's no real distinction and the financial returns are uncertain either way.
There are authors who have regular columns or something, but even in their case it's a little disingenuous to say that writing books is a side project. If you wanted to describe Thomas Friedman's profession, it would be something like "New York Times columnist and author". You wouldn't say he was a NYT columnist who happened to write best-selling books in his free time as some sort of hobby.
> Most writers make nearly all their money taking the risk that someone will publish their work and pay them for it.
You are right, of course, but this is not what I was asking about. Let's leave 'nearly' (for clarity) out and let's say that 'all the money writers make comes from publishing their works', which is true. I'm asking if it's also true that 'all the writing writers do is supposed to/has to/they hope it will make them some money'?
Assuming that "some writers write letters to their mothers" and "no one writes a letter to their mother expecting it will make them some money"[1], then it's not literally true, but we're splitting hairs. We're talking about hiring programmers based upon a portfolio of professional-quality work they've done in their spare time. How many writers would get a book contract based on a portfolio of their unpublished work?
[1] This requires more qualification. For instance, if one was a struggling writer who didn't make enough money from their writing but had a wealthy mother sending them money for their living expenses....
> How many writers would get a book contract based on a portfolio of their unpublished work?
Certainly not many, because how anyone could know they actually wrote something? But I was speaking about published but not paid for works. There is more than one way to publish your writings and many of them do not involve financial compensation. I know, because quite a few years ago I was publishing short novels and articles in a (real-world, made-of-paper!) magazine about pen&paper RPGs. I didn't earn a penny (and the magazine went out of business quickly), but I was published.
I wasn't the only one who submitted texts to the editors of said magazine. Mine were of poor quality, but there were a few authors that I was not surprised to find in the bookstores some time later. They got a book contract (I don't know, I'm guessing) from real publisher probably with less hassle than other debutants, probably because of what they published for free earlier. You can argue that they became writers only after they were paid to write a book, but I don't see this that way. Also, many of them continue to contribute they writings (mainly reviews, essays) to on-line magazines (about RPGs; sadly, there is no one such a magazine still being published on paper in my country) for free.
How is this different from publishing side-project on github and getting hired based on that? I really can't see the difference.
Either way, thanks for interesting discussion, I enjoyed it, especially footnote about writing a letter to one's mom :)
This doesn't reflect how writers and musicians are actually paid, though. You might be in a band but have a side project or a solo album, but you still receive royalties or concert revenue for it, same as for your role in the ordinary band. Most writers make nearly all their money taking the risk that someone will publish their work and pay them for it. In either case, there's no real distinction and the financial returns are uncertain either way.
There are authors who have regular columns or something, but even in their case it's a little disingenuous to say that writing books is a side project. If you wanted to describe Thomas Friedman's profession, it would be something like "New York Times columnist and author". You wouldn't say he was a NYT columnist who happened to write best-selling books in his free time as some sort of hobby.