How much do writers and artists get paid?

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For publishing novels and poems...how much do you get paid? And paintings! How much do you get paid for selling a painting?

I want to know because writing and painting is how I going to make a living.

Please,keep in mind that I'm very passionate about those two and am NOT doing it for the sake of getting paid...but if that's all I'm going to do then I want to know if I should get another job--such as working in a store or whatever--as well.

-SpaceCase

Novels 50 pence ( $1) per word.
Or you can sell the film rights for $1000000.
Paintings are not worth anything until you die.

Some things are worth what somebody is willing to pay for them.
Good luck, i would advise not working in a store or anywhere else.
Most are not so lucky (or talented), you may find it necessary.

ALL THINGS ARE ONLY WORTH WHAT SOMEONE WILL PAY FOR THEM. If you made the painting or wrote the book, you could value it more than your life, but it isn't worth any "money" until someone pays for it. Selling film rights for a million dollars rarely happens. The price of a novel to the publisher is probably dependent upon who is doing the writing. I doubt Grisham or Clancy made a ton of money off of their first book.

It would be best to have a day job to pay the bills.

you can sell screenplays for 200,000 to 1 million, but usually will sell them less than 500,000 unless you're really good, but even if you're not good, you can get good money. Of course, why the hell would you want to do something you suck at.

Whatever Grisham and Clancy made off any book was too much.
I find toilet paper much better value.

"It would be best to have a day job to pay the bills."
Fair enough everyone needs to pay bills but this is terrible advice.
Nothing personal: i hear this a lot from different people; but it's better to take a shot and fail than to consign yourself to being a slave.
If you got bills to pay and no money then start looking for work.
Until then don't even think about doing anything you don't want to do.

Grisham & Clancy are good examples ( and, as you know, there are many others).
You can make a ton of money with no talent.
Or you can be Van Gogh and not make a penny.
And there are many inbetween who do what they do because they enjoy doing it. Maybe not rich, but pay the bills and never have to do a days work in their lives.

edit: There was meant to be a bit of humour in my original reply; i know it's hard to tell sometimes.
I agree: it's a good point that things are only worth ($) what people pay for them.
Most know this; i would say that Warhol is a good inspiration.

Those are hard fields to be successful in. Being good isn't always enough. You have to be marketed properly and develop a following. They can pay anywhere from didly to obscene amounts of money.

Graphic art design, advertising, sign making etc seem a more reliable source of income. That way if you don't develop the following or marketing fails (even the best product can fail). You still have money to pay bills.

Newspapers print stories every day, magazines needs writers too. Don't count them out.

I've found two career paths at any one time works well. If something takes off, party time!! otherwise the bills still get paid.

For the most part, artists make whatever they get waiting tables. =) It's a hard life if you don't love it, but you never know, you could find your niche and get a bunch of monies.

As an artist you can get funding, either from local goverment or organizations, I will go for that soon.

seriously depends on what you want to do. You can get a job writing for a newspaper, or even writing the manuals for appliances and make ok money but you could also decide you want to be a novelist, and live off of welfare until your harry potter series is published.

You can also write for magazines, websites, tv shows, etc.

Perhaps you can do that in Germany, Canada, and other more progressive countries, however here in the US, what you make is entirely dependent on the Market. Many writers over here wind up moonlighting in other jobs to make money to survive, whilst not making that much off of their intellectual property.

That funding is in many EU countries possible, but as far as I know only for artists, not writers.

The best way to recieve a good guarenteed income, and still keep some artistic freedom is to pursue a PhD in your field.

Working in an artistic field can be quite difficult; as mentioned by many, most people tend to hold a full-time job while they pursue their writing. It doesn't necessarily have to be a store or waiting tables

For writing, I would probably advise browsing through magazines which invites contributions from freelance writers. The pay would vary according to the magazine [there is one in Australia which pays $AU15/100 words], and if you can, try also writing some short, non-fiction articles to supplement your income [and perhaps stretch your writing style].

You can sell freelance articles for about $1/word, but keep in mind this involves a lot of interviewing and marketing. Many freelance writers supplement their income with other freelance work - editing, technical or copy (ad) writing, teaching, an other part-time work. Very few people can support themselves on what they earn from writing novels or poetry. If you have a nice trust fund set up, or plan to marry rich, then by all means, explore a career in novel writing, but most novelists (including the uber-wealthy Stephen King, Tom Clancy, and John Grisham) started their careers working in other fields before they earned enough to quit their jobs. Many successful writers continue to work until they've published 3 or more novels. Where else do you think they find the instructors for all these creative writing courses that are available at community centers, community colleges, and extension divisions of universities?

If you really want to make a living by writing, you should pursue a career in journalism (or copy writing, if you can handle the social workplace) but if you're looking for a more solitary work environment, you might want to build up other related, but marketable skills (like web design - where you could write the web copy but also have the technical skills to design a webpage).

You can always work on developing your writing and/or painting skills and then teach at a high school or community college (or university if you go and get a PhD) and work on your own stuff on the side, but many people who go this route find that teaching deters them from actually working on their own creative pursuits...

I worked for almost two years as a storyboard artist. I was technically working freelance, although most of my work was done with an animation company based in Cambridge. I would draw scenes and characters that the main animating team would then work from to produce the finished products.

I enjoyed the work as I love to draw, but it was still painstaking stuff and the hours were horrendously long. The money wasn't all that good, largely based on my age and reletive lack of experience, running to something in the region of £400-500 per 'job'. But bearing in mind each job would invariably last a month at least, and the hours were somewhat more than the average nine to five, it wasn't much.

If you hit the big time though, then you're laughing.

Ah, those sweet and naive days when I actually thought I could make money with my art and writing...

What the hell was I thinking???