When you tell people you're going to be a writer, undoubtedly many of them will tell you, "Don't quit your day job."

Don't listen to them. QUIT your day job.

Then get a much BETTER one.

It is true you likely won't earn much as an author and will thus need to supplement your writing income. But you can do better than your current day job. You just don't know it yet. 

The trouble with most regular jobs is the hours are long and the pay ranges from laughable to lackluster. As an author, you need a lot of time to write and rewrite, and a lot of money to cover your drinking expenses and the costs associated with self-publishing after you fail to land an agent and publisher. Doing the 9-to-5 thing (or some uninspired variation of it) will provide you with neither enough time nor enough money. Plus most traditional jobs are boring and soul-crushing, leaving you with little energy and enthusiasm to create anything worth reading or making a Netflix series out of.

Below I’ve listed five nontraditional jobs that are ideal for authors looking to easily make ends meet. All feature minimum work for maximum pay, provide highly flexible scheduling, and require no formal degrees or certificates. Also, the exciting and risky nature of the jobs themselves will provide plenty of captivating fodder for books.

Now, it should be noted that if you get caught doing any of these jobs (with the exception of one), you will go to prison. But don’t sweat it. In prison you’ll gain even more book fodder and time to write. You simply can’t lose.  

And now, on to what I consider some of the best possible day* jobs for authors. (*Most of these jobs are best done at night.)

Bank Robber. Had he been literate, Jessie James could have crushed it as a novelist. Bank robbers work only one or two days a month and make over a million dollars an hour—almost as much as J.K. Rowling. With that kind of free time, you could write a novel every two weeks—almost as many as Stephen King. Key qualifications for the job of Bank Robber include a cool temperament, a steady hand, and a ski mask. It also helps to know the bank’s hours.  

Jewel Thief. This job is just as lucrative and time-efficient as Bank Robber, and requires many of the same attributes and ski masks. The big difference is that a jewel thief needs much less upper-body strength, as a handful of diamonds weighs a lot less than sacks full of cash. This is good news for writers who struggle to get to the gym between bouts of writing and drinking. In other words, nearly all authors.

Drug Dealer. Fortunately for writers, more than half the world’s population today is as depressed and as unstable as they are. This means the demand for narcotics and other controlled substances is higher than ever. As a drug dealer, an author can make a fortune working just a couple of hours a day, then spend the rest of the day sampling their own product and working on their novel. As an added bonus, having immediate access to painkillers is great for helping authors handle the agony of constant rejection and poor book sales.

Hitman (or woman). Most authors would kill for more time to write, and that’s exactly what they’d be doing in this job. An average hit takes only a few hours to prepare for and complete, and fetches between $25K-$50K. So by doing just one hit a month, an author will earn enough to almost cover the PR costs for promoting their latest novel. Two hits a month, and they can start thinking about bribing Kirkus to write a favorable book review.     

Professional Escort. If going on dates and sleepovers is more appealing to you than killing or stealing, then this is likely the best job for you on the list. Escorts can earn $15K-$30K a month just by accompanying lonely rich people to parties, social events and private sex dungeons a few times a week. Good money, plenty of free time to write, and, if you decide to write about your actual experiences, the chance to blow the shitty Fifty Shades of Grey out of the water in the erotica market. The only drawback is that escorting is legal in all 50 U.S. states, which means there’s no chance you’ll get to go on a prison-based writing retreat.

NOTE: I, myself, am currently considering getting a job in one of the fields mentioned above. The only other viable alternative is for you and everyone you know to buy my books. 

I’ve been surrounded by loving and supportive family members, friends and teachers all my life. I blame all of them for what has happened.

Me becoming a writer.

These people really have no excuse – they could have steered me toward a more lucrative profession where poor hygiene and substance abuse is frowned upon. But no, they chose to encourage me to explore my natural talents, to put my words on paper and on computer screens and on blogs. They chose to let me continue down the dark and lonely path of an author of fiction, just because they saw how happy it made me.

The bastards.

It would take me days to name EVERYONE responsible for me becoming a writer. So, in the interest of time and space, here’s a list of just the main culprits:    

My parents. Oh sure, my mother may have hinted at me becoming a doctor or a lawyer when I was a child, but we’re Jewish, so she was just following the rules. Doesn’t count. Her big mistake was not insisting I become a doctor or lawyer. Instead, she and my father would read wonderful stories to me at bedtime, buy me amazing books to read myself, pat me on the back and say “Great work!” when they’d read my book reports and other writing projects for school. They paid for me to get a liberal arts education in college, and afterward bought me my first PC so I could easily write and save all my essays, poems and stories. I’m not sure if I’ll ever forgive them. Unless my novels start hitting the bestseller list.

Dr. Seuss. Theodor Geisel, you son of a bitch. Why did you have to make words and stories so enchanting and strange and fun? I was hooked from the very first time I opened Horton Hears A Who, and I’ve never looked back. I can only imagine how many other lives you’ve ruined.  

All my English teachers and professors. Some people are fortunate enough to get assigned to English teachers who are burnt out and bitter, who inspire no one and who ensure that students quickly lose interest in reading and writing. Not me. I was cursed with one passionate and supportive English teacher after another, all the way up through college. They introduced me to the likes of Hemingway and Fitzgerald and Faulkner and Nabokov and Chekhov and Whitman and Plath.  Buy the time I graduated, it was too late to reverse all the damage that had been done. I was condemned to live a life of creativity, self-expression and bathing only occasionally.

Woody Allen. Woody’s been accused of a lot of things, but what I blame him for most is inspiring me to write comedic prose with an existential bent. (Big future in that.) I discovered his books of hilarious short stories (Without Feathers, Side Effects, and Getting Even) my senior year of college, and realized I had a similar voice inside me. Once I started writing humorously absurd tales, I couldn’t stop – even when my friends and the editors at The New Yorker and The Atlantic begged me to. Turns out it’s a lifelong affliction. Lucky for everyone.

Gordon MacPherson. Gordon was my boss at my first real job (as an editor/writer for a trade publication) and the one person who really had a chance to dash my silly writing dreams soon after college. But no, he instead praised my efforts and potential, bought me books on writing better, paid a writing coach to help me thrive, and even gave me my own humor column in the company’s publication. I hope you’re proud of yourself, Gordon. I’ll see you in Hell.       

Chuck Palahniuk. While Woody Allen is to blame for my desire to keep things light, Chuck Palahniuk is to blame for my desire to make things dark. Their combined influence is the reason why I insist on writing comedies about stuff like terminal illness, euthanasia, murder and sex trafficking. I blame Chuck more than I blame Woody. Woody merely got me addicted to making people die laughing; Chuck got me addicted to making people die, period. Plus, Chuck’s an enabler – twice he’s liked something I’ve tweeted; Woody, on the other hand, has ignored all my letters, emails, calls and faxes.    

My wife. My wife, Miranda, isn’t to blame for me becoming a writer. She’s to blame for me continuing to be one. That’s worse. To get me to stop, all she has to do is belittle me for my laughable royalties, tell me real men don’t sit around in their pajamas playing with imaginary friends, and withhold sex. But noooo, she instead wholeheartedly believes in my so-called talent, tells me to keep writing and to be patient, insists I’m on the brink of something big with my literary career, and, for whatever reason, still sleeps with me (though, in her defense, only after she’s had multiple glasses of wine). I mean, come on – what kind of woman WANTS her husband to be a writer?

I don’t know what YOU’RE giggling about; you, too, are partially to blame for all this. After all, you just read my blog post all the way to the end. Don’t you know that only encourages me?