Ellison Was Right: Don’t Work for Nothing

Why I Write for Myself (and Not for Exposure)

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Sci-fi writing legend Harlan Ellison, in his signature caffeinated fury, once recounted getting a call from a young producer asking if a Babylon 5 interview he’d already done could be used on a DVD.

“Absolutely,” he said. “All you gotta do is pay me.”

The producer was dumbfounded. “Everybody else is doing it for nothing.”

To which Ellison replied, “Everybody else may be an asshole, but I’m not.”

It’s an oft-quoted moment because it’s true—not just in its blunt force delivery, but in its core indignation: Why is the writer always expected to work for free?

Samuel Johnson famously said, “No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.” Which is clever, but a bit narrow. Because if that were universally true, I’d have to count myself among the blockheads.

Let me explain.

I have paid subscribers on Substack. I have readers who support my work with their hard-earned dollars, and I’m deeply grateful. But the truth is, even if they weren’t there, I’d probably still be writing. Not for exposure. Not to curry favor. Not for a pat on the back or a byline in someone else’s marketing blog.

I write for myself.

It’s not ego. It’s not martyrdom. It’s agency.

There’s a world of difference between writing for free and writing for yourself.

I own my work. My name is on it. My copyright. My ideas. My voice. No one is flipping it into content marketing or slapping their brand on it while I’m handed “great exposure” and a slow clap.

We’ve all heard the pitch: write for our blog, it’s a great chance to build awareness! And sure, I’ve done that dance. Early in my career, I wrote things “for the clip.” For the speculative hope that someone, somewhere, might read it and want to hire me. But here’s the dirty little secret: that almost never happens.

Writing for exposure is like buying a scratch-off ticket with your time. You might win. But statistically, you won’t.

And if you’re writing to help someone else sell a product, a service, or a brand—and you’re not getting paid? You’re not a contributor. You’re inventory.

This isn’t bitterness. This is arithmetic. The hours spent on that free blog post, that ghostwritten article, that “strategic storytelling opportunity”—could you have spent those hours investing in your own platform?

Your own voice?

Your own audience?

Would anyone really knock on your door and offer you work because you ghostwrote something for a real estate firm’s blog? It happens about as often as podcasting turns into a screenplay deal. (And I say that as someone who actually got a screenplay deal from a podcast; one that paid, technically, for a couple years of podcasting work. But let me assure you: that was a lightning strike, not a forecast.)

So, no. I don’t write for other people’s margins anymore. I write here. Under my name. On my terms. Not for a byline on a corporate website. Not for a link at the bottom of a blog post. Not for a pat on the head and a “thank you, content creator.”

And you shouldn’t either. Not unless it’s worth it to you.

Write for money, yes. But also write for meaning. Write to say something that matters. Write to own your work. And if someone comes along, hand outstretched and says “we’d love to use that,” your response should be exactly what Ellison thundered across the years:

“All you gotta do is pay me.”