Why Aren't We Paid Like Professionals?

Most writers can’t live on their earnings. With all our skills and hard work we don’t make as much as other professionals such as doctors, lawyers, programmers, plumbers, counselors, and realtors. I was wondering why. Possibly it’s because these other professionals:

• Pay themselves according to rates that compensate them for their labor, materials and overhead, and won’t take less.
• Capitalize on their credentials, successes, and/or sales totals.
• Get lots of business through word-of-mouth and referrals.
• Are active in professional associations.
• Dismiss as a lunatic any doomsayer who tells them that they will never make a living no matter how hard they work or how good their work is.
• Don’t imagine that they are failures if they aren’t the richest and most famous doctor or realtor who ever lived.
• Keep up with new trends and tools in their fields.
• Have to pass tests to get licenses or certifications.
• Aren't so naive as to expect to live on the acclaim and money of thousands of people they will never see or meet.
  
• Wouldn’t consider as normal and desirable a middleman’s offer to pay them 10 to 15 percent of the total take.

But they all wish they were writers! Go figure.