Writers != Novelists

Per the BLS site, "Writers and authors develop written content for advertisements, books, magazines, movie and television scripts, songs, and online publications....Writers and authors work in an office, at home, or wherever else they have access to a computer. Most work full time. However, self-employed and freelance writers usually work part time or have variable schedules. About two-thirds were self-employed in 2012."

In other words, a lot of writers are neither struggling along at $15,000-$25,000 nor making John Grisham levels of money. Some even collect salaries and benefits. I made a pretty good living as a fulltime writer for about 12 years, during which time I wrote essentially no fiction.