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Meta
It seems like more information needs to be provided in order to answer this question.
Just me. Everyone else has to work pro bono, to support my decadent lifestyle.
Yes, it is open-ended. Probably too much.
I’ll add some prompts.
Writers have a personality that writes too often for free. They might be part of the actual devaluing of the written word by the practice.
In contrast…
Sometimes students ask how I got paying jobs reviewing books or writing for the Denver Post or whatever…blah, blah. I tell them write for free, anywhere, anytime, and eventually you’ll get paid.
Or (throwing prompts out)
A very successful (here meaning god work and paid for it) writer/friend told me one day to look at every publication/interview/etc all around the world of writing ad big-picture payment. These things accumulate.
A professor of mine at U ___ said he makes 2 X his prof salary on extracurricular book activities.
Are we above being paid? This question shallow/callow.
I throw all these out for blog/forum prompts.
Me?
I think every publication pays me. I can finally quit revising the piece. I can let it go. I can smile to see my work in the mags I enjoy reading. Alongside the writers I respect and glow to. And, yes, I am a wriitng prof. The smile also means “publish or perish” is not a concern of mine. When actual money arrives (it has, it can, believe it or literary not) I smile too. I buy beer and drink my words.
So
Only writers without MFA’s who have no job prospects.
I write for free for the Rumpus and some literary journals. I don’t make much money on my writing — maybe 10% of my yearly income. The most I ever made writing was around 25% of one year’s income. I would like to make a larger percentage of my income on my writing, since it takes up about 89% of my productive time and energy, and also because I would like to have more money so I could buy some things and put some away for the future.
Interesting comment, Brenden. So those who need $$ to actually eat/live might choose different markets than others.
Or, maybe more landlords need to accept lit mags as payment, a situation benefiting the artist and the landlord’s mind.
Who was the painter who paid his meals in paintings?
I need to Google
I was being a little sarcastic. But considering, here in the US, the job market for an uneducated bastard like myself is close to zero, I have to try and get paid for my writing.
My father certainly paid the rent with paintings/sculptures.
I wish my landlord would take a short story for rent.
they joy of writing another bullshit story no one will ever read or ever care about should be its own reward
they = the
mark I don’t think you believe that one (the story being bullshit or not ever read)
“Sometimes students ask how I got paying jobs reviewing books or writing for the Denver Post or whatever…blah, blah. I tell them write for free, anywhere, anytime, and eventually you’ll get paid.”
Personal blogs, amazon.com, Goodreads?
yeah you’re right, i’m just hungover and bitter today! but… there’s something true to it too. writing has to be its own reward, the reason you do it can’t have anything to do with external stimuli, otherwise your writing will be flabby emotionally neutered cotton
my thought has always been to say, let those who want to and can get paid, get paid, and those who want to but can’t, stay poor. maybe that will motivate them to get creative if they really want money. or it might motivate them to let go of wanting money at all. either way is fine with me. but one thing i cannot stand is a writer complaining about they’re not paid enough, it’s pathetic and makes me ashamed to be an artist
But are the people who aren’t getting paid really poorer than those that are? seriously.
Also a lot of very good books have been written because the writer needed quick money. Dostoyevsky’s “The Gambler”. Johnson’s “Rasselas”…. A lot of bad books too of course. But I think it depends more on the author than on the intention.
Certainly personal blogs, yes. I have gotten paid work off my blog. I certainly know others who have done the same.
Amazon? I don’t really know. Not a big fan so maybe wrote 2 short reviews in my life. Goodreads I don’t get like others do.
I am talking about the multiple review sites–Newpages, Short Review, Chapbook Review, on and on–you write enough reviews and people send you books (many–one form of payment, I’d say, most are excellent books) and then a body of work is constructed, etc.
You get invites. On and on. A lot of the online world is link to link to link, steamrolls.
The print world for me was writing free opinion articles for a Denver mag and that led to a paying D post thing.
In Alabama, I went from college newspaper to city magazine.
I’m saying get your stuff out there so an editor can see it.
Plus, it’s all writing. If you are writing a column (or story, poem, etc) anywhere, you are in practice. You are writing.
fuck the paper, i’m here for the pussy.
yes, please.
If you wanted to make money, say, writing reviews, there is a pipeline, if you’ve got the goods. If I wanted to write reviews for the NY Times Book Review, and I was seriously motivated, I’d start writing extended Time-plus-style reviews for The Rumpus or Bookslut. I’d use those clips to get a gig writing the same kind of thing for the LA Times books blog. I’d leverage that into their Sunday print section. Then I’d take those clips to the NY Times Book Review.
There are so few people writing really strong book reviews in the United States that anybody who had the chops could do it. The chief obstacle is time and energy. Whenever I think about doing this kind of thing, the next thing I think is I’d rather spend that energy on fiction or essays.
I would say, for the most part, that writers should be paid. Harlan Ellison makes a pretty convincing case in “Pay the Writer.”
Granted, his anger is mostly directed at hugely successful companies, but the premise that nonprofessional writers hurt professional writers is worth considering. Young and aspiring journalists might need to write for free to get clips but, beyond that, I think writing for free isn’t all that good of an idea, or, at least, it should be avoided whenever possible.
I tend to think that any market with enough cash or backing to exist but without enough cash or backing to pay contributors actually doesn’t have enough cash or backing to exist. The exception might be a collective blog like this, but everyone’s goal should be professionalism.
That’ll be $150.
The embedded video didn’t post, for some reason. For anyone interested, here’s the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj5IV23g-fE
me too.
God, I hope so. However, I’m pretty sure I’m going to be poor forever. I guess that’s okay. I’ve always been poor, so I’m not afraid of being poor. But I would like to not be homeless or starving. Yeah.
I like it better with the typo
Jake leading into the conversation my broad one-sentence question was leading to.
Cormac McCarthy just decided, “I’m not going to have a job, period. I am going to write.”
How did that go?
For many, many years it went $40 a month motels in NO, etc. Many years. He just knew that to be true and did it.
Then later, he got paid. But he could have also not got paid, he didn’t care. He just wanted to write and do nothing else so built his life around that. That’s not for everyone (including me), but it can be made, constructed, rather easily.
Yes.
Or…
Or?
A very cheap lifestyle can be produced.
That’s my point. Whether you write or not is up to you.
It seems like more information needs to be provided in order to answer this question.
Just me. Everyone else has to work pro bono, to support my decadent lifestyle.
Yes, it is open-ended. Probably too much.
I’ll add some prompts.
Writers have a personality that writes too often for free. They might be part of the actual devaluing of the written word by the practice.
In contrast…
Sometimes students ask how I got paying jobs reviewing books or writing for the Denver Post or whatever…blah, blah. I tell them write for free, anywhere, anytime, and eventually you’ll get paid.
Or (throwing prompts out)
A very successful (here meaning god work and paid for it) writer/friend told me one day to look at every publication/interview/etc all around the world of writing ad big-picture payment. These things accumulate.
A professor of mine at U ___ said he makes 2 X his prof salary on extracurricular book activities.
Are we above being paid? This question shallow/callow.
I throw all these out for blog/forum prompts.
Me?
I think every publication pays me. I can finally quit revising the piece. I can let it go. I can smile to see my work in the mags I enjoy reading. Alongside the writers I respect and glow to. And, yes, I am a wriitng prof. The smile also means “publish or perish” is not a concern of mine. When actual money arrives (it has, it can, believe it or literary not) I smile too. I buy beer and drink my words.
So
I would like to be paid, and sometimes I get paid (as in, like, we’re coming up on time #2 in years) but I don’t think it’s important to make a living on one’s writing. I can only spend so much of the day in my own little world. If I ever make enough money on books, etc. to not need to work otherwise, I’d just have to take up volunteer work to keep seeing people and learning new things.
Only writers without MFA’s who have no job prospects.
I write for free for the Rumpus and some literary journals. I don’t make much money on my writing — maybe 10% of my yearly income. The most I ever made writing was around 25% of one year’s income. I would like to make a larger percentage of my income on my writing, since it takes up about 89% of my productive time and energy, and also because I would like to have more money so I could buy some things and put some away for the future.
Interesting comment, Brenden. So those who need $$ to actually eat/live might choose different markets than others.
Or, maybe more landlords need to accept lit mags as payment, a situation benefiting the artist and the landlord’s mind.
Who was the painter who paid his meals in paintings?
I need to Google
I was being a little sarcastic. But considering, here in the US, the job market for an uneducated bastard like myself is close to zero, I have to try and get paid for my writing.
My father certainly paid the rent with paintings/sculptures.
I wish my landlord would take a short story for rent.
they joy of writing another bullshit story no one will ever read or ever care about should be its own reward
they = the
mark I don’t think you believe that one (the story being bullshit or not ever read)
“Sometimes students ask how I got paying jobs reviewing books or writing for the Denver Post or whatever…blah, blah. I tell them write for free, anywhere, anytime, and eventually you’ll get paid.”
Personal blogs, amazon.com, Goodreads?
How does a person even start writing reviews for The Rumpus or Bookslut, though? Writing reviews is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, but I have no idea where to start with it. Also, it doesn’t help that most of the books I read are at least a few years old, since I don’t have the money to buy new ones.
yeah you’re right, i’m just hungover and bitter today! but… there’s something true to it too. writing has to be its own reward, the reason you do it can’t have anything to do with external stimuli, otherwise your writing will be flabby emotionally neutered cotton
my thought has always been to say, let those who want to and can get paid, get paid, and those who want to but can’t, stay poor. maybe that will motivate them to get creative if they really want money. or it might motivate them to let go of wanting money at all. either way is fine with me. but one thing i cannot stand is a writer complaining about they’re not paid enough, it’s pathetic and makes me ashamed to be an artist
Yeah, my dad thought, “I’m not going to have a job, period. I’m going to write,” too. Now he’s never been published and he lives on a disability check and Mormon charity, so I guess he’s living the life?
should writing be paid for?
But are the people who aren’t getting paid really poorer than those that are? seriously.
Also a lot of very good books have been written because the writer needed quick money. Dostoyevsky’s “The Gambler”. Johnson’s “Rasselas”…. A lot of bad books too of course. But I think it depends more on the author than on the intention.
Certainly personal blogs, yes. I have gotten paid work off my blog. I certainly know others who have done the same.
Amazon? I don’t really know. Not a big fan so maybe wrote 2 short reviews in my life. Goodreads I don’t get like others do.
I am talking about the multiple review sites–Newpages, Short Review, Chapbook Review, on and on–you write enough reviews and people send you books (many–one form of payment, I’d say, most are excellent books) and then a body of work is constructed, etc.
You get invites. On and on. A lot of the online world is link to link to link, steamrolls.
The print world for me was writing free opinion articles for a Denver mag and that led to a paying D post thing.
In Alabama, I went from college newspaper to city magazine.
I’m saying get your stuff out there so an editor can see it.
Plus, it’s all writing. If you are writing a column (or story, poem, etc) anywhere, you are in practice. You are writing.
didnt mean this as a reply to you mike, meant as its own thing down lower
read lewis hyde’s the gift
http://southerncrossreview.org/4/schwartz.html
fuck the paper, i’m here for the pussy.
‘I can only spend so much of the day in my own little world.’
i actually relaly agree with this though. i still see writing as too selfish of a thing to put so much energy into, i could never *only* write, id have to go get a job somewhere or volunteer somewhere, paint my neighbor’s houses maybe.
Hey Hank,
I’ll give you a chance to get started. If you read a book that was published by an Independent or Small Press in 2009 or 2010 and want to write up a review, you can send it to me at The Southeast Review Online:
southeastreview.org@gmail.com
This offer is open to anyone else reading these comments who might be looking for a chance to get some experience and begin building a portfolio of clips, like what Kyle is talking about in his comment above.
Awesome possum. Though, the only books published in the time-frame you mention that I’ve read are “Shoplifting from American Apparel” and “Eat When You Feel Sad,” though I should be getting “Witz” soon. I’ll see what I can do, though, now that I finally have a job, because I really want to do this.
yes, please.
If you wanted to make money, say, writing reviews, there is a pipeline, if you’ve got the goods. If I wanted to write reviews for the NY Times Book Review, and I was seriously motivated, I’d start writing extended Time-plus-style reviews for The Rumpus or Bookslut. I’d use those clips to get a gig writing the same kind of thing for the LA Times books blog. I’d leverage that into their Sunday print section. Then I’d take those clips to the NY Times Book Review.
There are so few people writing really strong book reviews in the United States that anybody who had the chops could do it. The chief obstacle is time and energy. Whenever I think about doing this kind of thing, the next thing I think is I’d rather spend that energy on fiction or essays.
I would say, for the most part, that writers should be paid. Harlan Ellison makes a pretty convincing case in “Pay the Writer.”
Granted, his anger is mostly directed at hugely successful companies, but the premise that nonprofessional writers hurt professional writers is worth considering. Young and aspiring journalists might need to write for free to get clips but, beyond that, I think writing for free isn’t all that good of an idea, or, at least, it should be avoided whenever possible.
I tend to think that any market with enough cash or backing to exist but without enough cash or backing to pay contributors actually doesn’t have enough cash or backing to exist. The exception might be a collective blog like this, but everyone’s goal should be professionalism.
That’ll be $150.
The embedded video didn’t post, for some reason. For anyone interested, here’s the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj5IV23g-fE
me too.
should writers get laid?
Yes, they definitely should.
i go back and forth on whether i should be reviewing. im a horrible reviewer actually i think. i dont actually like reviewing or talking about what i read. so i liked it, big woop. thats my reivew. or i didn;t. shit this pale ale.
why do you think so?
Mostly just because I think everyone should get laid.
i tried once actually sending a query to the rumpus asking if they were interested in reading a review i wrote for a thing and they said they werent interested.
I mean, um, it’s a lonely world out there, you know?
so not just writers then is what you’re saying.
some, yes. Some, no.
Steve Albini has a great thing about how musicians aren’t getting paid like they used to. It’s like tennis…a lot of people play it, but not everyone thinks they’re going to get money from it.
If you “should” get paid, you will get paid. You probably won’t.
I feel like some of my text messages should negate the charges.
Even just for the sake of the writing, really. I would run out of stuff to write.
Maybe the real question is:
“Should magazines not pay writers?”
“Should writers pay magazines?”
“Should I pay you to let me work?”
Because it sort of seems like that is how things are trending.
Oh ok. similar means to different ends. i could never run out of stuff to right. i dont rely on reality for that. i think its more like i’ll always consider writing as not tangible enough of a thing to do or something. like i need to be doing something that contributes to society in a more basic way to feel okay with myself. writing doesnt provide that, its just too fun!
I really don’t see or feel it that way. I could be wrong, but when I’m writing/studying/reading it feels like the most selfless thing in the world. When I write I do not feel like I’m stuffed in a little world (I may just be oblivious, I guess); I don’t want to be a hermit or anything, but I would love to be financially well-off enough to devote myself to the craft from 6 to 6 every day, then have 6-midnight to play with the family or visit friends. I guess that’s kind of my dream lifestyle.
I feel like the amount of stuff I would love to write outruns the time I have to write it by at least 100x. I’m hoping to be alive and mentally agile at a really really old age. . . .
God, I hope so. However, I’m pretty sure I’m going to be poor forever. I guess that’s okay. I’ve always been poor, so I’m not afraid of being poor. But I would like to not be homeless or starving. Yeah.
sweet
Well it’s weird because I don’t usually write from experience too much and when I do it’s usually about childhood, but if I’m not active in other people’s lives I just sort of run out of juice. But yeah, I feel that way too.
I think a writer should get paid if they can get someone to pay them. That’s always a fun thing, and I hope it can happen for as many non-Shitastic Sellouts as possible. But if they don’t, I don’t particularly care, and I hope they would continue to write in whatever capacity they can. History shows that whether a person gets paid a good amount for their writing is kinda arbitrary, so it’s not something anyone should expect or count on.
I think writers who make an exceptional amount of money should consider experimenting in creating new writing support-systems, communities. Not sure what it will look like, but a private systemized form of patronship for artists would be neat. At the very least, something better than the current form of patronship for writers (MFA, later CrWr posts) would be cool.
I like it better with the typo
Jake leading into the conversation my broad one-sentence question was leading to.
Cormac McCarthy just decided, “I’m not going to have a job, period. I am going to write.”
How did that go?
For many, many years it went $40 a month motels in NO, etc. Many years. He just knew that to be true and did it.
Then later, he got paid. But he could have also not got paid, he didn’t care. He just wanted to write and do nothing else so built his life around that. That’s not for everyone (including me), but it can be made, constructed, rather easily.
Yes.
Or…
Or?
A very cheap lifestyle can be produced.
That’s my point. Whether you write or not is up to you.
assuming he’s mormon… I’ve never heard of a mormon writer that’s written anything worth reading. the few i can think of were either excommunicated for what they wrote or left the church. worked for jk rowling and alan moore, but everyone is different, or so i was taught.
I would like to be paid, and sometimes I get paid (as in, like, we’re coming up on time #2 in years) but I don’t think it’s important to make a living on one’s writing. I can only spend so much of the day in my own little world. If I ever make enough money on books, etc. to not need to work otherwise, I’d just have to take up volunteer work to keep seeing people and learning new things.
i’ve noticed in the lit journals i’ve been writing for i am usually the only writer who makes his living entirely from writing, albeit from journalism and non-fiction—most i’ve ever been paid for fiction is $2000 for a short story. i don’t have an mfa and i’m jealous of those who do. from outside academia, it looks like mfa leads to teaching which gives one the luxury to write for free. (i want to get an mfa, but I can’t take the time because my other writing supports my family.) i do write for free, sometimes, i’ve given stories to New York Tyrant, Santa Monica Review, Columbia and some other journals I admire, but I’ve noticed that even a token payment, Zyzzyva’s $50 for example, makes me feel much better than $0. It just does. I think even $10 is better than $0. It’s one drink versus no drink.
How does a person even start writing reviews for The Rumpus or Bookslut, though? Writing reviews is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, but I have no idea where to start with it. Also, it doesn’t help that most of the books I read are at least a few years old, since I don’t have the money to buy new ones.
Yeah, my dad thought, “I’m not going to have a job, period. I’m going to write,” too. Now he’s never been published and he lives on a disability check and Mormon charity, so I guess he’s living the life?
should writing be paid for?
didnt mean this as a reply to you mike, meant as its own thing down lower
read lewis hyde’s the gift
http://southerncrossreview.org/4/schwartz.html
‘I can only spend so much of the day in my own little world.’
i actually relaly agree with this though. i still see writing as too selfish of a thing to put so much energy into, i could never *only* write, id have to go get a job somewhere or volunteer somewhere, paint my neighbor’s houses maybe.
Hey Hank,
I’ll give you a chance to get started. If you read a book that was published by an Independent or Small Press in 2009 or 2010 and want to write up a review, you can send it to me at The Southeast Review Online:
southeastreview.org@gmail.com
This offer is open to anyone else reading these comments who might be looking for a chance to get some experience and begin building a portfolio of clips, like what Kyle is talking about in his comment above.
Awesome possum. Though, the only books published in the time-frame you mention that I’ve read are “Shoplifting from American Apparel” and “Eat When You Feel Sad,” though I should be getting “Witz” soon. I’ll see what I can do, though, now that I finally have a job, because I really want to do this.
It’s kind of chicken vs. the egg, don’t you think?
Yep, pretty much.
should writers get laid?
Yes, they definitely should.
i go back and forth on whether i should be reviewing. im a horrible reviewer actually i think. i dont actually like reviewing or talking about what i read. so i liked it, big woop. thats my reivew. or i didn;t. shit this pale ale.
why do you think so?
Mostly just because I think everyone should get laid.
i tried once actually sending a query to the rumpus asking if they were interested in reading a review i wrote for a thing and they said they werent interested.
I mean, um, it’s a lonely world out there, you know?
so not just writers then is what you’re saying.
some, yes. Some, no.
Steve Albini has a great thing about how musicians aren’t getting paid like they used to. It’s like tennis…a lot of people play it, but not everyone thinks they’re going to get money from it.
If you “should” get paid, you will get paid. You probably won’t.
I feel like some of my text messages should negate the charges.
Even just for the sake of the writing, really. I would run out of stuff to write.
Maybe the real question is:
“Should magazines not pay writers?”
“Should writers pay magazines?”
“Should I pay you to let me work?”
Because it sort of seems like that is how things are trending.
Karl, you shouldn’t be jealous at all–most MFA grads have never earned close to 2K for a short story.
Oh ok. similar means to different ends. i could never run out of stuff to right. i dont rely on reality for that. i think its more like i’ll always consider writing as not tangible enough of a thing to do or something. like i need to be doing something that contributes to society in a more basic way to feel okay with myself. writing doesnt provide that, its just too fun!
I really don’t see or feel it that way. I could be wrong, but when I’m writing/studying/reading it feels like the most selfless thing in the world. When I write I do not feel like I’m stuffed in a little world (I may just be oblivious, I guess); I don’t want to be a hermit or anything, but I would love to be financially well-off enough to devote myself to the craft from 6 to 6 every day, then have 6-midnight to play with the family or visit friends. I guess that’s kind of my dream lifestyle.
I feel like the amount of stuff I would love to write outruns the time I have to write it by at least 100x. I’m hoping to be alive and mentally agile at a really really old age. . . .
sweet
Well it’s weird because I don’t usually write from experience too much and when I do it’s usually about childhood, but if I’m not active in other people’s lives I just sort of run out of juice. But yeah, I feel that way too.
I think a writer should get paid if they can get someone to pay them. That’s always a fun thing, and I hope it can happen for as many non-Shitastic Sellouts as possible. But if they don’t, I don’t particularly care, and I hope they would continue to write in whatever capacity they can. History shows that whether a person gets paid a good amount for their writing is kinda arbitrary, so it’s not something anyone should expect or count on.
I think writers who make an exceptional amount of money should consider experimenting in creating new writing support-systems, communities. Not sure what it will look like, but a private systemized form of patronship for artists would be neat. At the very least, something better than the current form of patronship for writers (MFA, later CrWr posts) would be cool.
assuming he’s mormon… I’ve never heard of a mormon writer that’s written anything worth reading. the few i can think of were either excommunicated for what they wrote or left the church. worked for jk rowling and alan moore, but everyone is different, or so i was taught.
i’ve noticed in the lit journals i’ve been writing for i am usually the only writer who makes his living entirely from writing, albeit from journalism and non-fiction—most i’ve ever been paid for fiction is $2000 for a short story. i don’t have an mfa and i’m jealous of those who do. from outside academia, it looks like mfa leads to teaching which gives one the luxury to write for free. (i want to get an mfa, but I can’t take the time because my other writing supports my family.) i do write for free, sometimes, i’ve given stories to New York Tyrant, Santa Monica Review, Columbia and some other journals I admire, but I’ve noticed that even a token payment, Zyzzyva’s $50 for example, makes me feel much better than $0. It just does. I think even $10 is better than $0. It’s one drink versus no drink.
It’s kind of chicken vs. the egg, don’t you think?
Yep, pretty much.
All genuine talents are good at more than one Artform; pimp one to pay for the other. Like: by day be the giggly, buxom Whore who composes jingles to pay rent for the Borgesian Nun who lives to write meta-fiction by night. Just make sure that playing the Whore isn’t more time-intense than the writing or the purpose is defeated. Oh, and: it helps if you start on this scheme while still young.
Karl, you shouldn’t be jealous at all–most MFA grads have never earned close to 2K for a short story.
The indie games community has established an interesting model for this: http://indie-fund.com/about/
Basically, some of those people have already made millions from their games, and they’re using some of that money to support other developing talents who’re still where the big guys were 3 years ago (i.e. penniless and struggling).
I think it’s only just opened up for public submissions, though — it’s been going for half a year or a year or something just on a people-who-know-people basis — so it remains to be seen how successful the venture proves.
[Please understand that I’m not trying to start a flame war or get personal.]
“I don’t think it’s important to make a living on one’s writing.”
How is this relevant? If you only want to write part-time, fine, but why should other writers suffer for your attitude?
Writers who do have the skill and desire to write many publishable pieces are submarined by the expectation that writers shouldn’t be paid, or that writing is more of a hobby than a craft. I’d like to foster a literary community that gives incentives for good writers to do more of their good work. Ditto for bricklayers, garment workers, and chefs. Producers of quality material should expect to be paid for their work.
Thanks! I think…
i’d like to get paid for writing but i don’t know if i could bring myself to write something for $. i do teach writing for $, so it’s the same difference, probably.
Harlan is one of the important postmodernists of the latter half of the 20th century (srsly; he’s written tons of mere-craftm, sure, but also a gravid trove of works which Helped Change Lit) but his “pay the writer” rant is of another era. He made that case in an era during which people might actually *notice* if a writer withheld his/her bounty. Hold your breath until people beg to pay for your Lit and wake up in a coma. “Pay the Writer!” is not so different from “Pay the Chimney Sweep!”
The game is now about working so hard at either being Singularly Brilliant or Crowd-Pleasingly Crafty (Ellison is actually both, though the profusion of examples of the latter hurts, unfairly, his rep) that people will pay for the privilege of more more more. Whatever you do don’t sit in a huff in your sandbox refusing to lift a shovel unless someone promises to pay to see a castle. There will be no castles that way.
erratum: “The game is now about working so hard at either being Singularly Brilliant or Crowd-Pleasingly Crafty (Ellison is actually both, though the profusion of examples of the latter hurts, unfairly, his rep) that people will MAYBE ONE DAY pay for the privilege of READING more more more.”
in a market economy, the only way anyone gets paid is by doing or creating something that has demand enough to contribute to a revenue stream beyond themselves. writers being paid is not a matter of just doing quality work. i could go outside and run a quality mile, no on is going to pay me for it. if i write something that has demand enough that people will pay for it, i’ll get paid for it. there should be no expectation of payment for writing until there is noticeable demand for it. there is already built in demand for bricklayers, garment workers and chefs because they produce things that are basic human needs. my essay is not a very important thing for people to have or to spend money on when put next to paying their mortgages, buying clothes and food.
If someone offered you money for your poems or short stories or whatever you probably could bring yourself.
All genuine talents are good at more than one Artform; pimp one to pay for the other. Like: by day be the giggly, buxom Whore who composes jingles to pay rent for the Borgesian Nun who lives to write meta-fiction by night. Just make sure that playing the Whore isn’t more time-intense than the writing or the purpose is defeated. Oh, and: it helps if you start on this scheme while still young.
The indie games community has established an interesting model for this: http://indie-fund.com/about/
Basically, some of those people have already made millions from their games, and they’re using some of that money to support other developing talents who’re still where the big guys were 3 years ago (i.e. penniless and struggling).
I think it’s only just opened up for public submissions, though — it’s been going for half a year or a year or something just on a people-who-know-people basis — so it remains to be seen how successful the venture proves.
if you are writing to get paid then you should not be writing
if you write and sometimes you end up getting paid then it’s okay
you should write because you want to write because you want to write
nobody has to do anything
you do not have to write
you do not have to get paid
“do whatever you need to do”
if the poems or short stories or “whatever” are already written then you are not writing for money, n’est pas?
[Please understand that I’m not trying to start a flame war or get personal.]
“I don’t think it’s important to make a living on one’s writing.”
How is this relevant? If you only want to write part-time, fine, but why should other writers suffer for your attitude?
Writers who do have the skill and desire to write many publishable pieces are submarined by the expectation that writers shouldn’t be paid, or that writing is more of a hobby than a craft. I’d like to foster a literary community that gives incentives for good writers to do more of their good work. Ditto for bricklayers, garment workers, and chefs. Producers of quality material should expect to be paid for their work.
Thanks! I think…
i’d like to get paid for writing but i don’t know if i could bring myself to write something for $. i do teach writing for $, so it’s the same difference, probably.
Harlan is one of the important postmodernists of the latter half of the 20th century (srsly; he’s written tons of mere-craftm, sure, but also a gravid trove of works which Helped Change Lit) but his “pay the writer” rant is of another era. He made that case in an era during which people might actually *notice* if a writer withheld his/her bounty. Hold your breath until people beg to pay for your Lit and wake up in a coma. “Pay the Writer!” is not so different from “Pay the Chimney Sweep!”
The game is now about working so hard at either being Singularly Brilliant or Crowd-Pleasingly Crafty (Ellison is actually both, though the profusion of examples of the latter hurts, unfairly, his rep) that people will pay for the privilege of more more more. Whatever you do don’t sit in a huff in your sandbox refusing to lift a shovel unless someone promises to pay to see a castle. There will be no castles that way.
erratum: “The game is now about working so hard at either being Singularly Brilliant or Crowd-Pleasingly Crafty (Ellison is actually both, though the profusion of examples of the latter hurts, unfairly, his rep) that people will MAYBE ONE DAY pay for the privilege of READING more more more.”
“if you are writing to get paid then you should not be writing”
Why the heck not??
Should writers get paid?
YES! I’m not fucking darning socks or playing cards. This is not a leisurely pastime.
Producers of quality material should expect to be paid for their work.
I completely agree with this, Jake. Thank you.
man if not, what the fuck is everyone going to do at the next awp, darby?!?
it makes you seem like an interloper.
you are unpure.
If you sell it, then you are writing for money.
I would also doubt anyone here would turn down an offer of 3,000 dollars to write a story on commission.
Jesus. So, I guess most of the great writers were just a bunch of impure soulless scroungers.
good point! maybe instead they could all go shopping, or go to a petting zoo together. good times!
writing is a leisurely pastime! it is!
funny how interloper became “impure soulless scrounger”
that shouldnt be confused with a writer’s general intention though, that’s just taking advantage of an opportunity.
no, no. book nerds have to go to places of adult libations or they will be left alone with their insecure thoughts for too long and their small brains will go pop.
no zoos or shopping either.
brendan,
perhaps. i think you are misreading what i wrote though. don’t be so emo.
I’d gladly be unpure if it more time and resources to write and live with!
Kind of like what Kyle said about writing reviews, I think we all start out at the bottom, learn a lot, and then at some point start aiming higher. There are many forms of payment and cash is only one of them.
What if you publish a story at 3:AM or Word Riot or Dogmatika (like I have) and that leads to somebody finding your work, and enjoying it, becoming a fan and later, BUYING your book? Or, those editors then become fans and later post up reviews/interviews of your first book. This has all happened to me. You get exposure, you create a fan base, you get your work out, but your work is always a passion, a priority, a pleasure in and of itself.
You can be literary or commercial or both.
My first book, Transubstantiate, is just now out – a neo-noir thriller from a tiny, new press out of Kentucky called Otherworld Publications. I’m very excited about it. But it took me a long time to gain the confidence to even attempt to write a novel. I built that confidence on three years of submitting short stories, getting rejected, getting accepted, etc. It’s all connected.
Yes, we should all get paid, cash money on the barrelhead. BUT…we also all need to learn and grow as writers. I, like many here, submit my stories starting out with the top tiers: those magazines and journals that pay the best, are the most prestigious, and will do the most for my career. When those reject me (and they usually do, with a 1% acceptance rate) I move down to Tier 2: very cool places that pay less. Then on to Tier 3: very cool places that don’t pay. Somewhere in there you hope for an acceptance.
We can’t all expect to get paid for every story we write, although that would be nice. Save your babies that get rejected for that short story collection, or use it to promote yourself, a handout or chapbook at a reading. Or rework and send out again. Or delete. Get your work out there, and find a way to entertain and enlighten people. That, is also payment.
in a market economy, the only way anyone gets paid is by doing or creating something that has demand enough to contribute to a revenue stream beyond themselves. writers being paid is not a matter of just doing quality work. i could go outside and run a quality mile, no on is going to pay me for it. if i write something that has demand enough that people will pay for it, i’ll get paid for it. there should be no expectation of payment for writing until there is noticeable demand for it. there is already built in demand for bricklayers, garment workers and chefs because they produce things that are basic human needs. my essay is not a very important thing for people to have or to spend money on when put next to paying their mortgages, buying clothes and food.
i support hank.
i was thinking more about this and the split between writers who write with the intent to be paid and those who don’t. i think writers who write primarily for readers other than themselves tend to want to be paid. and i can kind of understand this, i think writing primarily for an external reader or market is much more difficult, or is at least closer to what i consider to be “work,” than writing while using themself as their ideal reader. if you are writing in such a way that you dont really care how readers will read it, ie. just for yourself, and throwing things around and maybe hoping something sticks (like what i do!), its harder to justify a desire to be paid for this. these are two extremes and everyone maybe falls somewhere in between, but while there’s more monetary potential in the former, i tend to think there’s more creative potential in the latter.
If someone offered you money for your poems or short stories or whatever you probably could bring yourself.
I don’t know. People should try and do good work whether they are paid or not. But money is part of the game and I dare say always has been.
Well, once people start talking about “purity” in regards to just about anything, I get nervous. Anyone who is cruising around the internet can’t be that pure.
i don’t understand what you mean about the internet?
Writing a novel or meeting a deadine is anything but leisurely for me, and I imagine most people.
Blogs, forums, websites, facebook, etc.
huh? were you raised catholic?
i am not sure we are on the same page on the subject of purity.
Probably not. But, just out of curiosity (and without any hostility intended), what is “pure” about any of the writing out there today? I mean, everyone is doing it for a reason. If it is not money, it is recognition, or because they think they are secret geniuses, or because it is a way of validating their lives. The exception might be if someone feels they have something important to say. But the end result usually baffles the intention.
you have lots of answers but none that seem to fit my scenario?
i don’t write for any of those reasons. i write because i like to write.
there are others. sam pink. darby has stated the same.
ive never experienced writing to be anything but leisurely so far. though ive never been in a situation where im writing under deadline that wasn’t just edits to an already accepted short work. even lengthier stuff ive written though, i find the process to be something fun to do. compared to the other ways that ive worked to make money in my life, writing doesnt feel like that, its sitting in a chair and imaging things, its just fun to do. i cant think of it as being work or a money maker. its a pastime. its a vacation.
if you are writing to get paid then you should not be writing
if you write and sometimes you end up getting paid then it’s okay
you should write because you want to write because you want to write
nobody has to do anything
you do not have to write
you do not have to get paid
“do whatever you need to do”
i also write because i like to write, jereme, and this is possibly the first time we have agreed on anything
Funny, I genuinely do not enjoy writing. I like keeping busy, but writing itself I don’t find pleasurable. And edits are truly unpleasant. But it must be true, since there are three people here saying they enjoy it.
Yeah, just now saw this, basically I agree with what darby said. I would be into a government program designed to guarantee everyone had enough money to survive and as such to subsidize writing as well as other artistic activities (and, more importantly, life), but we don’t fail to make money because we don’t want it, we fail to make it because people have the right not to give it to us, and they choose not to give it to us, and that’s okay. Sure I would like money for my work, and I like to pay other people for their work (I have a dream where my magazine makes enough money I can send out a bunch of tiny checks) but I don’t feel I’m owed anything, or that you are, or anyone is. Writing is a great way to spend your time. So is reading. But while I would sell out in two seconds if it meant I could afford to live the way I wanted to, I don’t write for the opportunity to sell out, I write because I love it.
I love sex and feel like I am good at it, but don’t feel that I should necessarily be paid for that either.
if the poems or short stories or “whatever” are already written then you are not writing for money, n’est pas?
so “why” do you write brendan? clearly, as you’ve established, your primary motivation for writing must be either: money, fame, to reveal your secret genius, or to validate your. which one is it?
do you know what else i do because i like doing it? i like riding my bike through forests, taking photos, web design, editing a lit journal, maintaining a couple of fish tanks, playing in shitty bands, getting wasted, self-publishing zines & artist books, watching weird movies, sometimes writing about weird movies, reading theory, reading fiction, reading poetry, swimming, etc
several of those things can be viewed as “career options,” but instead i work an administrative job on my old university’s campus. you know what? aside from the fact that i’m not getting laid regularly, i’m a pretty happy dude. i like the fact that i can still do things because i like doing them.
it appears i clicked the wrong “reply” to respond too. oh well.
Brendan:
“Funny, I genuinely do not enjoy writing. I like keeping busy, but writing itself I don’t find pleasurable. And edits are truly unpleasant. But it must be true, since there are three people here saying they enjoy it.”
There are only three things I enjoy doing every day, absolutely and without guilt or worry after: buying my 4-year-old presents, f–king my wife and writing.
Brady Udall’s written three books worth reading — The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint, The Lonely Polygamist, and a collection of stories. Patrick Madden (who teaches at BYU) wrote a collection of essays about essaying titled Quotidiana, and it’s good, too. Brian Evenson is the greatest Mormon writer, and, yes, he got excommunicated, but he wasn’t any less of a writer for being Mormon back when he was still Mormon. I think the weirdness of Mormon culture and Mormon Scripture and Mormon history and Mormon mythology is an under-exploited literary resource akin to the hugely cool things we get out of and in sometimes in internal opposition to Jewish culture (Roth, Singer, Ozick, Joshua Cohen), and of which we ought to start seeing more from evangelical culture sooner than later. I think the relative youngness of Mormonism and evangelicalism accounts for the lack of a large literary tradition such as what the Catholics or Muslims or Jews or Buddhists have, but there are stirrings here and there, and give it time: People from within make the things that happily undo some of their fellow insiders, and make the rest bitch and groan for lack of a desire to talk the true talk our better literature likes to make when it’s time to replace the common wisdom with the harsher insight the common wisdom was set up to cover over.
(Too bad this is a comment and not a guest post, because this is a subject worth parsing more publicly.)
Mike, in all honesty, the reason I do it is because I do it better than most people, in a way that other people aren’t doing, and it keeps me out of trouble. And at this point, I can probably make slightly more money at it than the lousy jobs I see available in the newspaper.
It is good that you enjoy doing things. I like working in my garden and walking in the woods.
Nothing wrong with any of that :)
“if you are writing to get paid then you should not be writing”
Why the heck not??
Should writers get paid?
YES! I’m not fucking darning socks or playing cards. This is not a leisurely pastime.
Producers of quality material should expect to be paid for their work.
I completely agree with this, Jake. Thank you.
“But considering, here in the US, the job market for an uneducated bastard like myself is close to zero…”
The job market is close to zero either way. Move to Sweden or Germany, be a bartender at night and write during the day. The women are mind-bogglingly beautiful, Bohemian poverty is not a capital offense and the taps all flow with Nutella.
man if not, what the fuck is everyone going to do at the next awp, darby?!?
it makes you seem like an interloper.
you are unpure.
If you sell it, then you are writing for money.
I would also doubt anyone here would turn down an offer of 3,000 dollars to write a story on commission.
Jesus. So, I guess most of the great writers were just a bunch of impure soulless scroungers.
good point! maybe instead they could all go shopping, or go to a petting zoo together. good times!
writing is a leisurely pastime! it is!
funny how interloper became “impure soulless scrounger”
that shouldnt be confused with a writer’s general intention though, that’s just taking advantage of an opportunity.
no, no. book nerds have to go to places of adult libations or they will be left alone with their insecure thoughts for too long and their small brains will go pop.
no zoos or shopping either.
brendan,
perhaps. i think you are misreading what i wrote though. don’t be so emo.
I have to disagree with this too, I’m afraid.
“writers being paid is not a matter of just doing quality work. i could go outside and run a quality mile, no on is going to pay me for it.”
Really? If you ran a mile faster than the people on a professional track team, wouldn’t you feel some entitlement to at least be offered a try-out? Or, wouldn’t the members of professional track teams have cause to be peeved if you offered to train, race, and be sponsored by Nike at no charge to Nike? I think the analogy to quality writers who don’t expect pay holds.
Obviously, not everyone who puts pen to paper deserves, automatically, to be paid. There is a demand for good pieces, however, and if you’re producing them, you should expect pay. Sure, reading isn’t essential to “basic human needs” (whatever that means), but neither are a lot of services we all pay for. Would you scoff at a top-tier chef (who likes to cook) demanding pay in exchange for his food? What about the Los Angeles Lakers? I’m sure the team-members enjoy playing basketball, but would you say that they’re wrong to demand payment for their hard work, even if it is “not a very important thing.” (Perhaps athletes are overpaid and tickets are overpriced; that’s tangential to this discussion.)
We make the decision to pay for art, entertainment, and good food all the time, even though none of these things satisfy obvious evolutionary needs. These things make life more enjoyable, and the people who create them should be compensated for their time and energy. If there’s really no demand for quality fiction, than it’s up to us, as readers, to help foster that demand. The first step would be to pay great writers for their work, which sets the expectation that good writers deserve pay and thoughtful readers ought to pay for what they consume. Everyone wins.
If your work isn’t in demand, that’s no reason to lower the expectation of pay for someone who’s work is. No one is forcing you to release it. That’s all I’m saying.
Aw heck. I’m rambling.
Aw heck. “someone whose is.” My bad.
Hope none of that sounded overly confrontational. I really enjoy this discussion.
I’d gladly be unpure if it more time and resources to write and live with!
“someone whose work is”
I think.
I’m a mess.
Kind of like what Kyle said about writing reviews, I think we all start out at the bottom, learn a lot, and then at some point start aiming higher. There are many forms of payment and cash is only one of them.
What if you publish a story at 3:AM or Word Riot or Dogmatika (like I have) and that leads to somebody finding your work, and enjoying it, becoming a fan and later, BUYING your book? Or, those editors then become fans and later post up reviews/interviews of your first book. This has all happened to me. You get exposure, you create a fan base, you get your work out, but your work is always a passion, a priority, a pleasure in and of itself.
You can be literary or commercial or both.
My first book, Transubstantiate, is just now out – a neo-noir thriller from a tiny, new press out of Kentucky called Otherworld Publications. I’m very excited about it. But it took me a long time to gain the confidence to even attempt to write a novel. I built that confidence on three years of submitting short stories, getting rejected, getting accepted, etc. It’s all connected.
Yes, we should all get paid, cash money on the barrelhead. BUT…we also all need to learn and grow as writers. I, like many here, submit my stories starting out with the top tiers: those magazines and journals that pay the best, are the most prestigious, and will do the most for my career. When those reject me (and they usually do, with a 1% acceptance rate) I move down to Tier 2: very cool places that pay less. Then on to Tier 3: very cool places that don’t pay. Somewhere in there you hope for an acceptance.
We can’t all expect to get paid for every story we write, although that would be nice. Save your babies that get rejected for that short story collection, or use it to promote yourself, a handout or chapbook at a reading. Or rework and send out again. Or delete. Get your work out there, and find a way to entertain and enlighten people. That, is also payment.
i support hank.
i was thinking more about this and the split between writers who write with the intent to be paid and those who don’t. i think writers who write primarily for readers other than themselves tend to want to be paid. and i can kind of understand this, i think writing primarily for an external reader or market is much more difficult, or is at least closer to what i consider to be “work,” than writing while using themself as their ideal reader. if you are writing in such a way that you dont really care how readers will read it, ie. just for yourself, and throwing things around and maybe hoping something sticks (like what i do!), its harder to justify a desire to be paid for this. these are two extremes and everyone maybe falls somewhere in between, but while there’s more monetary potential in the former, i tend to think there’s more creative potential in the latter.
Richard makes a point that was one point of my brief question:
“There are many forms of payment and cash is only one of them.”
well said
I’d also like to be in the I-like-2-write camp. I think it’s mind-play. But I can skip it for running or chess or disc golf or bowhunting, or, yes, love-making with wife (all of these mind-play, IMO).
I don’t know. People should try and do good work whether they are paid or not. But money is part of the game and I dare say always has been.
Well, once people start talking about “purity” in regards to just about anything, I get nervous. Anyone who is cruising around the internet can’t be that pure.
i don’t understand what you mean about the internet?
Writing a novel or meeting a deadine is anything but leisurely for me, and I imagine most people.
Blogs, forums, websites, facebook, etc.
huh? were you raised catholic?
i am not sure we are on the same page on the subject of purity.
Probably not. But, just out of curiosity (and without any hostility intended), what is “pure” about any of the writing out there today? I mean, everyone is doing it for a reason. If it is not money, it is recognition, or because they think they are secret geniuses, or because it is a way of validating their lives. The exception might be if someone feels they have something important to say. But the end result usually baffles the intention.
hi jake. you picked a hole in my mile analogy, thats fair. i sort of meant recreational running, not competive, though if my mile can compete at that level, i think the analogy gets shifted into like writers who are at the very top who already do get paid like rowling and mccarthy and etc. they are the equivalent of the nike sponsored, and there’s only room for a handful of them. maybe a better one i should have said was what if i go outside and mow my lawn. i exhaust effort in the sun and sweat and grow my muscles a tiny bit and no one pays me cuz i like my lawn to be pretty and i like my muscles too, so i do the work for me. i dont do it for pay. effort by itself doesn’t not equal pay expectation, there has to be a resultant product that has demand.
things dont need to be a “basic human need” (whatever that means (it means things that sort of need to live or interact in society with such as eating food to be alive or wearing clothes not be naked or to live in a box that keeps rain out of it, these basic things, cable television, etc.)) to have demand. I just picked those things because you picked them, even though those things happen to have intense demand built in already. a top tier chef has demand, he’s not demanding a certain amount of pay, he’s simply taking what people are willing to pay him to make their food for them. being paid for something is determined by how much people are willing to pay for the thing you do, ie. demand.
i tend to think demand is demand. i think one can generate awareness for a product (book) but eventually, demand is demand, and the quality will rise out of that and be rewarded by that demand. generating awareness is often necessary, but you can’t make a person like something they dont like.
‘If your work isn’t in demand, that’s no reason to lower the expectation of pay for someone who’s work is.’
i have a harder time arguing against this. it kind of opens up the whole free media debate. that’s just how it goes when there are too many people who want to do something and technology enables it to happen cheaply. i think it reveals the true demand in a way too.
you have lots of answers but none that seem to fit my scenario?
i don’t write for any of those reasons. i write because i like to write.
there are others. sam pink. darby has stated the same.
ive never experienced writing to be anything but leisurely so far. though ive never been in a situation where im writing under deadline that wasn’t just edits to an already accepted short work. even lengthier stuff ive written though, i find the process to be something fun to do. compared to the other ways that ive worked to make money in my life, writing doesnt feel like that, its sitting in a chair and imaging things, its just fun to do. i cant think of it as being work or a money maker. its a pastime. its a vacation.
i also write because i like to write, jereme, and this is possibly the first time we have agreed on anything
Funny, I genuinely do not enjoy writing. I like keeping busy, but writing itself I don’t find pleasurable. And edits are truly unpleasant. But it must be true, since there are three people here saying they enjoy it.
Yeah, just now saw this, basically I agree with what darby said. I would be into a government program designed to guarantee everyone had enough money to survive and as such to subsidize writing as well as other artistic activities (and, more importantly, life), but we don’t fail to make money because we don’t want it, we fail to make it because people have the right not to give it to us, and they choose not to give it to us, and that’s okay. Sure I would like money for my work, and I like to pay other people for their work (I have a dream where my magazine makes enough money I can send out a bunch of tiny checks) but I don’t feel I’m owed anything, or that you are, or anyone is. Writing is a great way to spend your time. So is reading. But while I would sell out in two seconds if it meant I could afford to live the way I wanted to, I don’t write for the opportunity to sell out, I write because I love it.
I love sex and feel like I am good at it, but don’t feel that I should necessarily be paid for that either.
so “why” do you write brendan? clearly, as you’ve established, your primary motivation for writing must be either: money, fame, to reveal your secret genius, or to validate your. which one is it?
do you know what else i do because i like doing it? i like riding my bike through forests, taking photos, web design, editing a lit journal, maintaining a couple of fish tanks, playing in shitty bands, getting wasted, self-publishing zines & artist books, watching weird movies, sometimes writing about weird movies, reading theory, reading fiction, reading poetry, swimming, etc
several of those things can be viewed as “career options,” but instead i work an administrative job on my old university’s campus. you know what? aside from the fact that i’m not getting laid regularly, i’m a pretty happy dude. i like the fact that i can still do things because i like doing them.
it appears i clicked the wrong “reply” to respond too. oh well.
Brendan:
“Funny, I genuinely do not enjoy writing. I like keeping busy, but writing itself I don’t find pleasurable. And edits are truly unpleasant. But it must be true, since there are three people here saying they enjoy it.”
There are only three things I enjoy doing every day, absolutely and without guilt or worry after: buying my 4-year-old presents, f–king my wife and writing.
Brady Udall’s written three books worth reading — The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint, The Lonely Polygamist, and a collection of stories. Patrick Madden (who teaches at BYU) wrote a collection of essays about essaying titled Quotidiana, and it’s good, too. Brian Evenson is the greatest Mormon writer, and, yes, he got excommunicated, but he wasn’t any less of a writer for being Mormon back when he was still Mormon. I think the weirdness of Mormon culture and Mormon Scripture and Mormon history and Mormon mythology is an under-exploited literary resource akin to the hugely cool things we get out of and in sometimes in internal opposition to Jewish culture (Roth, Singer, Ozick, Joshua Cohen), and of which we ought to start seeing more from evangelical culture sooner than later. I think the relative youngness of Mormonism and evangelicalism accounts for the lack of a large literary tradition such as what the Catholics or Muslims or Jews or Buddhists have, but there are stirrings here and there, and give it time: People from within make the things that happily undo some of their fellow insiders, and make the rest bitch and groan for lack of a desire to talk the true talk our better literature likes to make when it’s time to replace the common wisdom with the harsher insight the common wisdom was set up to cover over.
(Too bad this is a comment and not a guest post, because this is a subject worth parsing more publicly.)
Mike, in all honesty, the reason I do it is because I do it better than most people, in a way that other people aren’t doing, and it keeps me out of trouble. And at this point, I can probably make slightly more money at it than the lousy jobs I see available in the newspaper.
It is good that you enjoy doing things. I like working in my garden and walking in the woods.
Nothing wrong with any of that :)
“But considering, here in the US, the job market for an uneducated bastard like myself is close to zero…”
The job market is close to zero either way. Move to Sweden or Germany, be a bartender at night and write during the day. The women are mind-bogglingly beautiful, Bohemian poverty is not a capital offense and the taps all flow with Nutella.
I have to disagree with this too, I’m afraid.
“writers being paid is not a matter of just doing quality work. i could go outside and run a quality mile, no on is going to pay me for it.”
Really? If you ran a mile faster than the people on a professional track team, wouldn’t you feel some entitlement to at least be offered a try-out? Or, wouldn’t the members of professional track teams have cause to be peeved if you offered to train, race, and be sponsored by Nike at no charge to Nike? I think the analogy to quality writers who don’t expect pay holds.
Obviously, not everyone who puts pen to paper deserves, automatically, to be paid. There is a demand for good pieces, however, and if you’re producing them, you should expect pay. Sure, reading isn’t essential to “basic human needs” (whatever that means), but neither are a lot of services we all pay for. Would you scoff at a top-tier chef (who likes to cook) demanding pay in exchange for his food? What about the Los Angeles Lakers? I’m sure the team-members enjoy playing basketball, but would you say that they’re wrong to demand payment for their hard work, even if it is “not a very important thing.” (Perhaps athletes are overpaid and tickets are overpriced; that’s tangential to this discussion.)
We make the decision to pay for art, entertainment, and good food all the time, even though none of these things satisfy obvious evolutionary needs. These things make life more enjoyable, and the people who create them should be compensated for their time and energy. If there’s really no demand for quality fiction, than it’s up to us, as readers, to help foster that demand. The first step would be to pay great writers for their work, which sets the expectation that good writers deserve pay and thoughtful readers ought to pay for what they consume. Everyone wins.
If your work isn’t in demand, that’s no reason to lower the expectation of pay for someone who’s work is. No one is forcing you to release it. That’s all I’m saying.
Aw heck. I’m rambling.
Aw heck. “someone whose is.” My bad.
Hope none of that sounded overly confrontational. I really enjoy this discussion.
“someone whose work is”
I think.
I’m a mess.
Richard makes a point that was one point of my brief question:
“There are many forms of payment and cash is only one of them.”
well said
I’d also like to be in the I-like-2-write camp. I think it’s mind-play. But I can skip it for running or chess or disc golf or bowhunting, or, yes, love-making with wife (all of these mind-play, IMO).
dude, if i had a dollar everytime i heard that phrase, i would have a personal jet for you to hate on, too.
if I had a dime for every time I heard the phrase “if I had a dollar”…
But seriously, I am not hating anything. Just because you can’t relate to what I am saying does not mean that I “hate”.
hi jake. you picked a hole in my mile analogy, thats fair. i sort of meant recreational running, not competive, though if my mile can compete at that level, i think the analogy gets shifted into like writers who are at the very top who already do get paid like rowling and mccarthy and etc. they are the equivalent of the nike sponsored, and there’s only room for a handful of them. maybe a better one i should have said was what if i go outside and mow my lawn. i exhaust effort in the sun and sweat and grow my muscles a tiny bit and no one pays me cuz i like my lawn to be pretty and i like my muscles too, so i do the work for me. i dont do it for pay. effort by itself doesn’t not equal pay expectation, there has to be a resultant product that has demand.
things dont need to be a “basic human need” (whatever that means (it means things that sort of need to live or interact in society with such as eating food to be alive or wearing clothes not be naked or to live in a box that keeps rain out of it, these basic things, cable television, etc.)) to have demand. I just picked those things because you picked them, even though those things happen to have intense demand built in already. a top tier chef has demand, he’s not demanding a certain amount of pay, he’s simply taking what people are willing to pay him to make their food for them. being paid for something is determined by how much people are willing to pay for the thing you do, ie. demand.
i tend to think demand is demand. i think one can generate awareness for a product (book) but eventually, demand is demand, and the quality will rise out of that and be rewarded by that demand. generating awareness is often necessary, but you can’t make a person like something they dont like.
‘If your work isn’t in demand, that’s no reason to lower the expectation of pay for someone who’s work is.’
i have a harder time arguing against this. it kind of opens up the whole free media debate. that’s just how it goes when there are too many people who want to do something and technology enables it to happen cheaply. i think it reveals the true demand in a way too.
I should have explained what I meant by “not a leisurely pastime.” It can be for a lot of writers, but it’s not only that. I don’t look at writing as a “money maker,” but I do agree with Jake that “producers of quality material should expect to be paid for their work.”
I especially like what Richard said below: “I think we all start out at the bottom, learn a lot, and then at some point start aiming higher. There are many forms of payment and cash is only one of them.”
dude, if i had a dollar everytime i heard that phrase, i would have a personal jet for you to hate on, too.
if I had a dime for every time I heard the phrase “if I had a dollar”…
But seriously, I am not hating anything. Just because you can’t relate to what I am saying does not mean that I “hate”.
I should have explained what I meant by “not a leisurely pastime.” It can be for a lot of writers, but it’s not only that. I don’t look at writing as a “money maker,” but I do agree with Jake that “producers of quality material should expect to be paid for their work.”
I especially like what Richard said below: “I think we all start out at the bottom, learn a lot, and then at some point start aiming higher. There are many forms of payment and cash is only one of them.”
brendan,
the comment was directed at magick mike, not you.
i can relate to what you are saying, and i still think the same.
brendan,
the comment was directed at magick mike, not you.
i can relate to what you are saying, and i still think the same.
Good people at Flatmancrooked, who’re pretty hip to the kids, have already put a that kind of “patronship” idea into action. Here’s how they describe their LAUNCH program:
“The Launch program is a front-end, community-based monetization model for launching an author’s debut book. During the Launch period, patrons can buy a ‘share’ and thus help ‘launch’ the career of a promising writer. [..] While the Launch is ongoing, short stories by the author that Flatmancrooked has previously published will be made available for free on the website, so that our readers can get a feel for the author’s style and decide whether he or she is an author they’d like to see more from.” — http://bit.ly/92vpZh
Good times.
Good people at Flatmancrooked, who’re pretty hip to the kids, have already put a that kind of “patronship” idea into action. Here’s how they describe their LAUNCH program:
“The Launch program is a front-end, community-based monetization model for launching an author’s debut book. During the Launch period, patrons can buy a ‘share’ and thus help ‘launch’ the career of a promising writer. [..] While the Launch is ongoing, short stories by the author that Flatmancrooked has previously published will be made available for free on the website, so that our readers can get a feel for the author’s style and decide whether he or she is an author they’d like to see more from.” — http://bit.ly/92vpZh
Good times.
Counterpoint from our friends in genre fiction: John Scalzi’s (fairly convincing) “Aspiring Writer Syndrome”. http://whatever.scalzi.com/2009/12/03/aspiring-writer-stockholm-syndrome/
Counterpoint from our friends in genre fiction: John Scalzi’s (fairly convincing) “Aspiring Writer Syndrome”. http://whatever.scalzi.com/2009/12/03/aspiring-writer-stockholm-syndrome/