I've been ruminating on this post for the past few days, and this morning a happy coincidence arrived in the form of Seth Godin doing an interview on Q. Seth Godin, as some of you may know, is known to many as the Doom And Gloom Man of publishing. He's an author himself and has worked in the publishing industry for the better part of 25 years, and for the past two years or so he's come out with increasingly dire predictions about the future of publishing, the future of books, and what all of this means for us lowly, little authors.
Last year, at the Edinburgh Book Festival, author Ewan Morrison set out a spectacularly bleak argument for the demise of books that had me more than a little depressed. Mr, Godin, with his arguments about book income and what authors can/should expect from today's publishing world, seemed all set to plunge me into another depression, especially seeing as how I'd spent the past few days tossing around the idea that it might just be time for me to start trying to make money from my own work.
I've always cherished the idea of one day being able to write full-time. Just like, oh, every other author on the planet, I suppose. I know it's a silly dream. Silly because most authors (as my so-much-wiser friends have pointed out to me, time and time again), even the ones we all know and love, have had to juggle other jobs with their writing careers at least at some stage in the game. Stephen King did it. Vincent Lam, whose new novel is out this spring, continues to do it despite winning the Giller Prize. And TS Eliot worked in a bank for thirty years. (A bank. How's that for rooting a dream firmly in reality?)
But dreams persist precisely because they're just that--dreams. Sometimes we hang on to them even in spite of their silliness. And so, even as I know that the likelihood of a lovely little life spent drinking tea and swearing loudly at my computer whilst in my pyjamas nigh on 40 hours a week is most probably never going to materialize, at least not in the way I envision, still I dream. And I clutch that dream ever tighter, even as people like Ewan Morrison argue that this new spate of ¢99 e-books is effectively glutting the market for any kind of viable living wage for a writer.
But the conversation with Seth Godin (who has argued, among other things, that writers shouldn't *expect* to get paid for their work) surprised me. Nary a whiff of doom and gloom in sight. Sure, he spent a lot of his time talking about the changes in the industry, and how writers need to adapt in response to these changes, but I didn't get a sense that he was talking about imminent death. The end is not nigh, lovelies. We're just changing. We're in the midst of the cocoon.
I've given a great deal (probably 99%) of my written work away for free over the past decade. I submitted to journals that were respected but could not, for one reason or another, afford to pay their writers. And I was happy with that because at the time, all I wanted to do was get my name out into the world. Build up a solid portfolio, yadda yadda. I never thought really truly seriously (even though, yes, I've whined about it in the past) about making a living from my writing in my twenties. I dreamed about it (who doesn't, at one point or another), but I recognized that there was still a way to go. I submitted to paying markets, too, but I knew that those markets were even more competitive, and so when rejections came back it was no surprise at all. Disappointing, sure--rejection always is. But not surprising.
When The Raptured was making its way through publishers, back at the beginning of 2011, my agent said that one of the best things I could do for myself would be to get more of my work seen in other arenas, even if I showcased things for free. "It's about getting your name known to the world," she said. "That's important, and it's worth a lot, even if there's no monetary compensation for it." And so I put more work into the blog, and I started sending work away as much as I could. And slowly but surely things started building up. In the past year I've published in a bunch of different magazines. None of this means money, but it does mean that I have more weight to my name now. My cred, homies, is beefing up.
Here's a secret, though: even as I sent things away to non-paying publications and told myself it was as much about building a platform as it was about recognition, there was a part of me that always thought: you don't deserve to get paid for your work because it's simply not good enough. And you won't deserve to get paid for your work for at least another ten years. Maybe twenty. Maybe, lowly little writer you, you'll never deserve it. Maybe you're just some hack. Maybe you just have to deal with that.
Thing is, there's also this to consider: just as part of getting published entails sending things out, so too are submissions to paying markets a part of the journey. You won't get published if you don't sent out your work, and you'll never get paid for your work if you continue, like me, to submit only to those magazines that give you a contributor's copy and thanks.
Don't get me wrong--I love contributors' copies. Love them. And I will sing the praises of every little struggling, non-paying publication out there until the day I bite eternal dust. Every writer who's ever felt that delicious thrill of publication knows that the world is a happier place for those little publications that can't pay but do love and spread the word about their writers. We would not be the writers that we are if they didn't exist.
But there comes a point, I think, when you have to say I'm worth the money. This is not to say that one should automatically move from this to saying, "I am worth a six-figure advance, publishing world!" From what I could gather of Godin's conversation today, that was his main point. He was arguing that gone are the days of authors being able to live solely from the fruits of pyjama days in front of the screen. He was saying that what authors need to do is diversify, and explore different ways to build income in addition to their book writing. He was saying that authors need to make sure they're creating a product that's unique. He talked, near the end of the interview, about how authors that tie in with book clubs and work hard to build a dedicated following are some of the ones that will survive. And he didn't seem to be saying that these authors didn't deserve to get paid for their work--he was saying that how they went about doing that thing for which they got paid had itself become different. Instead of writing in solitude and reaping advances from a publisher, authors must now actively engage with their readers. They need to do things like make podcasts and Facebook pages (strike one against me, but that's a whole other blog post) and maybe, yes, offer some of their work up for free in exchange for building readership. Like Godin said, it takes away from the real business of writing. Absolutely.
But almost a year ago, now, I came across this article in The Guardian, where the Scottish writer Sara Sheridan talked about the different book- and literature-related projects she's involved in in addition to her regular authorly time at the desk. She made life sound so exciting, and engaging in a way that's completely different from the excitement I get when I picture an existence given over to my computer and the screen. Maybe it's not all doom and gloom, kids. Maybe we just need to get smarter about the market. Build our street cred, and know when it's time to start asking for a paycheque here and there.
I still send my work away to smaller publications. I love them--I love what they do, I love what they offer, and I love how they treat me as a writer. And I still, against all evidence, nurture that full-time writer dream. But I think I'll start cashing my cred in and try a paying market or two, and look at how a writer builds her life out of all things, whether writing-related or not.
Seems to me it's worth the trouble. :)
Last year, at the Edinburgh Book Festival, author Ewan Morrison set out a spectacularly bleak argument for the demise of books that had me more than a little depressed. Mr, Godin, with his arguments about book income and what authors can/should expect from today's publishing world, seemed all set to plunge me into another depression, especially seeing as how I'd spent the past few days tossing around the idea that it might just be time for me to start trying to make money from my own work.
I've always cherished the idea of one day being able to write full-time. Just like, oh, every other author on the planet, I suppose. I know it's a silly dream. Silly because most authors (as my so-much-wiser friends have pointed out to me, time and time again), even the ones we all know and love, have had to juggle other jobs with their writing careers at least at some stage in the game. Stephen King did it. Vincent Lam, whose new novel is out this spring, continues to do it despite winning the Giller Prize. And TS Eliot worked in a bank for thirty years. (A bank. How's that for rooting a dream firmly in reality?)
But dreams persist precisely because they're just that--dreams. Sometimes we hang on to them even in spite of their silliness. And so, even as I know that the likelihood of a lovely little life spent drinking tea and swearing loudly at my computer whilst in my pyjamas nigh on 40 hours a week is most probably never going to materialize, at least not in the way I envision, still I dream. And I clutch that dream ever tighter, even as people like Ewan Morrison argue that this new spate of ¢99 e-books is effectively glutting the market for any kind of viable living wage for a writer.
But the conversation with Seth Godin (who has argued, among other things, that writers shouldn't *expect* to get paid for their work) surprised me. Nary a whiff of doom and gloom in sight. Sure, he spent a lot of his time talking about the changes in the industry, and how writers need to adapt in response to these changes, but I didn't get a sense that he was talking about imminent death. The end is not nigh, lovelies. We're just changing. We're in the midst of the cocoon.
I've given a great deal (probably 99%) of my written work away for free over the past decade. I submitted to journals that were respected but could not, for one reason or another, afford to pay their writers. And I was happy with that because at the time, all I wanted to do was get my name out into the world. Build up a solid portfolio, yadda yadda. I never thought really truly seriously (even though, yes, I've whined about it in the past) about making a living from my writing in my twenties. I dreamed about it (who doesn't, at one point or another), but I recognized that there was still a way to go. I submitted to paying markets, too, but I knew that those markets were even more competitive, and so when rejections came back it was no surprise at all. Disappointing, sure--rejection always is. But not surprising.
When The Raptured was making its way through publishers, back at the beginning of 2011, my agent said that one of the best things I could do for myself would be to get more of my work seen in other arenas, even if I showcased things for free. "It's about getting your name known to the world," she said. "That's important, and it's worth a lot, even if there's no monetary compensation for it." And so I put more work into the blog, and I started sending work away as much as I could. And slowly but surely things started building up. In the past year I've published in a bunch of different magazines. None of this means money, but it does mean that I have more weight to my name now. My cred, homies, is beefing up.
Here's a secret, though: even as I sent things away to non-paying publications and told myself it was as much about building a platform as it was about recognition, there was a part of me that always thought: you don't deserve to get paid for your work because it's simply not good enough. And you won't deserve to get paid for your work for at least another ten years. Maybe twenty. Maybe, lowly little writer you, you'll never deserve it. Maybe you're just some hack. Maybe you just have to deal with that.
Thing is, there's also this to consider: just as part of getting published entails sending things out, so too are submissions to paying markets a part of the journey. You won't get published if you don't sent out your work, and you'll never get paid for your work if you continue, like me, to submit only to those magazines that give you a contributor's copy and thanks.
Don't get me wrong--I love contributors' copies. Love them. And I will sing the praises of every little struggling, non-paying publication out there until the day I bite eternal dust. Every writer who's ever felt that delicious thrill of publication knows that the world is a happier place for those little publications that can't pay but do love and spread the word about their writers. We would not be the writers that we are if they didn't exist.
But there comes a point, I think, when you have to say I'm worth the money. This is not to say that one should automatically move from this to saying, "I am worth a six-figure advance, publishing world!" From what I could gather of Godin's conversation today, that was his main point. He was arguing that gone are the days of authors being able to live solely from the fruits of pyjama days in front of the screen. He was saying that what authors need to do is diversify, and explore different ways to build income in addition to their book writing. He was saying that authors need to make sure they're creating a product that's unique. He talked, near the end of the interview, about how authors that tie in with book clubs and work hard to build a dedicated following are some of the ones that will survive. And he didn't seem to be saying that these authors didn't deserve to get paid for their work--he was saying that how they went about doing that thing for which they got paid had itself become different. Instead of writing in solitude and reaping advances from a publisher, authors must now actively engage with their readers. They need to do things like make podcasts and Facebook pages (strike one against me, but that's a whole other blog post) and maybe, yes, offer some of their work up for free in exchange for building readership. Like Godin said, it takes away from the real business of writing. Absolutely.
But almost a year ago, now, I came across this article in The Guardian, where the Scottish writer Sara Sheridan talked about the different book- and literature-related projects she's involved in in addition to her regular authorly time at the desk. She made life sound so exciting, and engaging in a way that's completely different from the excitement I get when I picture an existence given over to my computer and the screen. Maybe it's not all doom and gloom, kids. Maybe we just need to get smarter about the market. Build our street cred, and know when it's time to start asking for a paycheque here and there.
I still send my work away to smaller publications. I love them--I love what they do, I love what they offer, and I love how they treat me as a writer. And I still, against all evidence, nurture that full-time writer dream. But I think I'll start cashing my cred in and try a paying market or two, and look at how a writer builds her life out of all things, whether writing-related or not.
Seems to me it's worth the trouble. :)
Yay! Embarking on positive change is exciting! I'm sure you'll do very well (and I do mean that, since I've read your writing). And since I consider you a social creature who enjoys actively engaging with bookish people, soon to be your audience or already so, I think you'll do just fine out in the world beyond your window, no matter what you say about loving your solitude and tea-drinking afternoons. :)
ReplyDeleteOnward and upward: cheers to being paid!