Quote:
Originally Posted by avantman42
I don't worry about piracy, but equally, I take issue with your statement that "A true author isn't in this to make money." Catherine Ryan Howard expressed why better than I can: |
And she did it well, although I think she's more polite than many successful authors I know, many of whom wouldn't write,
at all, if they had an independent income.
Quote:
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As ApK says, if you don't want to make money, you can give your stuff away. If you want to do that, great, go ahead. I have no issue with that. Your post suggested that you think no-one should try and make money from their writing, and I do have an issue with that.
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Warning, rant on:
Oh, one of my
favorite memes! That "real" authors aren't in it for the money. You know, I think we can lay that old chestnut at the feet of the Church, as I've said here, on MR, before. The early Christian/Catholic Church invested a LOT of time and energy convincing artists, who should have been PAID ACTUAL MONEY that doing their work for free, for "God," was somehow better and holier and just...better, than expecting filthy lucre. It's a mindset that still continues today, and you don't just see it in the arts, although it's dreadfully noticeable t/here. The Church got away with that
codswallop, because they could sell it--after all, who else can offer a stairway to heaven? But
they aren't the recipients of
your labors now, and that bit of clever manipulation
should no longer make you think that you should be writing for free.
I've seen women who own stallions protest vehemently that they don't own them to "make money," as if making money is somehow dirty. It's a ludicrous discussion; there's no reason on God's green earth to own a stallion if you're not going to use him for stud. (There is some discussion that competition stallions are "braver" than geldings, but that's anecdotal and unproven. They are certainly NOT easier to handle at competitions, I can tell you that first-hand.) Men, on the other hand, who own stallions will freely say that
OF COURSE, they plan to make money on them, and will look at you like you're deranged if you suggest any other reason to own one. This causes me to ponder whether this (demurrer) is also gender-based, to some extent. (I will never forget the woman who posted that "[I] just don't understand the bond you can have with a stallion," which would have been a lot more impressive if a) I didn't already have one and b) she hadn't handed that self-same horse off to someone else a few months later because she could no longer handle him, but I digress. Back to ranting.)
In any event: if authors
didn't want to make money; if it was
all about being READ, they'd put their stuff up on Smashwords, put it on Scribd, publish entire books on Goodreads,
all for nothing, and be utterly and completely
content. The MOMENT you put your work up with a price-tag attached,
you've said to the world that your effort deserves compensation. That your writing work stands with other published authors. That it's good enough to pay for. Any other mindset is cognitive dissonance, if you tell yourself that you're "in it for the art," while
you're pricing your work. OR, you'd send submission after submission to agents and publishing houses and paper your WC with rejection letters (assuming arguendo that such arrived) and yet, be gleefully happy at the same time.
It could also be a defense mechanism, I suppose; a way to hedge against failure. (
This is not directed at ANY poster on this thread. I'm thinking aloud). I mean, if you are not successful at publishing, and you say you're only in it for the writing, then you haven't failed. But we seem to fairly easily talk about painters who cannot sell paintings as "failed artists," so...I wonder why we have a different standard for all those poor bastards in Paris, after all?
And, in case anyone wants to know: I damn sure well am NOT IN IT for love. I am NOT in making books for anything but filthy lucre. There. I said it aloud. I'm not here for the beer, I'm not here for the fun (well...in book-making. I'm on MR for fun, mostly); I'm just making books because it EARNS. Anything else that is WORK, that doesn't pay, is an utter waste of my time. I, filthy capitalist that I am, do not do "work" for nothing.
And
if you're an author, you're getting PAID. That's WORK. If you're a "
writer," and you're not getting paid, that's a
hobby; you could be making journal entries or sending love-poems to your beloved.
AUTHORS are paid writers. You do yourself a disservice if you tell yourself anything else.
</rant off>
Hitch