Quote:
Originally Posted by Moejoe
I think maybe you've misconstrued the intentions of those who bring up the 'vocational' or 'calling' aspect of writing. Nobody here has said that its 'bad' to make money from writing, what we are saying is that its not a 'guarantee', that if you're in writing solely for the money then you're probably quite deluded. Like any other creative art, writing has very few monetary winners. There's an article over at Baen I'll try to dig up, that shows you just how few published writers earn a living from what they write.
To think that, even after you've gone through the mill of agent/publisher/long haul of waiting to get into print, that you'll actually be able to sustain a living from your creative endeavors is ludicrous. You'd get better odds playing the LOTTO.
This isn't a money=bad equation, this is an expectation of money=stupidity equation. The publishing industry is only marginally less tightfisted than the recording industry when it comes to paying the creative talent. 7-15% on sales of the book after, AFTER you've made back your paltry $2000 (or thereabouts) advance. There's only two ways you'll make a living on that kind of income:
1: You become a bestseller and your advances shoot through the roof.
2: You publish 15 novels a year (doable in the old pulp days, but not any longer)
So what are you left with if you're not writing for money, if money becomes such a ridiculous notion in the overall equation? Well, you're left with the reason you wanted to write in the first place - either because you want to be read or because you're compelled to write. Either of these reasons is helped along nicely by the internet that has no long-haul, that has no agents or publishers or even an idea of sustained payment.
And now you, as the writer, are left with an option that was never present before the wonderful digital age. Do you go the old route, which is slow, monetarily unsure and lets face it, quite boring or do you go for the readers on the internet. Do you try and gain an audience for your writing whatever way you can.
Do you take it back to the original reason for writing; to be read, or is money the real measure of success for you as a writer? Is getting paid really all you want out of this? Is payment the only way you'll feel that your 'time' is worthwhile. If so, then my advice is give up writing fiction, write a self-help book or a diet book, they sell well and its still creative writing. If money is your bottom line then there's a billion other things you can do with your 'precious' time that will make you money, that will make you a living. But creative writing isn't one of them. If you want to turn this into a business proposition then you're not a writer, you're a soulless suit -- go and start a business somewhere and stop sullying the waters of creativity with your pie-chart eyes and profit-graph heartbeat. We've had too many years of Marketing types and money-grubbers ruining the creative game, too many years of bland repetitive fiction pushed out by illiterate business-graduates because it'll appeal to the mass-market (the market, what a sickening and insulting word).
This is art not economics. This is passion not pie-charts. Don't hang dollar signs on my intentions, because it won't work. For the first time in a hundred years we're freed from the shackles of traditional publishing, and all anybody can do (writers as well, which is insane) is defend the people who put on the shackles in the first place.
Does everything have to have a price tag to be worthwhile?
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Are you trying to say your point isn't that making money from your creative endeavours is somehow sullying the pureness of creativity? That it isn't somehow "bad".
If so, you have gone about it the wrong way. Your entire post seems nothing more than a rant aimed at anyone who thinks that maybe they should be paid for their creative efforts rather than simply doing it for the love of doing it.
If you wish to write simply for the pure joy of writing then good for you. I'm sorry to be the one to break it to you but that attitude doesn't make your efforts any more pure, any more creative or any more worthy of reading than someone else who is writing because that is how they earn their living.
I'm sure that in this brave new world there may very well be better ways to get published. I'm not defending the "people who put on the shackles in the first place". Get published however you like, it makes no difference to me. Just don't go claiming you are some how more creative, more pure or whatever because you have self published for the joy of it and someone else has gone the traditional route and been paid for it.
Cheers,
PKFFW