Quote:
Originally Posted by crich70
Ah but in the days of the old pulp writers you had a very unique set of circumstances. 1)It was during the depression when at least half the country was out of work. 2)Most editors at most paid .01 or .02 a word and sometimes not even that 3) Things were literally hand to mouth for many writers back then. Many vanished without a trace or died young of alcoholism. So in some cases at least (if not most) if you were a pulp writer you had to write if you were going to eat. There is also the fact that they had ready markets (the pulp magazines) which are mostly gone now. So where they might maybe make $40.00 (at .02 for 2000 words) right from the magazine now you can't be sure how many people will buy your work. Also that $40.00 for that 2000 word story might be the only money that that author might ever see for that story. While you might see more in the long run today there is still a lot more uncertainty about seeing any than back then.
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Unfortunately, depending on where you're looking you can find people offering those same pay rates in 2017 - and writers taking those rates for all rights.
As for speed of writing vs publication.
Earlier this year, I published two books a week apart. I'll be releasing the third in that series within the next two weeks. The fourth should be out in July or August. Together they represent about 8 years of my original fiction output. At the same time, they're all short pulp adventure novels, and the last one did take only a few months to write. (I'm letting it sit and waiting for feedback before I do some edits.)