| Rise and Shine. Really. |
[May. 22nd, 2008|07:28 am] |
Be very thankful you don't share office space with me today. Insomnia is not always one's best friend, and the fact that I slept from roughly 3 am to 5 am is not making me happy. The fact that there's MORE SNOW on the weather radar is not making me happy.
The fact that WPTZ, our local NBC affiliate, can't manage a simple "Hmm, vandalism is on the rise" story without completely missing several obvious points beyond 'graffiti is kids playing around with spray paint' and gets a quote from some moron who says, "Oh, my baby sees painting on the walls of public buildings and then I bring him home and sure enough, a few hours later, he's painting on the walls' irritates me beyond all human reason at this point. Get a clue, parent your kid, or clean the wall and shut up about it. Every kid writes on walls at some point: looking for externalities to be 'responsible' for this behavior is pathetic and weak-minded and just plain old irritating.
And while I'm cranky,
Consider this a public service announcement from the woman who thinks all aspiring writers should have to take, at a minimum, Economics 101, before going into the business.
Writing is not a zero-sum game. Publishing is not a zero-sum game. There are literally hundreds of thousand of publishers in this world. Some are big, some are small, but there are more of them than you can count. The 2007 Writer's Digest Writer's Market lists 1,000+ pages of publishers. Websites abound, detailing hundreds of other places to get published.
If you tell me 'no one's publishing what I write', I'm going to tell you that you haven't looked hard enough. There's someone publishing everything, everywhere. Read Chris Anderson's The Long Tail. We live in the age of niche publishing. There is a publisher for everything you've ever thought of, some things you haven't, and some more things you never knew existed.
That's BEFORE you consider self-publishing. People are very down on self-publishing, but let me tell you what. Self-publishing is the ideal way to move very niched titles at a very high price point. I laugh when people say "No one will pay $10 for an e-book" because there are e-books out there that sell -- and sell really well -- for $395 a copy.
How do I know?
I WROTE THEM.
Are they fascinating tales of action and adventure that will keep you on the edge of your seat? Nope. They're prosiac, boring, content-rich books on marketing and retailing and one epic volume on selling your excess inventory to overseas buyers. But they sell, steadily and well: welcome to the pragmatic reality of making a living as a writer.
And guess what? I'm not the world's greatest writer. As many, many people have pointed out, I'm not Shakespeare.
But Shakespeare and I have at least one thing in common: we both 'get' that to make a living in this business, you have to give the people what they want.
That means making sure your muse is in alignment with the market. And yes, you can rail about selling out and the purity of the form and all of that - and the minute you can show me a utility company that will take well-crafted, spiritually uplifting prose in lieu of cash, I'll be right there with you.
Here's the nifty bit, coming back to that whole zero-sum game part:
No matter how many books I write, no matter how many stories I sell, no matter how much work I do, I have absolutely NO IMPACT on your ability to write and sell your books.
Stephen King has written tons of books. Jane Yolen, one of my personal idols, has written over 200. Asimov wrote over 100 books.
Guess what impact they've had on my ability to sell my work?
ZERO.
Publishers are in business TO MAKE MONEY. If they have one best-selling, money-making book (and you should note that the two are not necessarily one and the same!) they will NOT say, "Oh, we're profitable enough. We don't need to publish any more books." Publishing does not work that way. Give a publisher a product that will make them a profit, and they're going to publish it.
If they're not, FIND ANOTHER PUBLISHER. There are LOTS of them.
If you are a good writer, your work will find a home. Not all homes are equally profitable: welcome to business. There's nothing as common as story. It's on you to find the most lucrative home for your work. This takes time and effort and chutzpah.
Time and effort and chutzpah.
Not tearing down other writers. Not blaming them for getting 'your spot'. Every minute you spend indulging in that crap is a minute you're not writing, a minute you're not learning about your craft, a minute you're not living life to get material to write about. It's also a minute wasted making you look like an idiot in front of your peers.
Idiots get published, fear not. James Frey just released a second book, after all. But why make life difficult for yourself?
So shut up, work harder, and get over it. The entitlement fairy doesn't hand out publishing deals.
And that's probably enough rantiness before I've had an acceptable level of coffee. My sunshine self will be returning in, oh, five cups or so. |
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| Comments: |
Clearly I've missed something, somewhere. But, yes. *nods a lot*
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/2503431/684361) | From: ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) valarltd
2008-05-22 12:16 pm (UTC)
Not you, the entitlement fairy | (Link)
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Damn that entitlement fairy! I knew she was in league with my muses--who are vacationing in Aruba without me!
I demand the entitlement fairy pay attention and make me the next Anne Rice, preferably without the batshittery!
/snark
Now, off to the day job so I can work out my problems in the Roaring 20s or modern NYC.
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/61195369/7661600) | From: cbpotts
2008-05-22 12:28 pm (UTC)
Re: Not you, the entitlement fairy | (Link)
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You can't be Anne Rice, I'm going to be Anne Rice! You could be Laurell Hamilton, tho...
Between them, we'd have enough batshittery to last the rest of our lives.
| From: valarltd
2008-05-22 10:50 pm (UTC)
Re: Not you, the entitlement fairy | (Link)
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So you get to have the pony and spanking fetish while I just feel slightly retreaded in every story?
| From: cbpotts
2008-05-23 12:04 am (UTC)
Re: Not you, the entitlement fairy | (Link)
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How about this: I'll split it with you. I'll take the ponies and you take the spanking?
*tentatively, cuz you SKERRY without coffee* can't help with the rest, but I can start an IV so you can mainline the caffeine.
| From: cbpotts
2008-05-22 12:55 pm (UTC)
Thank you! | (Link)
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I was contemplating snorting lines of Folgers, just to get the caffiene into the system faster, but an IV? That would work too!
*grin*
That was a good rant, despite the lack of adequate coffee levels. :-)
I heard the entitlement fairy is so ghey...
-You think he'd go out with me?
Yeah, but talk about high maintenance!
"Get a clue, parent your kid!" I totally agree. Stop complaining, eh?! Take ownership. ANd f&*kin' relax. Swear words are just words and graffiti CAN be art. You know, it's always about negative reinforcement, ain't it? In my hometown, a man who owned a bunch of downtown buildings that were being vandalized with graffiti all the time, decided to embrace the artform. He put out a big ad in the local paper for all 'grafitti artists' to come and do their BEST (not rushed) on all his downtown buildings. I admire that sort of spirit. Hey, Graffiti IS an art movement. Check out this article (it's from 2004) but I still agree with it! http://media.www.dailylobo.com/media/storage/paper344/news/2004/02/26/Culture/Artist.Lectures.On.Graffitis.Importance-619502.shtml
| From: cbpotts
2008-05-22 03:19 pm (UTC)
This is a great article | (Link)
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There's two sides to the whole graffiti thing: there's the graffiti as art view, which I wholly support and frankly would love to see more of.
There's also the graffiti as ritualistic gang behavior, tagging of territory, etc. I think law enforcement is often, especially way out here in the sticks, quick to gloss over that potential and wash it away as "Kids being stupid" There's nothing like sticking your head in a bucket of sand to avoid a problem!
From: (Anonymous)
2008-05-23 01:48 am (UTC)
Re: This is a great article | (Link)
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And this, of course, reminds me of one of my favorite Harm stories. Remember that day she wrote her life story in -- what was it, black marker? On the garage door? And then, about halfway down, she wrote I'M SORRY, MOMMY in big letters, then continued on with the story?
What a hoot, that child.
Trants
And yes, you can rail about selling out and the purity of the form and all of that - and the minute you can show me a utility company that will take well-crafted, spiritually uplifting prose in lieu of cash, I'll be right there with you.
Hee hee! I laughed out loud. This helped me a lot. The members of my writing group have been looking down at the fact that I'm e-published and/or published in erotica and that I should be looking "for so much more." Well, I understand to a degree, but I'd rather be happy to be published at all (and paid a little) than to hold out for some larger breakthrough that may never come.
Where the (*&^% is the Entitlement Fairy? She's like, 20 years too late in this house.
That means making sure your muse is in alignment with the market.
More and more, I've been thinking lately that it's not a matter of what you write, but where and how you market it. | |
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