One of the last posts on Tess Gerritsen's blog (she has withdrawn from blogging because she found the environment increasingly hostile and humorless) was on the topic of a survey undertaken by Novelists, Inc. Never heard of NINC? Neither have most people. To join, you need not only to be published, but multipublished, and the presses publishing you need to pay a hefty minimum advance on all books they acquire (not just yours), and so on. Joining isn't easy.
So, this is an association of rather successful novelists. You should probably hop over and read the original post; but if you can't be bothered, here's the bottom line. NINC did a survey of 100 of its members. The median number of novels published by this group was 16 books per author(!). The response rate was 100%.
The question asked was if they could support themselves through their writing.
31% of them answered "Yes" or "Probably yes."
69% of them answered "No" or "Probably no."
So, for all of you who gave up your dreams of being poets so you could pursue something more practical, such as writing novels...
...poetry doesn't look all that bad after all. And at least no one wants to know why your poem hasn't been made into a movie yet.
Showing posts with label money. Show all posts
Showing posts with label money. Show all posts
Monday, April 28, 2008
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
My Dumb Day Jobs, Part II of II
There's no point in going to college in America unless have a clear plan and you're going to study something practical, especially if you're spending your own money (or, as in my case, getting by on a combination of loans and working and scholarships). So naturally I majored in...
...(ta-da!) music. And then switched to biology. And then switched to chemistry. And then switched to physics. At this point, they graduated me before I had time for further switches, so I went to work at the Oregon State Department of Energy, where I was in charge of building computer models of the interface between the power grid and alternative energy sources.
I did rather well at this job. So well, in fact, that I was offered a degree fellowship at the East-West Center, a think-tank in Honolulu; you did your research at the EWC simultaneously with doing your graduate work at the neighboring University of Hawaii. (The University of Hawaii: Truth; Knowledge; A Great Tan.) That's how I ended up with my MA and PhD--though the tan never really seemed to take, and I remain an unreformed Whiteboy. (That's Doctor Whiteboy to you, though, pal.)
I’d gone to the East-West Center planning to work on alternative energy in the Third World, but it turned out Third World countries were too busy trying to sort out their problems with oil to give a damn. Alternative energy they already had—most of the population used wood or cow dung as their main energy sources, and as for solar water heating and space heating, well, who needs heating in Sri Lanka? (I did publish some work on solar refrigeration and solar icemakers, though. But simply raising the topic--yes, it can be done, and no, I'm not joking--always made people giggle.)
So I was hijacked off into “downstream” oil (that is, everything that happens to oil after it comes out of the ground). It turned out that, with physics plus chemistry plus computer programming skills plus a background in environmental issues, I was good at it. Who knew? I tackle many different kinds of problems, and still keep my hand in on the alternatives and conservation side of things, but here’s a typical project:
The Kingdom of Ruritania says they are tired of all the sulfur pollution from, say, diesel fuel, and decide that every oil refinery in Ruritania needs to install diesel desulfurizers in their refineries. The multinationals then set up a loud outcry, and present charts and graphs proving that this will cost Ruritanian consumers billions of dollars that ought to be spent on luxuries like food instead. (The program will also cost the company billions of dollars that ought to be spent on necessities like executive bonuses, but that's another issue.)
At which point, I and my pals arrive for the first of many trips to Ruritania. We typically find that a) the position of the companies isn’t quite correct, and b) the government hasn’t proposed a very logical approach, and c) there is a better way of achieving the desired results.
When we submit our conclusions, one of four things happens:
1) Our recommendations are accepted, or
2) Our recommendations are ignored because the government has bigger problems, or
3) A military coup renders the whole thing irrelevant, or
4) The government adopts some utterly different and unexpected strategy because the French have offered them amazing loan terms to buy French technology (usually espresso makers or weapons) which, while unrelated to the problem at hand, is offered at an irresistable price.
The James-Bond-style glamor of building computer simulations of obscure energy technologies is, I admit, all too obvious, but there were other benefits as well. To name only a few: dysentary, non-infectious hepatitis (too long in Third World petrochemical plants, no doubt), shingles, intestinal parsites, and, after a trip to Hanoi in the mid-90s, a case of encephalitis that left me for a few months with slurred speech and an inability drive a car or walk unassisted or even read. (I'd be a great writer were it not for the brain damage.)
So, despite the great fun of all that, I came up with a brilliant career move: I became a writer. Pretty crafty, huh?
I've cut back to consulting on a part-time basis. Part-time consulting is a pretty nice gig for a writer, since the work tends to be divided into projects, without anything to do in between. Of course my present income isn't sufficient to, as the divorce courts say, support me in the style to which I've become accustomed. So I unashamedly sponge off Pamela.
Over the years, one or the other of us has always had a good job. (Just never both of us at the same time.) But luckily, I'm soon to be a published novelist--the surest road to financial security this side of panning for gold in the Yukon.
Actually, panning for gold is what Jack London did (and went broke at) before he became a writer. The man must have had a great career-guidance counselor.
...(ta-da!) music. And then switched to biology. And then switched to chemistry. And then switched to physics. At this point, they graduated me before I had time for further switches, so I went to work at the Oregon State Department of Energy, where I was in charge of building computer models of the interface between the power grid and alternative energy sources.
I did rather well at this job. So well, in fact, that I was offered a degree fellowship at the East-West Center, a think-tank in Honolulu; you did your research at the EWC simultaneously with doing your graduate work at the neighboring University of Hawaii. (The University of Hawaii: Truth; Knowledge; A Great Tan.) That's how I ended up with my MA and PhD--though the tan never really seemed to take, and I remain an unreformed Whiteboy. (That's Doctor Whiteboy to you, though, pal.)
I’d gone to the East-West Center planning to work on alternative energy in the Third World, but it turned out Third World countries were too busy trying to sort out their problems with oil to give a damn. Alternative energy they already had—most of the population used wood or cow dung as their main energy sources, and as for solar water heating and space heating, well, who needs heating in Sri Lanka? (I did publish some work on solar refrigeration and solar icemakers, though. But simply raising the topic--yes, it can be done, and no, I'm not joking--always made people giggle.)
So I was hijacked off into “downstream” oil (that is, everything that happens to oil after it comes out of the ground). It turned out that, with physics plus chemistry plus computer programming skills plus a background in environmental issues, I was good at it. Who knew? I tackle many different kinds of problems, and still keep my hand in on the alternatives and conservation side of things, but here’s a typical project:
The Kingdom of Ruritania says they are tired of all the sulfur pollution from, say, diesel fuel, and decide that every oil refinery in Ruritania needs to install diesel desulfurizers in their refineries. The multinationals then set up a loud outcry, and present charts and graphs proving that this will cost Ruritanian consumers billions of dollars that ought to be spent on luxuries like food instead. (The program will also cost the company billions of dollars that ought to be spent on necessities like executive bonuses, but that's another issue.)
At which point, I and my pals arrive for the first of many trips to Ruritania. We typically find that a) the position of the companies isn’t quite correct, and b) the government hasn’t proposed a very logical approach, and c) there is a better way of achieving the desired results.
When we submit our conclusions, one of four things happens:
1) Our recommendations are accepted, or
2) Our recommendations are ignored because the government has bigger problems, or
3) A military coup renders the whole thing irrelevant, or
4) The government adopts some utterly different and unexpected strategy because the French have offered them amazing loan terms to buy French technology (usually espresso makers or weapons) which, while unrelated to the problem at hand, is offered at an irresistable price.
The James-Bond-style glamor of building computer simulations of obscure energy technologies is, I admit, all too obvious, but there were other benefits as well. To name only a few: dysentary, non-infectious hepatitis (too long in Third World petrochemical plants, no doubt), shingles, intestinal parsites, and, after a trip to Hanoi in the mid-90s, a case of encephalitis that left me for a few months with slurred speech and an inability drive a car or walk unassisted or even read. (I'd be a great writer were it not for the brain damage.)
So, despite the great fun of all that, I came up with a brilliant career move: I became a writer. Pretty crafty, huh?
I've cut back to consulting on a part-time basis. Part-time consulting is a pretty nice gig for a writer, since the work tends to be divided into projects, without anything to do in between. Of course my present income isn't sufficient to, as the divorce courts say, support me in the style to which I've become accustomed. So I unashamedly sponge off Pamela.
Over the years, one or the other of us has always had a good job. (Just never both of us at the same time.) But luckily, I'm soon to be a published novelist--the surest road to financial security this side of panning for gold in the Yukon.
Actually, panning for gold is what Jack London did (and went broke at) before he became a writer. The man must have had a great career-guidance counselor.
Saturday, July 7, 2007
My Dumb Day Jobs, Part I of II
On my recent visit to the UK, several people asked me what it was I did to earn a living. I’m not sure why there’s so much interest in my day job. Perhaps I don’t look like someone who could hold a job at all. Or perhaps I dress in such a peculiar fashion that people wonder if I’ve run off to join the circus. Or perhaps I just seem unemployed and dangerously likely to ask to borrow money. In any case, every time I took off my hat in London, passersby tossed coins into it, which seems to suggest something was a bit off.
Well, I’m going to explain this once and for all, starting with what I did before my present job. (Sorry you asked?)
I dropped out of high school in my sophomore year, and also elected to leave home (if a hard kick in the butt can be described as electing to leave). Naturally, any number of stupid jobs followed. I did a lot of farm labor--which is respectable enough--but my special gifts unerringly led me to the dumbest possible jobs in the entire agricultural sector.
For example, I was for a time a Chicken-Catcher at a large egg ranch. Yep, the job is exactly what it sounds like—I ran around and grabbed chickens that had escaped from their cages. As it turns out, chickens don't really care to be grabbed; though I suppose it's a safer career than, say, Rat-Grabber, or Cat-Grabber. If you keep hold of their feet you can carry up to five chickens at once for brief periods, although if they start to flap you look like an angel from a very low-budget fantasy movie.
At another gig, I moved flat-laid irrigation sprinklers, which involved unhooking 20-foot sections of pipe in the areas that had been watered, and then, with a partner, sinking calf-deep into the mud as we carried it over and reconnected it on the next dry land. The whole process looked a lot like films of Hitler's retreat from Russia, and left your shoes weighing in at about 12 pounds each. (Doesn’t it seem like there’d be a better way to do this? As it turns out, there is, and was, but it involves an advanced contraption called "the wheel.")
Best of all, I was night watchman at a mushroom farm outside Salem, Oregon, spending evenings wandering through giant heated warehouses filled with stacked trays of steaming cow manure, checking the temperature and humidity. Every time you came through, the mushrooms would be noticibly, creepily, bigger. I knew mushrooms could appear overnight, but having them get larger by the hour was unsettling.
My supervisor at the mushroom farm had been in night work at the site for at least thirty years and was proud, by god, of the fact that he hadn’t seen the sunshine since the Korean War. He looked like you might expect, too, pale, squinty, and fragile, with a wispy little ciliated mustache. There were invariably half-filled baskets of mushrooms sitting around, and I was invited to take them home. (Pamela and I ate a lot of broiled mushrooms for a while there. Believe me: even a hobbit would get tired of them after a bit.)
I also worked on a dock in Alaska offloading slimy halibut, each the size of a modest dining table. According to my calculations, halibut are ten percent slime by weight, so a four-hundred-pound flounder could provide at least forty pounds of slime. (Had to throw away my clothes when I quit that one). I washed dishes, hoed weeds, sowed seeds, and, for one memorable day before some bozo in a skidder lowered a log onto my leg, set choke for a fly-by-night timber operation. (If you don't know what setting choke is...well, you probably don't care.) And, oh, yeah—I was actually an encounter-group facilitator at the Redlands Free Clinic, wherein my main skill was to be able to stay awake for 24 hours at a stretch and hug people while they cried. (Of all the jobs I’ve ever had, that was probably the job I was best suited for. I can stay awake, and hugging doesn't require any great precision or training.)
Oh, I almost forgot—I and a friend were for a very brief time the world’s most unsuccessful drug dealers. By unsuccessful, I mean that by the time we were done, we owed money. It turns out we were better consumers than salespeople. (Hey, gimme a break. I was 16.)
Now, all this was quite amusing, but too much of the amusement was at my expense, so at some point I weaseled my way into college from whence I stumbled into my present so-called career. And this leads us, in the next post, to a singularly uninteresting story...
Well, I’m going to explain this once and for all, starting with what I did before my present job. (Sorry you asked?)
I dropped out of high school in my sophomore year, and also elected to leave home (if a hard kick in the butt can be described as electing to leave). Naturally, any number of stupid jobs followed. I did a lot of farm labor--which is respectable enough--but my special gifts unerringly led me to the dumbest possible jobs in the entire agricultural sector.
For example, I was for a time a Chicken-Catcher at a large egg ranch. Yep, the job is exactly what it sounds like—I ran around and grabbed chickens that had escaped from their cages. As it turns out, chickens don't really care to be grabbed; though I suppose it's a safer career than, say, Rat-Grabber, or Cat-Grabber. If you keep hold of their feet you can carry up to five chickens at once for brief periods, although if they start to flap you look like an angel from a very low-budget fantasy movie.
At another gig, I moved flat-laid irrigation sprinklers, which involved unhooking 20-foot sections of pipe in the areas that had been watered, and then, with a partner, sinking calf-deep into the mud as we carried it over and reconnected it on the next dry land. The whole process looked a lot like films of Hitler's retreat from Russia, and left your shoes weighing in at about 12 pounds each. (Doesn’t it seem like there’d be a better way to do this? As it turns out, there is, and was, but it involves an advanced contraption called "the wheel.")
Best of all, I was night watchman at a mushroom farm outside Salem, Oregon, spending evenings wandering through giant heated warehouses filled with stacked trays of steaming cow manure, checking the temperature and humidity. Every time you came through, the mushrooms would be noticibly, creepily, bigger. I knew mushrooms could appear overnight, but having them get larger by the hour was unsettling.
My supervisor at the mushroom farm had been in night work at the site for at least thirty years and was proud, by god, of the fact that he hadn’t seen the sunshine since the Korean War. He looked like you might expect, too, pale, squinty, and fragile, with a wispy little ciliated mustache. There were invariably half-filled baskets of mushrooms sitting around, and I was invited to take them home. (Pamela and I ate a lot of broiled mushrooms for a while there. Believe me: even a hobbit would get tired of them after a bit.)
I also worked on a dock in Alaska offloading slimy halibut, each the size of a modest dining table. According to my calculations, halibut are ten percent slime by weight, so a four-hundred-pound flounder could provide at least forty pounds of slime. (Had to throw away my clothes when I quit that one). I washed dishes, hoed weeds, sowed seeds, and, for one memorable day before some bozo in a skidder lowered a log onto my leg, set choke for a fly-by-night timber operation. (If you don't know what setting choke is...well, you probably don't care.) And, oh, yeah—I was actually an encounter-group facilitator at the Redlands Free Clinic, wherein my main skill was to be able to stay awake for 24 hours at a stretch and hug people while they cried. (Of all the jobs I’ve ever had, that was probably the job I was best suited for. I can stay awake, and hugging doesn't require any great precision or training.)
Oh, I almost forgot—I and a friend were for a very brief time the world’s most unsuccessful drug dealers. By unsuccessful, I mean that by the time we were done, we owed money. It turns out we were better consumers than salespeople. (Hey, gimme a break. I was 16.)
Now, all this was quite amusing, but too much of the amusement was at my expense, so at some point I weaseled my way into college from whence I stumbled into my present so-called career. And this leads us, in the next post, to a singularly uninteresting story...
Sunday, May 13, 2007
The Bestseller
The New York Times has an article today about the vagaries of the book business and the attempt to create bestsellers. Little will be new to readers of this blog, but it's an entertaining article nonetheless, and cleverly crafted--the end is a bit of a zinger.
The article also gives an update on Thirteen Moons, Charles Frazier's follow-on to Cold Mountain. I engaged in a bit of schadenfreude about the fact that Random House had paid $8 million for this novel, and printed 500,000 hardback copies (the New York Times corrects me: the print run was apparently 750,000 hardback copies), and had only sold in the 200-300,000 copy range. Despite the publicity blitz, the book seems to have stalled at 240,000 copies (though the paperback will be out soon). So far, the book has earned out about $1 million of the $8 million advance.
Will Thirteen Moons turn into the largest fiction-publishing debacle in the history of the industry? Quite possibly. Will anything change as a result? Don't count on it.
The article also gives an update on Thirteen Moons, Charles Frazier's follow-on to Cold Mountain. I engaged in a bit of schadenfreude about the fact that Random House had paid $8 million for this novel, and printed 500,000 hardback copies (the New York Times corrects me: the print run was apparently 750,000 hardback copies), and had only sold in the 200-300,000 copy range. Despite the publicity blitz, the book seems to have stalled at 240,000 copies (though the paperback will be out soon). So far, the book has earned out about $1 million of the $8 million advance.
Will Thirteen Moons turn into the largest fiction-publishing debacle in the history of the industry? Quite possibly. Will anything change as a result? Don't count on it.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Love vs. Filthy Lucre
A little while ago Matt Curran and Lucy McCarraher had a discussion running on the topic of writing for money. I promised (threatened) to say a few words myself.
I don't think there are right and wrong reasons for writing. Most people probably write from a variety of motives, many probably unacknowledged. Some people write from love of language, others in hopes of fame and fortune, and a great many to show off or get even with people they feel have wronged them. Writing appeals to some because it is a way of being in the public eye in some sense while simultaneously remaining a recluse. Some people write from a sense of fun, others from a sense of outrage.
John Gardner, the sanest of men, once asserted that "no motive is too low for Art." It may be interesting to know why people write, or rather why they claim they write, but it really doesn't matter. All that matters is what ends up on the page.
I certainly have nothing in principle against writing for money. As a motive, it's no worse than the goal (which seems to motivate a great deal of writing) of showing former lovers that they ought to have been nicer to you.
The problem is that if money is your primary goal in writing, you are liable to end up disappointed (go look up the statistics). Be a stockbroker, or a lawyer, or, if you don't like the hours on those, consider becoming a dashing professional jewel thief or a hostage negotiator. All of those offer better prospects--and some of them even have pensions attached.
I don't think there are right and wrong reasons for writing. Most people probably write from a variety of motives, many probably unacknowledged. Some people write from love of language, others in hopes of fame and fortune, and a great many to show off or get even with people they feel have wronged them. Writing appeals to some because it is a way of being in the public eye in some sense while simultaneously remaining a recluse. Some people write from a sense of fun, others from a sense of outrage.
John Gardner, the sanest of men, once asserted that "no motive is too low for Art." It may be interesting to know why people write, or rather why they claim they write, but it really doesn't matter. All that matters is what ends up on the page.
I certainly have nothing in principle against writing for money. As a motive, it's no worse than the goal (which seems to motivate a great deal of writing) of showing former lovers that they ought to have been nicer to you.
The problem is that if money is your primary goal in writing, you are liable to end up disappointed (go look up the statistics). Be a stockbroker, or a lawyer, or, if you don't like the hours on those, consider becoming a dashing professional jewel thief or a hostage negotiator. All of those offer better prospects--and some of them even have pensions attached.
Sunday, March 4, 2007
An Interview Worth Reading: Novelist Keith Dixon
David Thayer has posted his excellent interview with writer Keith Dixon.
Although much of the discussion centers on Dixon's new novel, The Art of Losing, it also ventures into areas we've been discussing (Dixon shares my enthusiasm for shut-your-eyes-and-jump-into-the-water novel planning).
He also reflects on critical/artistic success versus financial success ("I think we all at some time or another face a situation that asks us to compromise our values, and more often than not that situation involves money...") and other aspects of the writers life. Dixon's remarks make an interesting read for anyone involved in this silly business.
Although much of the discussion centers on Dixon's new novel, The Art of Losing, it also ventures into areas we've been discussing (Dixon shares my enthusiasm for shut-your-eyes-and-jump-into-the-water novel planning).
He also reflects on critical/artistic success versus financial success ("I think we all at some time or another face a situation that asks us to compromise our values, and more often than not that situation involves money...") and other aspects of the writers life. Dixon's remarks make an interesting read for anyone involved in this silly business.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
More About Money
Writer Jeremy James has responded to my posts on advances over on his blog, and he makes some very good points. I won't attempt to summarize what he says (it's worth reading his whole discussion), but he makes two important points: 1) Writers work from a mix of motives, most of which remain unacknowledged, and 2) Publishers and agents tend to be very clear about their goals. These factors tend to work to the disadvantage of the writer.
I hope I haven't come across in my earlier posts as thinking money is utterly unimportant. Money is nice, and a minumum amount of it is necessary merely to survive, but it certainly isn't the primary motive behind my writing. I can earn a very tidy sum consulting, and spent many years doing so; now I've cut back sharply to allow more time for writing. From any financial point of view, my behavior makes little sense, and I assure you, my pocketbook has felt it.
That doesn't mean I'm an Artist with a capital A, a saint, or a being wholly devoid of ambition. What I try to be is what editor Pat Walsh defines as the ideal author to work with: One with high hopes, but reasonable expectations. When I first signed up with MNW, I mentioned in an e-mail to my editor Will Atkins:
(I'm sure somone out there will want to contest that last line, so I'll leave it there just to provoke that special someone.)
It would be nice to earn a living with one's writing--sure it would. Even nicer would be to earn a good living, though James Michener famously called America a country where a writer could make a fortune, but not a living.
I wouldn't turn down the fortune, either, but I'm not counting on it. As the Russian proverb has it, Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.
The position of the writer in the business of publishing is distressingly like the position of the actor in show business. A few earn outrageous sums; most greet each other with, "Hey, Bob! You working?"
I'd never advise someone not to pursue an acting career if it were what they wanted to do with their life. But if someone told me, "I want to be rich, so I've decided to become...an actor!", I'd sling my arm over their shoulder and say, "Bob...we need to talk about this."
I hope I haven't come across in my earlier posts as thinking money is utterly unimportant. Money is nice, and a minumum amount of it is necessary merely to survive, but it certainly isn't the primary motive behind my writing. I can earn a very tidy sum consulting, and spent many years doing so; now I've cut back sharply to allow more time for writing. From any financial point of view, my behavior makes little sense, and I assure you, my pocketbook has felt it.
That doesn't mean I'm an Artist with a capital A, a saint, or a being wholly devoid of ambition. What I try to be is what editor Pat Walsh defines as the ideal author to work with: One with high hopes, but reasonable expectations. When I first signed up with MNW, I mentioned in an e-mail to my editor Will Atkins:
Of course, you'll hear no complaints from me if you take my novel, translate it into fifty languages, sell it to Hollywood, and create lines of action figurines and spin-off sportswear; but you'll also hear no complaints from me should it make it no further than modest sales in the UK. Many fine books sink, and many awful books thrive, and, at least as far as I can see, apart from producing the best book possible, neither author nor publisher seems to have much control over the outcome.
(I'm sure somone out there will want to contest that last line, so I'll leave it there just to provoke that special someone.)
It would be nice to earn a living with one's writing--sure it would. Even nicer would be to earn a good living, though James Michener famously called America a country where a writer could make a fortune, but not a living.
I wouldn't turn down the fortune, either, but I'm not counting on it. As the Russian proverb has it, Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.
The position of the writer in the business of publishing is distressingly like the position of the actor in show business. A few earn outrageous sums; most greet each other with, "Hey, Bob! You working?"
I'd never advise someone not to pursue an acting career if it were what they wanted to do with their life. But if someone told me, "I want to be rich, so I've decided to become...an actor!", I'd sling my arm over their shoulder and say, "Bob...we need to talk about this."
Friday, January 26, 2007
Do you do it for the money? Advances, Part III
Jump to Part I, to Part II, or to Part IV
(In which the author at last answers the initial question: Why go with MNW rather than hold out for the traditional model?)
This whole issue reminds me of a great Mankoff cartoon from the New Yorker. An author at a cocktail party is saying: "We're still pretty far apart. I'm looking for a six-figure advance and they're refusing to read the manuscript."
It's not as though I were offered a choice between a big advance with a major imprint and the MNW model. As I described before, the big NY houses had already declined the book. It would be more accurate to say that I had the choice of approaching small presses, all offering very limited distribution and very modest advances, or approaching Macmillan New Writing (which pays no advance but gets books into bookstores, gets books reviewed, and knows how to sell subsidiary rights).
I'd held MNW hardback editions in my hands, and seen how much care and cost went into their production; they're a class act. I'd also had time to read the books, and to listen to the buzz about how MNW was handling their releases, and it was clear that MNW had a commitment to the books in their imprint. (To be frank, if the MNW model were offered by a press I'd never heard of, I probably wouldn't have pursued it.)
[Note for Americans: if you don’t travel much outside North America, you might not have heard of Macmillan, but Pan Macmillan is one of the largest and most important publishers of fiction in the English language. Heard of St. Martin’s, Tor, Henry Holt, or Farrar, Straus & Giroux? Those are US imprints of Pan Macmillan. MNW is a new Macmillan imprint, but Macmillan itself has been around since before the Civil War. ]
As an alternative, I suppose I could have refused to publish the book, stuffed it in a drawer, and gone on to write other books and try for a better deal. (Though I've never heard of an unpublished writer choosing not to publish a book because the best offer he got didn’t meet his financial expectations. Does anyone know of any cases?)
And it's possible, of course, that a UK agent (when and if I obtained one) might have placed the book with a UK publisher for a better financial deal. But I thought it equally likely that the sale would go to a minor publisher with a modest advance, lower royalties, and poorer distribution--if indeed it sold at all.
In any case, if this were about money, I wouldn't waste my time writing in the first place. Only a tiny fraction of published writers of fiction earn a living from their writing. (George V. Higgins says you have a better chance of playing pro baseball or being elected to the US Senate, and he's not joking.)
I know an author who made it onto the bestseller list, and still has the same day job. Why do you think so many novelists also teach college? (Hint: it isn't just because they love grading papers.) Peter Carey has won the Booker Prize, won it TWICE, fer Chrissakes...and teaches in the MFA program at Hunter College.
I know this comes as a shock to most people (who seem to think that publishing a novel is a road to fame and fortune), but most first novels, even with major publishers, net the author thousands of dollars. Not hundreds of thousands, not tens of thousands—just thousands. Low five-figure, middling four-figure, and even three-figure advances are typical of the first novel. Not all first-time publishees are Marisha Pessl or James Frey. (In fact, it turns out even James Frey wasn't James Frey.)
According to surveys, the median income from books of authors in the US is on the order of $5,000 per year. Maybe things are better in the UK—agent Simon Trewin says writers over there typically pull down something less than 9,000 pounds per year, which is around $17,000 these days.
Given the time it takes to write a publishable book, on an hourly basis you’re far better off flipping burgers. I started writing fiction with my eyes wide open to the financial realities. If I make money, great, I’d love it. But in the same way a composer wants her music to be played by an orchestra rather than remaining notes on a page, I want my book to be out in public. People can't read it in my drawer.
In your comments, you said, "I think I'd rather go the opposite way: agree to no royalties, but demand a much higher advance." I'm not so sure about the wisdom of this, as royalties might expand as your reputation grows (or after you've been arrested for dropping your trousers on the Rush Limbaugh Show, or revealed as Condi Rice's sex toy). Royalties potentially have a very long shelf life.
But even if I agreed completely with your preference and tried to demand a higher advance rather than royalties, I'm not sure anyone in publishing, heartless fiends that they are, is terribly interested in my demands at this point.
But I'll show them all some day! Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha…!
(Ow! Don't you hate it when you're briefly possessed by a bad graphic novel?)
Jump to Part I, to Part II, or to Part IV
(In which the author at last answers the initial question: Why go with MNW rather than hold out for the traditional model?)
This whole issue reminds me of a great Mankoff cartoon from the New Yorker. An author at a cocktail party is saying: "We're still pretty far apart. I'm looking for a six-figure advance and they're refusing to read the manuscript."
It's not as though I were offered a choice between a big advance with a major imprint and the MNW model. As I described before, the big NY houses had already declined the book. It would be more accurate to say that I had the choice of approaching small presses, all offering very limited distribution and very modest advances, or approaching Macmillan New Writing (which pays no advance but gets books into bookstores, gets books reviewed, and knows how to sell subsidiary rights).
I'd held MNW hardback editions in my hands, and seen how much care and cost went into their production; they're a class act. I'd also had time to read the books, and to listen to the buzz about how MNW was handling their releases, and it was clear that MNW had a commitment to the books in their imprint. (To be frank, if the MNW model were offered by a press I'd never heard of, I probably wouldn't have pursued it.)
[Note for Americans: if you don’t travel much outside North America, you might not have heard of Macmillan, but Pan Macmillan is one of the largest and most important publishers of fiction in the English language. Heard of St. Martin’s, Tor, Henry Holt, or Farrar, Straus & Giroux? Those are US imprints of Pan Macmillan. MNW is a new Macmillan imprint, but Macmillan itself has been around since before the Civil War. ]
As an alternative, I suppose I could have refused to publish the book, stuffed it in a drawer, and gone on to write other books and try for a better deal. (Though I've never heard of an unpublished writer choosing not to publish a book because the best offer he got didn’t meet his financial expectations. Does anyone know of any cases?)
And it's possible, of course, that a UK agent (when and if I obtained one) might have placed the book with a UK publisher for a better financial deal. But I thought it equally likely that the sale would go to a minor publisher with a modest advance, lower royalties, and poorer distribution--if indeed it sold at all.
In any case, if this were about money, I wouldn't waste my time writing in the first place. Only a tiny fraction of published writers of fiction earn a living from their writing. (George V. Higgins says you have a better chance of playing pro baseball or being elected to the US Senate, and he's not joking.)
I know an author who made it onto the bestseller list, and still has the same day job. Why do you think so many novelists also teach college? (Hint: it isn't just because they love grading papers.) Peter Carey has won the Booker Prize, won it TWICE, fer Chrissakes...and teaches in the MFA program at Hunter College.
I know this comes as a shock to most people (who seem to think that publishing a novel is a road to fame and fortune), but most first novels, even with major publishers, net the author thousands of dollars. Not hundreds of thousands, not tens of thousands—just thousands. Low five-figure, middling four-figure, and even three-figure advances are typical of the first novel. Not all first-time publishees are Marisha Pessl or James Frey. (In fact, it turns out even James Frey wasn't James Frey.)
According to surveys, the median income from books of authors in the US is on the order of $5,000 per year. Maybe things are better in the UK—agent Simon Trewin says writers over there typically pull down something less than 9,000 pounds per year, which is around $17,000 these days.
Given the time it takes to write a publishable book, on an hourly basis you’re far better off flipping burgers. I started writing fiction with my eyes wide open to the financial realities. If I make money, great, I’d love it. But in the same way a composer wants her music to be played by an orchestra rather than remaining notes on a page, I want my book to be out in public. People can't read it in my drawer.
In your comments, you said, "I think I'd rather go the opposite way: agree to no royalties, but demand a much higher advance." I'm not so sure about the wisdom of this, as royalties might expand as your reputation grows (or after you've been arrested for dropping your trousers on the Rush Limbaugh Show, or revealed as Condi Rice's sex toy). Royalties potentially have a very long shelf life.
But even if I agreed completely with your preference and tried to demand a higher advance rather than royalties, I'm not sure anyone in publishing, heartless fiends that they are, is terribly interested in my demands at this point.
But I'll show them all some day! Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha…!
(Ow! Don't you hate it when you're briefly possessed by a bad graphic novel?)
Jump to Part I, to Part II, or to Part IV
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Pay Me First, Big Guy: Advances, Part II
Jump to Part I, to Part III, or to Part IV
Huge advances obviously aren’t part of the story of most debut literary novelists—but to many people’s surprise, they also aren’t part of the story of how most blockbuster authors began.
Most people know the story about Stephen King getting the call telling him they’d just sold Carrie for $400,000. Woo-hoo! Overnight success, right? (Well, disregarding the previous three novels he couldn’t publish.)
What people forget is that the call was from King’s editor (not his agent, mind you) to tell him about the paperback rights sale (which Doubleday split 50:50 with him, just the same way that MNW splits subsidiary rights with their clients). But King’s original advance was a whopping $2,500 (that’s about $8,600 in today’s money)—small enough that he kept his high-school teaching job, and he and his wife continued to worry about how to make ends meet. I seriously doubt that Doubleday really pushed Carrie harder because they had $2,500 invested in King’s advance; the $2,500 was more in the nature of a courtesy than a major financial commitment.
After being turned down by dozens of other publishers, John Grisham’s agent sold his first novel (A Time To Kill) to tiny start-up Wynwood Press, reportedly for a $15,000 advance. $15,000? Not bad for a first novel, no matter what the press might have you believe. (By way of comparison, JK Rowling got about $6,000 for the first Harry Potter.) Unfortunately, Wynwood had little distribution, and Grisham eventually bought up copies and sold them from the back of his car to try and get the book to readers. (Hence the legend that he self-published his first book, which is nonsense.)
For Wynwood, $15,000 was a huge investment, so I’m sure they ‘pushed’ with everything they had. Problem is, they didn’t have much with which to push. Do you suppose Grisham would rather have had that $15,000 advance from Wynwood, or, say, a $5,000 advance from Doubleday? (Or even [gasp] a $0 advance from Doubleday?)
(I’m sure someone will say, given the benefit of hindsight, that Grisham should simply have put away A Time To Kill and gone on to get publishers worked up about his bestseller The Firm. The problem with this logic is that Grisham had no real reason to believe The Firm would be a breakout. A scout got hold of a bootleg copy of the manuscript and began hawking it around Hollywood, managed to stir up some heat about a book the scout didn’t even have legal rights to, and suddenly Hollywood wanted it—even before the book had been sold. Grisham himself categorizes this as a very lucky fluke.)
In the 1990s HarperCollins wrote off $270 million in unearned advances and excess inventory. These big advances and extra books weren’t the result of fat payments to deserving unknown literary novelists. They didn’t go to discovering the next King, Grisham, or Rowling, either. They went to established ‘name’ authors who didn’t have the audience appeal the publisher assumed, and to overhyped debut authors who generally dropped from sight after the first overadvertised, overfunded, book hit the stores.
I don’t think this is good for the industry. I don’t think it’s good for most authors—neither for those paid large sums for books that didn’t earn out nor for those whose books were neglected because of the urgency of recouping someone else’s big advance. In the long run I don’t think it’s good for the reading public. Big advances reduce diversity and make for risk-averse publishers.
There is a tendency to speak as though the only stake publishers have in a book is the author’s advance, and that, lacking a big advance, they have no particular reason to try and recoup any money. This may be true of e-publishers, and of presses where Print-On-Demand is the central production technology, and I would indeed steer clear of e-publishers and POD presses that don’t offer a significant advance, because they literally have almost nothing invested in your book.
But publishers who print books with traditional offset technology and try and sell them through traditional channels are sinking quite a bit of money into each book. Doubleday’s real commitment to King’s Carrie was an initial print run of 30,000 copies—not the $2,500 advance.
Jump to Part I, to Part III, or to Part IV
Huge advances obviously aren’t part of the story of most debut literary novelists—but to many people’s surprise, they also aren’t part of the story of how most blockbuster authors began.
Most people know the story about Stephen King getting the call telling him they’d just sold Carrie for $400,000. Woo-hoo! Overnight success, right? (Well, disregarding the previous three novels he couldn’t publish.)
What people forget is that the call was from King’s editor (not his agent, mind you) to tell him about the paperback rights sale (which Doubleday split 50:50 with him, just the same way that MNW splits subsidiary rights with their clients). But King’s original advance was a whopping $2,500 (that’s about $8,600 in today’s money)—small enough that he kept his high-school teaching job, and he and his wife continued to worry about how to make ends meet. I seriously doubt that Doubleday really pushed Carrie harder because they had $2,500 invested in King’s advance; the $2,500 was more in the nature of a courtesy than a major financial commitment.
After being turned down by dozens of other publishers, John Grisham’s agent sold his first novel (A Time To Kill) to tiny start-up Wynwood Press, reportedly for a $15,000 advance. $15,000? Not bad for a first novel, no matter what the press might have you believe. (By way of comparison, JK Rowling got about $6,000 for the first Harry Potter.) Unfortunately, Wynwood had little distribution, and Grisham eventually bought up copies and sold them from the back of his car to try and get the book to readers. (Hence the legend that he self-published his first book, which is nonsense.)
For Wynwood, $15,000 was a huge investment, so I’m sure they ‘pushed’ with everything they had. Problem is, they didn’t have much with which to push. Do you suppose Grisham would rather have had that $15,000 advance from Wynwood, or, say, a $5,000 advance from Doubleday? (Or even [gasp] a $0 advance from Doubleday?)
(I’m sure someone will say, given the benefit of hindsight, that Grisham should simply have put away A Time To Kill and gone on to get publishers worked up about his bestseller The Firm. The problem with this logic is that Grisham had no real reason to believe The Firm would be a breakout. A scout got hold of a bootleg copy of the manuscript and began hawking it around Hollywood, managed to stir up some heat about a book the scout didn’t even have legal rights to, and suddenly Hollywood wanted it—even before the book had been sold. Grisham himself categorizes this as a very lucky fluke.)
In the 1990s HarperCollins wrote off $270 million in unearned advances and excess inventory. These big advances and extra books weren’t the result of fat payments to deserving unknown literary novelists. They didn’t go to discovering the next King, Grisham, or Rowling, either. They went to established ‘name’ authors who didn’t have the audience appeal the publisher assumed, and to overhyped debut authors who generally dropped from sight after the first overadvertised, overfunded, book hit the stores.
I don’t think this is good for the industry. I don’t think it’s good for most authors—neither for those paid large sums for books that didn’t earn out nor for those whose books were neglected because of the urgency of recouping someone else’s big advance. In the long run I don’t think it’s good for the reading public. Big advances reduce diversity and make for risk-averse publishers.
There is a tendency to speak as though the only stake publishers have in a book is the author’s advance, and that, lacking a big advance, they have no particular reason to try and recoup any money. This may be true of e-publishers, and of presses where Print-On-Demand is the central production technology, and I would indeed steer clear of e-publishers and POD presses that don’t offer a significant advance, because they literally have almost nothing invested in your book.
But publishers who print books with traditional offset technology and try and sell them through traditional channels are sinking quite a bit of money into each book. Doubleday’s real commitment to King’s Carrie was an initial print run of 30,000 copies—not the $2,500 advance.
Jump to Part I, to Part III, or to Part IV
Monday, January 22, 2007
No Shirt, No Shoes, No Advance? Advances, Part I
Jump to Part II, to Part III, or to Part IV
The advance for a book should be at least as much as the cost of the lunch at which it was discussed.
--Calvin Trillin
The estimable Jeremy James posted the following in the Comments trail, and I thought it was worth bringing up front:
Let me start by noting that most of your points would garner widespread agreement. Some people (particularly agents) think it nearly immoral to publish without advances, and the argument that only a large advance will force publishers to market your book is not uncommon.
Prgamatically speaking, you’re right that the main issue with the MNW contract is advances. Except in the case where an agent has somehow caused mass hysteria to descend upon a whole crowd of editors who busily outbid each other for a first novel, I don't think an unpublished novelist typically has much room to negotiate their contract with or without an agent, whether it's in principle negotiable or not. Nor are subsidiary rights typically of much value in the hands of an unpublished novelist. The Indonesian e-book rights probably aren't going to create much of a stir, and as to Hollywood options, I think a well-connected publisher is more likely to sell them than I am (even with the assistance of an agent), leaving me with 50% of something rather than 100% of nothing.
It may help a little to consider the history of the ‘advance’, which, of course, is short for ‘advance against royalties.’ Impecunious writers (and, if I recall, ‘impecunious’ literally means ‘owning no cattle’, which I should think would include most writers) often borrowed money from their agents or publishers to make ends meet. This ‘advance’ was the same idea as an advance on one’s wages—that is, a no-interest loan against future earnings.
With reliable, published writers, books were often ‘sold’ for an advance prior to being written, often based on a synopsis or outline, with perhaps half of the advance up-front, and the rest on delivery or publication. Novelist Lawrence Block writes:
The advance for a book should be at least as much as the cost of the lunch at which it was discussed.
--Calvin Trillin
The estimable Jeremy James posted the following in the Comments trail, and I thought it was worth bringing up front:
Hi David. Another great post...Hi, Jeremy, thanks for dropping in. You raise some interesting points—interesting enough that I’m afraid it’ll take me more than one post to reply. (In fact, I’m thinking three—and I’d like to also thank you for giving me an excuse to tackle a topic so large, and thereby put off doing honest work.)
After following the links you referenced about MNW's controversial business model, & reading up on why it's controversial in the first place (no advances, non-negotiable contracts, granting of all rights to publisher, etcetera), I'm curious to see if you'd expand a bit more on your reasons for signing with them.
I've read a little of your writing, and it's pretty clear to me at least,you've talent to spare, and if not SMITE, another book of yours would probably find a home with some U.S. publisher of note.
I guess I'm stuck on the "no advance" concept of their contracts. Others have argued that an author shows more confidence in their work if they're willing to take a low (or no) advance, hoping they'll make it up in royalties. But I remain skeptical of this logic. To me, that's really a show of faith in your publisher's ability to market and promote your book--something which you have very little control over, no matter how much you believe in your work.
I think I'd rather go the opposite way: agree to no royalties, but demand a much higher advance. That just makes more sense to me, because then I'm getting paid for the value-added work I put in (writing and delivering an entertaining story)--not for work I won't be performing (marketing and selling the book after it's printed). Plus it turns an "advance" into an investment by the publisher--one they'll need to get their butts in gear to realize a return on.
Comments?
Let me start by noting that most of your points would garner widespread agreement. Some people (particularly agents) think it nearly immoral to publish without advances, and the argument that only a large advance will force publishers to market your book is not uncommon.
Prgamatically speaking, you’re right that the main issue with the MNW contract is advances. Except in the case where an agent has somehow caused mass hysteria to descend upon a whole crowd of editors who busily outbid each other for a first novel, I don't think an unpublished novelist typically has much room to negotiate their contract with or without an agent, whether it's in principle negotiable or not. Nor are subsidiary rights typically of much value in the hands of an unpublished novelist. The Indonesian e-book rights probably aren't going to create much of a stir, and as to Hollywood options, I think a well-connected publisher is more likely to sell them than I am (even with the assistance of an agent), leaving me with 50% of something rather than 100% of nothing.
It may help a little to consider the history of the ‘advance’, which, of course, is short for ‘advance against royalties.’ Impecunious writers (and, if I recall, ‘impecunious’ literally means ‘owning no cattle’, which I should think would include most writers) often borrowed money from their agents or publishers to make ends meet. This ‘advance’ was the same idea as an advance on one’s wages—that is, a no-interest loan against future earnings.
With reliable, published writers, books were often ‘sold’ for an advance prior to being written, often based on a synopsis or outline, with perhaps half of the advance up-front, and the rest on delivery or publication. Novelist Lawrence Block writes:
“Some years ago, when I was more prolific than I am now and landed virtually all of my contracts on the basis of an outline or a brief proposal, I could hardly avoid the realization that I was writing a couple hundred words for half the money and then had to write an entire book just to get the other half. It seemed economically sensible to stick to outlines—I could write dozens of them in the course of a year far more easily than I could produce half a dozen actual books. But sooner or later, I found, you have to deliver the actual book…”
The main purpose of the advance was to make sure the writer wouldn’t starve until he or she had finished the book. Advances weren’t generally paid to first-timers: who knew if they’d ever finish a book?
(Macmillan New Writing only publishes writers whose novels have not been previously published, and they only look at manuscripts that are complete. In such cases, the original rationale for the advance is obviously not relevant.)
In time, and with the increasing role of agents in the process, the advance became a standard item in contracts, even for first novels. Advances became the major item of negotiation, and advances swelled to the point where they became news. In fact, today they are a major tool of publicity. The most exciting thing about a book nowadays—to People magazine, at any rate—is apparently the size of the advance paid for it.
Many debut authors receiving large advances (and there are only a tiny number, though they get a lot of print) don't earn out, so they never receive royalties anyway. Big advance + Big losses = Small chance you’ll ever publish again.
In the case of mega-advances, yes, the publisher needs to push the book harder—often to the detriment of other books on their list. That’s great, I guess—unless you’re the guy who got the $10,000 advance, and you’re with the same imprint that gave another author $500,000.
The size of the advances received by debut novelists seems to have little to do with their ultimate success in the business. We'll return to this topic in the next post, but I think it's useful to play agent Simon Trewin's Whatever happened to... game: gather together your friends, get a list of the debut novelists who were given giant advances and massive hype a few years ago, and now see who in the room can remember what the authors published next.
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