Sweet Dreams Aren't Made Of This
Jun. 28th, 2009 10:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexandraerinIn the comments of that article I linked to in my last post, one would-be writer is bemoaning the fact that the existence of the internet has destroyed his dream of being a "career writer"; i.e., someone who writes for a living instead of having another job that pays the bills and doing writing at whatever odd moments are available and with whatever mental energy is left over.
Do I even need to point out the flaw in this thinking?
Writing is not a job you apply for with a base salary and set benefits. Accordingly, being a "career writer" has never been an option for most people, even the most talented. It happens to some people, for some people, but it's not something anybody has ever been able to count on as something that would most assuredly happen if they only worked hard enough and stuck at it long enough.
The internet hasn't brought this about. It also certainly hasn't ended the state of affairs.
What it has introduced is more of a gradation, a continuum of financial success. You don't have to convince anyone that your work will be wildly successful to get a shot at even being moderately successful. You can build from the ground up, and if you're not immediately profitable... which you probably won't be if you don't have a big name and an existing following... then you're not going to lose a book deal over it.
No one has to believe in you but you to keep it going.
Of course, you have to keep it going. You can't just put up a blog, solicit contributions, and then expect to cash in overnight. You still have to work to succeed, which includes not just writing, building a relationship with your audience ("crazy cat lady/frightened but oddly fascinated neighborhood children" has worked out pretty well for me), and the occasional reminders to your audience that you are performing a craft for their benefit and some compensation can help you keep doing it.
And even then maybe you'll never make it to the point of being a "career" writer. Certainly most people won't immediately, and it's an open question of whether or not you'll have the wherewithal to stick with it until you reach that level.
Setting small goals can help there. A lot of people who put up tip jars bemoan the fact that they got a single donation. That's not a very good approach. Celebrate it... you've reached the first milestone. Try for $10 in a month. Then $20. Then $50.
If your writing makes you $50 a month on the internet, that's $600 a year. Not enough to live on by any stretch of imagination, but you could make less than that selling your work through conventional channels and still qualify for some professional associations. If you make $100 a month, that might take care of one of your utility bills, depending on your household size, habits, and where you live. That might seem like a little thing, but at least you'll be able to say honestly that "writing pays your bills." If you make $200 a month... well, that's something, isn't it? Very few of us could fail to notice the difference an extra $200 a month would make to our lives, whether it means we can breathe easier around rent time or it means we have an extra $200 to sock away or spend on ourselves.
If you've got talent, this is within your reach. $50 is ten people tipping you five dollars or fifty people tipping you $1. (Well, I simplify. Your tipping service is going to take their bite, but that bite's much smaller than the share a publisher would take if you sell your work conventionally.)
And if you can make $200 a month, you can make more. It's just a matter of reaching an ever-increasing audience. Having your content be free helps there. Giving people gentle prods to tell their friends helps there.
Constantly bemoaning how many people read and pay nothing does not help there. A lot of people will already feel reluctant to tell their friends if they think their friends can't/won't pay. But you want their friends to read your work, because they will tell more friends, and they will tell more friends, and quicker than you can say "Kevin Bacon" (assuming you speak very slowly and are easily distracted), one of them will be friends with someone who loves what you're doing and thinks you're worth $5.
Or $10.
Or $20.
At 100 people to get $5, you might feel the urge to start dividing and go, "Great, I made five cents per person." No, you made five dollars. If you can do that twenty times, you've made a hundred dollars. If you do it two hundred times, you've got a thousand dollars. If you do it twenty times every month, you've got a hundred dollars a month. If you do it two hundred times a month, you've got a thousand dollars a month and you're much closer to making your living as a career writer than most people whose books are sitting on a shelf somewhere ever will come.
If that's your goal, then who cares how many people that's divided out over?
You don't want people to feel guilty about reading and not paying. You don't want them to feel guilty about "imposing" more "deadbeats" on you. You want the deadbeats. What does it cost you to have 99 people looking and not paying if it gets you 1 who does? In this day and age, bandwidth is practically unmetered at the transfer rates used up by text and small illustrations. I tell people all the time that if they can't afford any money, they can pay me by telling the world about me. The fact that my stories frequently involve things that many people would find a little perverse or uncomfortable to read about hinders me there. If you're not writing things that make people squirm so much, you should have an easy time doing this.
This is getting rambly, so I'm going to close with some numbered pieces of advice.
1. Don't discourage people from reading if they can't pay. Do the opposite. Make them feel welcome. Make them feel disposed towards spreading the word. If people gain enough enjoyment from what you're doing, a good portion of them will eventually pay, when they feel they can afford to. If they feel like they're not allowed to read or that your stories aren't meant for them, they won't stick around that long.
2. Don't discourage people who pay amounts out of balance with your sense of what your work is wort. Some writers tell people not to tip if they've only got a dollar because the transaction fees can add up to like more than a third of that. Or they even make snide remarks about "Is this what my work's worth to you?" Ask any street musician who plays a busy corner how much spare change and crumpled dollars can add up to. Ask them if they'd despise these contributions or willingly exclude anything smaller than a five. Money is numbers. Numbers add up.
3. Don't feel weird about people who, conversely, pay way more than what you'd expect someone to pay for an equivalent amount of printed text. They're supporting you. They're your patrons. We complain and complain and complain about the fact that the public doesn't support the arts, doesn't pay to read... why grumble about the person who gives you a dollar for your entire archive and then sputter about the person who gives you $25 because they liked your latest installment? I have a few people paying me $25 or more a month. I didn't ask them to. Some of them asked me if it was okay.
I see this weird contradiction at work in many writers who consider a patronage/voluntary payment model where they look at the "freeloaders" and the people who pay a dollar and they say, "Well, I want to be paid for my work." and then they look at the people who want to contribute to them every week or every month or give them one single big contribution and go, "What? I'm not looking for charity."
Essentially, they're turning up their noses at what could be a workable business model because it doesn't resemble what they think business should be.
But if it brings the money in... if it pays the bills... why despise it? Why sit there wailing and gnashing your teeth because the way you think it should work doesn't work? Especially when the analog equivalents to those ways have never been wildly profitable for most people, to begin with?
Do I even need to point out the flaw in this thinking?
Writing is not a job you apply for with a base salary and set benefits. Accordingly, being a "career writer" has never been an option for most people, even the most talented. It happens to some people, for some people, but it's not something anybody has ever been able to count on as something that would most assuredly happen if they only worked hard enough and stuck at it long enough.
The internet hasn't brought this about. It also certainly hasn't ended the state of affairs.
What it has introduced is more of a gradation, a continuum of financial success. You don't have to convince anyone that your work will be wildly successful to get a shot at even being moderately successful. You can build from the ground up, and if you're not immediately profitable... which you probably won't be if you don't have a big name and an existing following... then you're not going to lose a book deal over it.
No one has to believe in you but you to keep it going.
Of course, you have to keep it going. You can't just put up a blog, solicit contributions, and then expect to cash in overnight. You still have to work to succeed, which includes not just writing, building a relationship with your audience ("crazy cat lady/frightened but oddly fascinated neighborhood children" has worked out pretty well for me), and the occasional reminders to your audience that you are performing a craft for their benefit and some compensation can help you keep doing it.
And even then maybe you'll never make it to the point of being a "career" writer. Certainly most people won't immediately, and it's an open question of whether or not you'll have the wherewithal to stick with it until you reach that level.
Setting small goals can help there. A lot of people who put up tip jars bemoan the fact that they got a single donation. That's not a very good approach. Celebrate it... you've reached the first milestone. Try for $10 in a month. Then $20. Then $50.
If your writing makes you $50 a month on the internet, that's $600 a year. Not enough to live on by any stretch of imagination, but you could make less than that selling your work through conventional channels and still qualify for some professional associations. If you make $100 a month, that might take care of one of your utility bills, depending on your household size, habits, and where you live. That might seem like a little thing, but at least you'll be able to say honestly that "writing pays your bills." If you make $200 a month... well, that's something, isn't it? Very few of us could fail to notice the difference an extra $200 a month would make to our lives, whether it means we can breathe easier around rent time or it means we have an extra $200 to sock away or spend on ourselves.
If you've got talent, this is within your reach. $50 is ten people tipping you five dollars or fifty people tipping you $1. (Well, I simplify. Your tipping service is going to take their bite, but that bite's much smaller than the share a publisher would take if you sell your work conventionally.)
And if you can make $200 a month, you can make more. It's just a matter of reaching an ever-increasing audience. Having your content be free helps there. Giving people gentle prods to tell their friends helps there.
Constantly bemoaning how many people read and pay nothing does not help there. A lot of people will already feel reluctant to tell their friends if they think their friends can't/won't pay. But you want their friends to read your work, because they will tell more friends, and they will tell more friends, and quicker than you can say "Kevin Bacon" (assuming you speak very slowly and are easily distracted), one of them will be friends with someone who loves what you're doing and thinks you're worth $5.
Or $10.
Or $20.
At 100 people to get $5, you might feel the urge to start dividing and go, "Great, I made five cents per person." No, you made five dollars. If you can do that twenty times, you've made a hundred dollars. If you do it two hundred times, you've got a thousand dollars. If you do it twenty times every month, you've got a hundred dollars a month. If you do it two hundred times a month, you've got a thousand dollars a month and you're much closer to making your living as a career writer than most people whose books are sitting on a shelf somewhere ever will come.
If that's your goal, then who cares how many people that's divided out over?
You don't want people to feel guilty about reading and not paying. You don't want them to feel guilty about "imposing" more "deadbeats" on you. You want the deadbeats. What does it cost you to have 99 people looking and not paying if it gets you 1 who does? In this day and age, bandwidth is practically unmetered at the transfer rates used up by text and small illustrations. I tell people all the time that if they can't afford any money, they can pay me by telling the world about me. The fact that my stories frequently involve things that many people would find a little perverse or uncomfortable to read about hinders me there. If you're not writing things that make people squirm so much, you should have an easy time doing this.
This is getting rambly, so I'm going to close with some numbered pieces of advice.
1. Don't discourage people from reading if they can't pay. Do the opposite. Make them feel welcome. Make them feel disposed towards spreading the word. If people gain enough enjoyment from what you're doing, a good portion of them will eventually pay, when they feel they can afford to. If they feel like they're not allowed to read or that your stories aren't meant for them, they won't stick around that long.
2. Don't discourage people who pay amounts out of balance with your sense of what your work is wort. Some writers tell people not to tip if they've only got a dollar because the transaction fees can add up to like more than a third of that. Or they even make snide remarks about "Is this what my work's worth to you?" Ask any street musician who plays a busy corner how much spare change and crumpled dollars can add up to. Ask them if they'd despise these contributions or willingly exclude anything smaller than a five. Money is numbers. Numbers add up.
3. Don't feel weird about people who, conversely, pay way more than what you'd expect someone to pay for an equivalent amount of printed text. They're supporting you. They're your patrons. We complain and complain and complain about the fact that the public doesn't support the arts, doesn't pay to read... why grumble about the person who gives you a dollar for your entire archive and then sputter about the person who gives you $25 because they liked your latest installment? I have a few people paying me $25 or more a month. I didn't ask them to. Some of them asked me if it was okay.
I see this weird contradiction at work in many writers who consider a patronage/voluntary payment model where they look at the "freeloaders" and the people who pay a dollar and they say, "Well, I want to be paid for my work." and then they look at the people who want to contribute to them every week or every month or give them one single big contribution and go, "What? I'm not looking for charity."
Essentially, they're turning up their noses at what could be a workable business model because it doesn't resemble what they think business should be.
But if it brings the money in... if it pays the bills... why despise it? Why sit there wailing and gnashing your teeth because the way you think it should work doesn't work? Especially when the analog equivalents to those ways have never been wildly profitable for most people, to begin with?