No writers, no stories

[pbray]

On my way to work this morning I swung by the local DHL office so I could mail the revised manuscript to New York. One of the few perks of the day job with Megacorp is an employee discount with DHL, so I flashed my badge to request the discount on overnight shipping.

"What's in the package?" the clerk asked.

"Paper," I replied. "Actually it's a book--my latest novel."

"Then why are you still working for Megacorp?"

"There's no health insurance when you're writing novels," I said.

It's a common misconception that writers are rolling in money. All anyone hears about is the seven figure deals scored by celebrities and the likes of JK Rowling and Stephen King.

I didn't have time to explain to the clerk that the average advance for a genre novel is less than 10K. Or that not only is there no health insurance, there's no retirement plan. No 401K. No disability insurance. No safety net. No guarantee that you'll even get the money that you've been promised, if your publisher happens to go bankrupt while still owing you royalties, as has happened to friends of mine.

It's rare to meet a writer who can support themselves solely through their fiction writing. But that was still possible in Hollywood.

This is a long-winded way of saying that I support the striking writers. Most readers of this blog will no doubt have heard about the strike, but if you'd like to know more, Doris Egan tightropegirl has posted an eloquent explanation of the strike. And if you're interested, wga_supporters is rallying fan support.

In the meantime, I'm doing my bit to spread the word. Writers deserve to be compensated for their creations.

Comments

[allaboutm-e.livejournal.com]

Nice reminder of the realities of writing income. And here's hoping your experiences with DHL are better than ours...

[pbray.livejournal.com]

DHL has never failed me (knock on wood). They even delivered a manuscript to Manhattan on September 11th, 2001, of all things. But it helps to have a tracking slip, and to know that all I've sent is paper, so if anything goes wrong I can simply reprint and send again.

Tobias Buckell periodically posts surveys of author advances for SF genre, the latest version is here. (http://www.tobiasbuckell.com/2007/06/05/author-advance-survey-30/) And from the surveys that RWA does, I know that the average advance for a first romance novel is even lower. Though I think the ceiling is higher for successful romance authors than it is for SF, I don't have hard data to back that up.

[scbutler.livejournal.com]

There's an article in the NYTimes today about how there's no money left in Hollywood to pay anyone except the big name stars and directors (and producers).

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Reminds me a bit of the situation in romance novels, where some cover models were making several times more than the authors whose books they were gracing.

Seems to be a tad unbalanced.

[scbutler.livejournal.com]

Writers are bottom of the totem pole in movieland.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

We lack paparazzi

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

In general, people who work with words seem to be bottom of the totem pole in most places. We're just not very visible. Unlike the cover models.

[scbutler.livejournal.com]

Not always. In TVland writers are gods. Which makes one wonder why anyone still thinks tv is worse than movies.

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm ...

[kelly-swails.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for the link. Wonderful post.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked it. Doris Egan is a very cool person--she seldom has time to blog, but when she does, it's always worth reading.

[vcmorris.livejournal.com]

It's a common misconception that writers are rolling in money. All anyone hears about is the seven figure deals scored by celebrities and the likes of JK Rowling and Stephen King.

Heh... yeah. Whenever the subject of having novels published comes up, I get the same reaction, "Why the HECK are you still working here then!?!?" Not only did I not get any advance payments (far too small a house for that) but I'm pretty darn sure I'd not be able to survice on $600/year in royalty checks alone. I do it cuz I love to do it, pure and simple. The money is just a really nifty bonus every 3 months that keeps me from begging for money from family members.

Silly people.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Exactly!

And then the next runner-up for annoying question is "When are they going to make your book into a movie? You know that's where the real money is."

Which somehow implies that it's my fault that I'm not rolling in dough, that I've been slacking off rather than chasing the easy Hollywood money.