What's it all about, really?

Money. That's what it's about these days. Not only in the publsihing game, but in healthcare, manufacturing, retail,government, academia, etc. It's all about the bottom line.

The bottom line for a fiction writer is to earn a decent living by selling or licensing (renting) original creative works. Fiction writers have traditionally sold or licensed their works to publishers who then managed all further sales, including distribution to retail markets, subsidiary sales, translations for foreign sales, etc. Publishers assumed that they also had license to market electronic sales as part of the publishing contract, with no additonal or only minimal additional compensation to the writer. Thanks to professional writers organizations like Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA), Authors Guild, ASJA, etc., writers began negotiating electronic rights as part of every contract. Most writers only earn pennies from electronic sales at this time, but that may change in the future as more readers are willing to purchase e-books.

Google's Google Book Library Project opened up a new can of works for writers. Many out of print but still in copyright works were digitized by Google, and writers are still uncertain how much money they will or won't make when Google sells electronic copies.

The entire publishing industry is going through massive changes, thanks to new technology and the effects of the economy. What will happen in the future? How will writers earn their living when traditional publishers have closed up shop?

I hope you will stay with me as we continue to explore these ideas in the days, weeks, months, and years to come.

Fame and fortune

Some people think all writers are rich and famous, and nothing could be further from the truth. Some, a very few, do manage to become rich and famous after selling to motion pictures which also hypes sales of the book. What are your chances of becoming rich and famous as a writer?

According to MSN Money (http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/RetirementandWills/RetireEarly/WhyPoorPeopleWinTheLottery.aspx) "the odds of winning the Mega Millions are 1 in 135,145,920. Buying two tickets bumps your odds only to 2 in 135,145,920."

Your chances of winning the lottery are better than your chances of becoming rich and famous as a fiction writer.

Writing, like playing the lottery, is a numbers game. The first piece you write has a 1 in a hundred billion chances of making you rich and famous. Each succeeding book you write increases your chances. Ray Bradbury used to tell beginning writers to write their first million words and then throw them away. They don't have a chance of selling (or writing anything really good) until they have written more than a million words.

Your chances of being hit by lightning are thousands of times better than the chance of becoming rich and famous as a fiction writer, and hundres of times better than winning the lottery.

It is possible to earn a reasonable living writing non-fiction, and some writers can mix sales of fiction and non-fiction to achieve an annual six figure gross. But it is extremely rare to be able to earn a living solely writing fiction.

The best way to get rich writing fiction is to already be rich and famous and then sell your fictionalized memoirs (think of Dick Chaney, Donald Trump, most movie and NFL stars). Even lottery winners have a better chance that you or I of selling a book and becoming rich and famous because they are already rich and famous.

Here an interesting perspective from Jenny Diski's blog:

http://jennydiski.typepad.com/biology_of_the_worst_kind/2006/10/how_to_become_r.html

So, wannabe writers, forget the rich and famous part. Write fiction because you love to tell stories and you have good stories to tell. But don't quit your day job until you've sold at least one book to the movies or tv.

Nickel and dimed to death

One of the reasons that fiction writers are so miserly about every penny they earn or could potentially earn is the cost of doing business as a professional writer. Writers must have a computer and high speed internet access (you may have seen some of those poor starving writers who don't own a computer who come to libraries to use the public access comuters and internet) in order to prepare their manuscripts. They must keep in touch with editors and the market requirements of various publishers by regularly reading Publishers Weekly (PW), Literary Market Place (LMP), Writers Market, Writers Digest, The Writer, and other trade publications (do you know how much a subscription to PW costs these days?). They must also pay their own rent for an office, office insurance, health insurance premiums, etc. Their agent normally takes 15% of the gross and forwards the rest to the writer. The writer then pays quarterly self-employed social security and medicare (both his own and the employer's portions).

The real problem is the way commercial publishers pay royalties on fiction.

Normally, the book publsiher will offer an advance against royalties which is paid within 90 days of signing the contract. Then the publsiher sends royalty statements and checks every six months (semiannually) after the sales exceed the advance. With corporate accounting delays and waiting for returns of unsold copies from booksellers, semiannual payments often are delyed for a year or more.

Likewise, when a publsiher sells subsidiary rights (paperback rights, foreign translation rights, movie or tv rights) the publisher collects the money and waits to make sure the advance has been recovered and any credits for returns have been accounted for. The publsiher earns interest on that money while the writer has to wait and wonder when the check will be in the mail. When the check finally does come, it goes first to the agent who cashes the check and takes out the agency commission. Then, finally, the agent sends a check for the balance to the writer.