“… if people can’t earn money from writing books, then books will only be written by the rich, and by people in their spare time.” – Free your mind, a blog post from U.K. writer and journalist Steven Poole, whose tip-jar experiment didn’t go so well.
The TeleRead take: A reasonable statement? Some would emphatically disagree. Then again, do all writers want to go on speaking tours or sell T-shirts instead of getting advances, royalties or other traditional compensation? And what about the social implications? As one prominent U.S. literary agent has noted, more fiction today is written for the well-to-do than in the past. Do we really want to aggravate this problem? Especially if even mainstream publishers stop giving out advances? If nothing else, will we be missing out on talent from “plebes,” whose literary efforts could help educate the affluent about the world beyond Volvo or Mercedes Country? Sure, talk about spare time. But this is an era when no small number of people here in the States must hold down several jobs. Thanks to Jason Etheridge for the pointer.
Meanwhile, if you haven’t already, see Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five: A money-quality connection, even if you can download the novel for free. The Wowio edition is ad-supported. As I see it, Vonnegut would have written without cash, but it certainly didn’t hurt the quality of his works.
Still on the way this week—and actually related to the above topic: An essay on access and business models for libraries, which, by the way, if funded better, could be more of an income source for writers. In the era of “free”—when so many consumers don’t want to pay for books available only as electrons—could the library model be far more helpful to writers than in the past? Remember, libraries are very comfortable with paying for content that falls outside fair use. They just need the money. I wish librarians, publishers and writers groups would spend less time fighting over copyright and more time pushing for well-funded digital libraries for the iPhone generation and others.
T-shirt image: CC-licensed photo taken by ninjapoodles.
Seems a bit pessimistic. What’s needed is someone with the free time to write books. Sure, could be the rich, or hobbyists. But could also be those with rich patrons. And there’s a long history of great books written by prisoners, political and otherwise, whose needs are taken care of by the state.
The belief that art must and can only be created for money is the result of many generations of living as slaves for pay.
Many hundreds of thousands of words are written online for free by the part-timers, or as David so generously calls us, the ‘hobbyists.’
I can see de facto copyright (and writing for pay) advancing into a ‘first publication’ model, where the writer is paid by a publisher for the right of first publication…the ‘piracy’ begins from the word go, but the first rights publisher has the (momentary) exclusive.
I heard about a year ago a podcast about a filmmaker in Nigeria. It seems that all the films in Nigeria are copied onto videocassettes and available for sale shortly after the films appear in theaters. The filmmakers knew that they had about 2 weeks before the videocassettes (from which the filmmakers got no pay) hit the street.
The response of the filmmakers was to budget their films so that they could recoup their money and make a decent living on 2 weeks of theatrical revenues.
Paysites on the internet have not done well, however once the internet is monopolized by AT&T and the various cable companies — in all say 4-5 companies will be supplying all the internet to North America pretty soon — these ISP monopolies could pay for and bundle various services as part of internet service. The telco monopoly would be competing with the satellite monopoly and with the cable monopoly and would have some reason to think that such ‘added value’ offerings could woo subscribers.
Ebooks would be of some interest here mostly for parents (a library of textbooks and classics, etc., for the kids to learn from!) and seniors (books to read at home, in large type, the latest news and reviews, delivered to you so you don’t have to go out!).
Remember this is the model Charles Dickens used, and if we call him a ‘hobbyist’ it’s only fair to note that all his works were ‘pirated’ by the American publishers, something that annoyed Mr Dickens to no end.
But as I noted up top: the belief that all art must be for pay, and only for pay, is a bitter perversion of art itself; the fact that so many of us can’t think beyond this model says more about us than about the possibilities of art and artists, whether ‘hobbyist’ or ‘whore.’
I know of some people who travel for a living. They support themselves by – among other things – blogging, and have a very active readership that support their travels through clicks on banner ads.
Last year I saw Pat Schroeder give the keynote at a library conference and as she recited the usual publishing industry talking points, I began to consider that maybe it wasn’t Google and digitization that were so threatening to them, but the changing habits and abilities of readers and authors. I can’t recall the exact comments that made me think this, but I think it had something to do with publishers being the watchdogs of quality writing.
I actually think the present situation offers more opportunity to authors – both in terms of being published and making money from their work – than they might have had in the past.
Established artists might have to force open the door for aspiring artists. The tip jar didn’t work for Poole, but it worked for Radiohead. I’d love to see the fallout from a literary heavyweight self-publishing his or her next great novel.
I thought Poole’s analysis was absurd. Writer gives away *EIGHT YEAR OLD* book on videogames and is surprised when few people leave tips. Seriously.
OTOH, maybe the answer to the question in the headline is “Yes.” Most of the best op-ed writing these days is being done for free on blogs. It is my understanding that most newspapers have stopped paying for op-eds (aside from syndicates they subscribe to).
So maybe books are next, especially those where it is hard to build a community around. I’d think it more likely that writers would use books to build credibility — so I’d write a book on video games to establish my credibility there so I can do other media appearances and build that into a consulting business, etc.
My experience with books as shareware had a similar pay-off level as Poole discovered–and the books I offered were new. Since only a small fraction of those who downloaded were likely to have read Poole’s book in paperback format (I certainly never saw it), I don’t think the age has any bearing on the payoff percentage.
It is true that you don’t have to be rich to write–as Bill points out, all you really need is to be best friends with someone so rich they’ll pay you to write. I question the level of social commentary we’re likely to get there.
I’m all in favor of multiple models. In my (admittedly limited) experience, a model where readers pay a reasonable price for books they enjoy and authors get a significant fraction of what readers pay is an equitable and possibly sustainable model.
As eBooks continue to offer a better and better reading experience, the model of giving eBooks away to promote pBook purchases has got to fade. I certainly don’t believe in a model that holds eBooks to be so inferior they offer zero value.
Rob Preece
Publisher, http://www.BooksForABuck.com
These comments remind me of the tale of a wealthy patron who derived a large income from a family business in Manchester, England. The patron was best friends with an impoverished scribbler who spent many years writing a complicated multi-volume commentary on economics. The well-heeled patron generously supported the writer during the lengthy gestation of his grand opus. Finally the patron Engels ensured that “Das Kapital” by Karl Marx was published.
Of course this is just an anecdote about one work to provide a humorous contrast. It is true that books can sometimes smash crude stereotypes and patronizing attitudes toward the poor. More rarely texts can even smash crude stereotypes and patronizing attitudes toward the affluent.
I’m a busy amateur musician, and as a retired guy I have the luxury of playing for love, not money. A number of the young folks with whom I play or with whom I’m acquainted on the net are determined to make a career in music. That’s a really hard row to hoe. I advise them against such a career choice and tell them to pursue it only if they are so talented, so motivated, and so driven that they can’t help themselves. I suspect that many (if not most) writers are the same way — they write because they absolutely *have* to.
I think self-publishing on the Internet, whether you write books or make music, has the potential to cause a major paradigm shift in the years to come. As artists become less and less dependent on large corporations to get their work in front of an audience, they stand to retain more of the revenue generated by those works. Consider: would you pay a reasonable subscription fee to support your favorite writers or bands and receive their new works on a regular basis? Might this be a model under which creative artists could earn a livable wage?