

A writing career becomes harder to scale - jamesbritt
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/arts/la-ca-endurability7-2010feb07,0,3305751,print.story

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tpyo
The last two paragraphs, are the most interesting:

'Perhaps there is a clue to be found near the end of Solotaroff's essay:
"Writing itself, if not misunderstood and abused, becomes a way of empowering
the writing self. It converts anger and disappointment into deliberate and
durable aggression, the writer's main source of energy. It converts sorrow and
self-pity into empathy, the writer's main means of relating to otherness.
Similarly, his wounded innocence turns into irony, his silliness into wit, his
guilt into judgment, his oddness into originality, his perverseness into his
stinger."

'The writer who has experienced this even for a moment becomes hooked on it
and is willing to withstand the rest. Insecurity, rejection and disappointment
are a price to pay, but those of us who have served our time in the frozen
tundra will tell you that we'd do it all over again if we had to. And we do.
Each time we sit down to create something, we are risking our whole selves.
But when the result is the transformation of anger, disappointment, sorrow,
self-pity, guilt, perverseness and wounded innocence into something deep and
concrete and abiding -- that is a personal and artistic triumph well worth the
long and solitary trip.'

Perhaps the first time creating something is the most difficult.

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patio11
Publishing is broken.

In the face of the Internet, which is the greatest platform ever created for a
single person trying to build a following on the basis of their writing
ability, publishers still send out newbie authors on book signing tours. So
that they can spend hundreds to go to a city they've never been and put copies
of their book into the hands of people who happen by the bookstore that day.
Because _that_ is apparently the most efficient use of their time.

My little brother, who is trying to break into comics by sustained guerrilla
warfare, has a more sophisticated Internet strategy than most published
authors. (A blog, a mailing list, analytics, keyword research, reader surveys,
etc. If you're going to make writing a career, make a business out of it.)

And authors have such a case of Stockholm Syndrome that they take what their
publishers are doing, borked in many ways, and consider it normal. (There is a
precious comment on a blog post I made about the Kindle, where a published
author loudly objects at the notion that authors sell books to readers: I have
it totally wrong, they sell books to _publishers_. Readers are an
afterthought. I don't think I'd be very good at my job if I could even
consider uttering the words "I sell software to Paypal.")

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Tichy
"My first three books sold, in combination, fewer than 15,000 copies in
hardcover."

So what was she living off? Did the publisher pay her for years, just hoping
she would one day hit it big? Or what was different from today?

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olefoo
Grants, stipends, fellowships. Teaching, odd jobs, seasonal work. Of the
writers I have known, none "made a living at it", but few of them stopped
writing because it didn't pay enough.

Writing as a profession has always been a rough road, subsidised by elite
patronage and government arts programs. Most commercially successful writers
barely move themselves above the poverty line by the proceeds of their book
sales.

tl;dr It's art. It doesn't have to pay to be worth doing.

~~~
Tichy
So it sounds as if nothing has changed, really? If anything, I'd expect more
opportunities for writers today, as they don't necessarily need a publisher
anymore. Grants and all the other things you mention still exist, I think.

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ngerakines
I've written two books (both technical) and kind of know the space. My reasons
for writing weren't for fame or fortune but to enhance my resume and become
embedded in a community. At no point was I ever convinced that I would make a
lot of money (directly from book sales).

