“Our purpose is to gather and share information so that writers can make informed decisions. Our secondary mission is to call for change within the publishing community for better pay and fairer terms in all contracts. This is a website by authors and for authors.”
“During the five short months since May, it seems that indies have somehow lost their market share gains of the preceding 18 months. This has been counterbalanced to a limited extent by a slight uptick in traditionally-published unit sales: both Big Five and Small/Medium Traditional Publishers have each gained roughly 1% in market share. But most of the lost indie market share seems to have instead gone to Amazon Imprints, who have gained a whopping 4% in market share.”
Might be hard to believe; but, that’s not as bad as it may sound…
“Despite the Big Five’s slight uptick in unit-sales market share, their share of consumer ebook dollars has continued to drop—albeit less steeply than in previous quarters.”
And…
“…the biggest recent winners seem to be the Small/Medium publisher authors, whose share of total Kindle author earnings has surpassed 20% for the first time.”
Taking the link to the October Report will give you a huge amount of information and speculation…
For non-link-takers, I’ll finish with:
“We have no idea whether this reversal represents the new normal—no clue at all whether what we’re seeing is a single-quarter blip before the previous relentless market-share shift toward non-traditional ebooks resumes; or whether we are seeing the true beginning of a turn in the digital book tide.
“But regardless, if you’re a traditionally published author of longstanding tenure, this change is probably good news.
“On the other hand, if you’re a relatively new traditionally published author or traditional publishing aspirant, the news is a whole lot less exciting. Because it seems the benefits of this recent increase in traditional ebook market share are not being felt equally by all authors…”
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And, even though there are writers who don’t care about the money, most of the Internet Hype these days seems to assume that there is no other reason to write but to make enough money to live on—and, far too much of the Hype is about making Tons of money…
I thought I’d share a few books recommended by Jane Friedman—from her article Writing & Money: A Brief Syllabus—about the issues writers face when they write with the intention of making money:
Authors & Owners by Mark Rose explores the invention and history of copyright, which has made it possible for writers to make a living from their work. Writers went for more than 250 years after the invention of the printing press without any formal rights to their creations. How did they earn money? Some didn’t—nor did they want to.
The Author, Art, and Market by Martha Woodmansee is an incredible scholarly work that explores what happened as literature became subject to the laws of the market economy, and shows how and when Western culture began to identify art as something that doesn’t sell—and then turned that quality into a virtue.
The Content Machine by Michael Bhaskar is primarily about where publishing is headed, but his theory is grounded in stories of where publishing has been, and traces important historical milestones of the industry.
The Gift by Lewis Hyde came out more than 30 years ago, and is still in print. It’s said that Margaret Atwood gave a copy to every artist she knew when it released. While not focused on publishing, it explores the tension between art and commerce—or how one can or should go about making a living through one’s art.
Make Art Make Money by Elizabeth Hyde Stevens is like a contemporary update to The Gift, using Jim Henson’s career and values to present a framework for creating your art and making a living, but not selling out. Maria Popova writes about it elegantly here.
Are there any books about writing and money you can recommend?
Do, please, share them in the Comments…
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And, Check Out our Latest Poll…
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Some folks think that only the journalist-type or the non-fiction writer should think about making money…
Some folks think that fiction writers shouldn’t consider money and only write for the love of the art…
Some folks think the new self-publishing juggernaut can slam them into the mega-sales bracket…
Thing is, there’s a bit of truth in all those ways of thinking—a bit…
The full truth about any individual’s chance of making money with their writing involves, at least, the following factors:
* How strong their desire is to make money
* How much money they can spare to help them make money
* How much time they have to spend working toward making money
* The choice of venues in which they’re willing to try to make money
From my experience, I’d recommend a writer soberly consider those factors; then, based on their deliberations, make a sound judgement about one more factor:
* Can they generate the staying-power to pursue, faithfully and diligently, the path toward earnings they want to follow?
That’s my two-cents’ worth…
Now, I’ll share two very different perspectives on making money as a writer.
Her method is simple and sound; and, you might call it the boot-strap method.
Just a couple excerpts from her article:
“In the beginning, you need to show your talents off anywhere you can.”
“It doesn’t matter if you were paid for them or not. All that matters is you have published peices of paper with your name on them.”
“Now that so much is on the internet, your links are also your clips. Save the title and link to everything you get published.”
“Give your talents away to everyone who will take them. I have had so many doors open up because I volunteered to lend my writing for a good cause.”
“Let your words be powerfully promiscuous.”
Do, if you have any desire to make money as a writer, go read Angela’s full piece.
Next, I’ll offer a video with two of today’s rising stars in the writing-for-money “market”—they both make money talking about making money—yet, they both have some good ideas to offer for your consideration…
“I’m…reading up on the tension between art and business, and finding that the ability of writers to earn a living through their creative work is a fairly new phenomenon, dating back to the 18th century and the rise of literacy, which largely made professional authorship possible.”
She also says, about today rather than long ago:
“…anybody and everybody can write and publish—but attention is scarce. Thus it’s little surprise that we have writers being paid in exposure, not dollars.”
Then she shares a few of the books she’s been exploring to prepare for her talk at the conference (do go to her blog post for her descriptions of these books):
“While my talk is part of the official conference schedule at The Muse, it is also free to the public. Click here to reserve your seat.“
So, what are your thoughts or feelings about writing for money?
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