Writing about science is a hobby for some, and puts dinner on the table for others; yet others, like me, fall somewhere in between. People enamored of the idea of so-called “citizen journalism” (a nice way of describing the mechanism whereby professional media outlets fill their pages with content that they either pay nothing for, or a token far underneath standard union rates, while giving the public that warm fuzzy sense that they are “interacting” with the outlet in question) frequently take people to task for fearing it’s a conspiracy to do freelancers out of a few quid.
I’m sure it’s not a conspiracy, but it is a real problem for some of my friends who subsist entirely on freelance science writing earnings. It’s not as easy to pitch a story now, when there seems to be legions of people – presumably in well-paid day jobs – willing to “interact” for free. There is, simply, less paid copy required. Nature Network, for example, used to pay freelancers like me to write news stories; I assume this was discontinued because they realized it wasn’t economical when there was so much engaging reporting going on about local events amongst their own bloggers, for absolutely free. It makes perfect business sense, and it gives a voice to people who before had none, but I do wonder at the long-term implications for professional writers. Traditional ‘Letters to the Editor’ pages typically made up a minute fraction of a media outlet, but user-generated content is expanding far beyond this.
There is another issue. Amateurs may be engaging, but they might not be conversant with the basic tenants of journalism. A few years back a particular blogger “broke” a story about some perceived evil that a big publishing company had apparently perpetrated, and it made a huge stink, but (as it turns out), she had failed to perform the basic, Journalism 101 task of simply checking her facts with a second source. In the end, her story was based on a faulty assumption and contained patent untruths – oh, and she also managed to commit libel at the same time. Because she was an amateur, no one bothered to correct her (and she was lucky she wasn’t sued). There are probably still people out there who believe her story because there was no self-correction, and no editorial desk to act as a safety net.
But that’s not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about cold, hard cash. Science writing is surprisingly lucrative – and I didn’t really internalize how lucrative until I received the first royalty statement for my novel Experimental Heart. Now, the book is doing very well; after launching in November, my publisher recently ran out of the first edition and had to do a second printing – and now I hear a third printing is just about to commence. Is seems really promising, financially, until you do the sums. If I sell a thousand books, I receive…about five hundred US dollars.
To put this into perspective, I’ve called up one of my invoices for a London science trade magazine I occasionally write for and have done a comparison. To earn the same amount, I would have had to have written three science news pieces for them at 300 words each.
To put this into even more perspective, those 900 words would have taken me about six hours: two to research, two to find and ring up experts for quotes, and two to write the pieces (and respond to the subeditor’s queries after submitting my copy). In contrast, my novel is 140,000 words; it took two months to write the first draft and three years to edit it into shape.
Somehow, this just doesn’t seem right. Are book authors getting a bad deal? And how does any author survive without an additional income? I suppose that in the absence of doing a J.K. or a Da Vinci, full-time book writers must supplement their earnings with honoraria from personal appearances – and possibly, by writing for magazines at an exponentially higher per-word rate.
That is, if there is anyone left willing to pay for professionals in the future.
$0.50 per book??!
That’s less than I thought, and I wasn’t optimistic to begin with.
I have friends who are professional (pop) musicians (one who lives on music alone, and a few who have to dabble in other things to survive), and I make a point of buying CDs directly from them at shows because the final price is the same as that in stores but they get more money out of it by cutting out the middle man.
So maybe you should start selling your books in person. You can get at least $0.60 per book that way! Maybe even $0.65!
(And while reading this post I suddenly realized that you were my very first editor-for-a-piece-I-got-paid-for. Aww.)
If you are really lucky you can get up to around £1 a book – but even so, you have to sell a lot more than most do to make a living.
The simple answer to ‘how does any author survive without an additional income’ is that most don’t. Something like 95% of published authors have another source of income.
I wouldn’t (couldn’t) not write books (sorry about all the negatives), but I don’t pretend it’s an easy business!
Heh. I’d forgotten about that. The Scientist pays really well, much better than British rags. You were a model author, by the way.
Basically, my contract is pretty decent according to some professional writer friends I talked to before signing. I get a small percentage of the price (after middlemen like Amazon take their cut), and this percentage goes up in several steps if I sell more than X number of books. But think about it: a book only costs about $13. And therein lies the rub. The amount of work that goes into something like a novel, and people pay such a small amount for it.
Selling my books in person…we’re back to the whole self-publishing, POD argument. A publisher gives you access to a lot more sales, I think, even though it takes the lion’s share of your profits. In the end, I think a publisher will do more for you than you can do yourself.
Hi Brian, our posts crossed. I was hoping you in particular would join in!
Interesting — I didn’t realize most authors were doing lots of other things. I guess teaching/consulting is another obvious source.
I’ve decided to write for chicks, not money.
Henry might be able to sell you a few from his farmyard come spring.
Fantastic. I fancy a fluffy yellow one with her own netting.
Sadly all mine are girlies and not parthenogenetic. You’d have to bring your own cock, cock. But the neighbours might complain. Save it for when me and Mrs Gee have our own smallholding. However, we do know a chick from Great Yarmouth who sells chicks – we bought all our stock from her – and she looks like a pop star, utterly drop-dead gorgeous. Richard, you could write for her…?
But seriously – I once heard an interview with (the late) Michael Crichton who was writing potboilers to pay his way through med school. He was wondering whether he could live full-time as a writer of books and drop the tedious med-school business, when he learned that only about 200 or so Americans – one in a million – were full-time novelists. He stayed on at med school.
My first proper book Before The Backbone was sold on a synopsis, no advance, took six years to complete and has grossed about £1400, I’d say, since 1996. Most of that was a cheque for £1100 in the first year.
My first trade book Deep Time got an humungous amount of advance – £85000 here and US$40000. Considering the book sold pants, that’s a lot of money per book, non-recuperable. It’s never earned a cent in royalties.
Jacob’s Ladder got an advance of £17000 and a similar amount of US$, still sold pants and has never yielded royalties.
A Field Guide to Dinosaurs earned me a flat fee of £5000.
The Science of Middle-Earth got me an advance of US$5000.
Some of these books have since yielded a few hundred here and there for various foreign-language rights.
Turning to POD, By The Sea has sold 36 copies (mainly thanks to your running it at Fiction Lab) and Siege of Stars 11 copies, generating a gross revenue of £38.71. This works out at an average of 82p per book (the rate is much less for print, much more for download) which isn’t bad, but given the tiny numbers is hardly going to make much inroads into my retirement fund.
Brian will, I hope, correct me, but I suspect that you don’t begin to make decent money from books unless you write consistently and regularly, and even then nothing much before your third or fourth book; that you run your books like a fleet of nuclear subs, i.e. one being planned and researched, another being written, a third just published and a fourth (and more) ticking over on backlist and getting foreign-language sales.
It’s great you got all those advances that exceeded sales, though! I call that a result.
Send me a photo, Henry.
@ Richard – please send photo of tractor.
@ Jenny – a result indeed, and life-changing, for it allowed Mrs Gee three years off in order to reprroduce.
I wonder if there are different dynamics for fiction and non-fiction.
…of reproduction…wierd alien sex in the Gee SmallHolding… WTF?
Good morning, Ian. Interesting dreams?
I, for one, do not want to know
I wonder if there are different dynamics for fiction and non-fiction
Yes – fiction is much harder to write and to sell than nonfiction. Peter Tallack of the Science Factory, an agent specializing in science non-fiction, told me this (you were there too) and it’s something my (now ex) agent also said. Whereas you need to supply a finished novel for an agent or publisher to be convinced that you can do fiction, with nonfiction you can, I think, get a deal with a synopsis and maybe a sample chapter or two (again, things have changed – Brian Clegg would know better).
This whole exercise has made me wonder what things are worth. What else costs as much as a paperback book? A bottle of nice wine: okay, I can understand this, it takes a few years for the wine to mature and it’s the product of a skilled artisan. A decent album: again, this can take a few years and it’s arguably unique, like a book. But then you start to hit imponderables: should a novel cost the same as 250g of steak, chips and a side salad? Or a piece of cheap plastic jewelry?
Q: What’s the capital of Iceland?
A; £3.27
Ouch.
Indeed. The point is that things are only worth what people are prepared to pay for them. Fourth Estate thought my book Deep Time worth £80000 (at least I think it was that – I put £85k above, but who cares about an order of magnitude or so between friends? In any case, another publisher thought it was worth even more, but I went for a more established name) even though I was an untried author in the marketplace and they were buying from a synopsis. More fool them! But at the time, popular science was sexy and publishers thought it worth tens of thousands to get onto the bandwagon. There is so much hype and expectation built in the books biz that it’s very hard making a simple equation between a novel and a packet of crisps and a cheezburger.
Jenny, the anecdote about the girl breaking a story about a publisher is very interesting. How long did it take for the real story to come out? Doesn’t that contradict the notion that the interactivity of blogs provides some kind of built-in quality control? At least there is a delay, and by then rubbish can have spread far.
Having said that, it’s fairly obvious that trained journalists don’t always deliver quality stuff, but I bet you don’t want to go into that here – and your question of how much different types or writing are or should be worth is much more interesting! I think this is tricky: writing is a creative activity, and you couldn’t tell people to stop painting pictures if they enjoy doing it, just because there are artists who make money with their art.
Thing is Steffi, I don’t people who paint pictures for fun are taking money away from people who do it in order to eat.
“I don’t think people”
Sure Richard, there is a different component: blogging makes people’s ‘paintings’ so widely visible and available.
By the way, I don’t (at all) think science journalism is made redundant by blogs. I am sure that a cultural adjustment concerning how people judge blog content, once everyone is more used to blogs, will partially take care of the debate and that both (blogs and paid journalism) will be able to coexist.
I firmly stick to ‘you can’t tell people not to do it’, but absolutely realize that this is a very hard and scary time for freelancers.
bq. By the way, I don’t (at all) think science journalism is made redundant by blogs.
Absolutely. Most blogs are, frankly, crap: despite what you read by people who think they are citizen journalists. They don’t have the first idea, let alone actually being able to write. Oh, sure: they might get the facts right (notwithstanding the example given) but there’s a tiny bit more to journalism than that.
And to put into perspective this whole business of “worth”, I just got $5K for putting together an utterly worthless 11th-grade science-review book to be flogged to schoolteachers in Florida for $8 per. I’m guessing the part they’re most interested in is the practice tests (which, truly, sucked to put together unless you like Tetris. Many, many constraints on each question). I’ve never sold any fiction, unless you count 600-word stories for other K12 horrors. Nonfiction…I’m trying to remember what I used to get paid for writing for that Times-Mirror rag. Can’t. Not much, anyway.
I don’t know what the freelance market’s looking like over there these days, but here it’s doing a great imitation of dead. I don’t even see much freelance medical writing advertised, and usually those publishers are hot to put continuing med ed courses out as fast as they can. Which is why — between bouts of stark terror at lack of income, and rage at local school for the asinine schoolday arrangement which stops me from applying for what jobs are left — I end up thinking, Well, Christ, if I’m going to be poor anyway, I may as well work on my novel.
What’s it worth? Well, I dunno; you get to make something fine. You get the ability and freedom to do that. I think that’s worth quite a bit. In fact I can hardly think of anything nicer. If you want money, too, that’s something else entirely. I’m happy to let the market sort that out, and if the market says 82p, that’s OK with me. Thing about money is that if you’re not selling something people want, you have to gull them into wanting it, and I’m not cut out for the work. Tried it, worked in advertising. No thanks.
(Actually — there was a splashy billboard a couple of decades ago, AIDS public-awareness thing, that said “Bang. You’re Dead”. I’d liked it, and accidentally I wound up having dinner with the Saatchi & Saatchi ad man who dreamt it up. He laughed outright when I said I was working in junk mail. Asked him why he laughed, and he said I wouldn’t last a year, on account of I had ethics. Rude man, but he was right about my not lasting. Quit after ten months. Wound up much happier in a used bookstore.)
This whole business of “deserving” has always made me squeamish. Deserving by whose say-so? And how much? Where’s the ruler? No, I don’t like it; there’s always something yearning and pleading about it. The customer will reckon what a thing is worth, and if you don’t want to sell at the price, you don’t have to.
Said the Yank.
When I worked at my second stint in editorial, I had access to the news desk of a very well-regarded specialist magazine, occasionally pitching in when they were low on subs. The sad truth is that some professional journalists aren’t very good writers, craft-wise, either – their pieces may need a lot of spit and polish from the subs to pass muster. I think it’s the content that these magazines are paying for, no matter how crudely crafted — the idea that, well maybe it could flow better, but at least the person did the right research and checked her sources several different ways and answered all the questions I wanted answered and looked at both sides of the argument without taking a side.
Steffi, the case I was referring to was never exposed publicly, nor formally corrected as far as I know. The few people who knew from firsthand experience that the story was a load of cobblers, including me, weren’t at liberty to do the job ourselves for reasons that I don’t want to get into. In the interest of journalistic balance (heh) I should point out that bloggers have also been in the position to break stories that were correct and interesting and unnoticed by the professionals. And if that was done correctly by an untrained individual, I think it’s great. But you can’t always expect that.
And of course I’m not advocating that amateurs stop writing. I just wonder what will happen to the professional class as a result of Web 2.0. I wonder what the trade unions are saying behind closed doors.
Amy, our posts crossed.
This: “you get to make something fine. You get the ability and freedom to do that. I think that’s worth quite a bit.”
is the reason why most profession payscale setters in the UK (yes, there are companies that do only this. Their denizens, I’m sure, get paid 2 to 3 times more than scientist) set “creative work” to a lower scale. In the aforementioned company where I worked, marketing droids with just a university degree were paid two times more than editors with PhDs, because “editorial is creative” and “they like what they do”.
Frankly, I think that’s a load of rubbish.
Jenny, a couple years ago there was a senior Newsweek editor here talking about the blogs v. pros problem in coverage of foreign affairs, and pointed out that in news it was a very serious one. Yes, lots of content, but end of the day the content points to a very few sources. And because the journalists are now available 24/7 electronically, the editors tend to view the journalists as sources of endless short bits which can be slapped up on the website. Not good for developing the deep local relationships they used to be free to build, wandering around off the leash for weeks at a time. Also, because people haven’t the attention span, esp online, for long pieces (this blog would get absolutely furious reactions on large swathes of internet), there are fewer outlets for journalistic analysis, which is v. different from academic analysis. Used to be you got the Times, like it or not. No reason to take it now if you don’t want a stack of the indigestible. And since the depth isn’t called for, papers & magazines can cut reporter staffs, send a reporter to cover one country one week, another the next. This editor was seriously concerned about the consequences, and, having worked with State tangentially in a few situations, I think he had real reason for concern. We rely on foreign correspondents.
OK, bed, for me, now.
jenny, the marketing droids were closer to the money. That’s why they got paid more.
Oh hey, I want to say, Jenny, that this blog’s been keeping me (intermittently) from feeling horribly despondent lately. Last few weeks have been almost nothing but No from the universe, I’m exhausted, and we have the economic vapors in a serious way over here. Very seldom feel like giving up, crawling into bed, and pulling covers over head, but have done lately. Whether or not it’s genuine you all sound awfully sane, and of course intelligent, and it’s a great relief.
Thanks, Amy. Take care, eh?
bq, Whether or not it’s genuine you all sound awfully sane, and of course intelligent, and it’s a great relief.
You should tell that to the “Times”:http://network.nature.com/people/rpg/blog/2009/02/22/on-blogging
bq. Whether or not it’s genuine you all sound awfully sane, and of course intelligent, and it’s a great relief.
You should tell that to the “Times”:http://network.nature.com/people/rpg/blog/2009/02/22/on-blogging
oops.
“The point is that things are only worth what people are prepared to pay for them.”
“… droids with just a university degree were paid two times more than [scientists] with PhDs, because “[science] is creative” and “they like what they do”.”
This is exactly why we scientists, and a fortiori, students and postdocs, are so ill-equipped to negotiate salaries.
I do subscribe to some extent to the market mentality. If society doesn’t (think it) need(s) us, as it doesn’t in Burundi or Kosovo for the time being, there will be no offers whatsoever. Let’s relativize a bit.
“Why is life so unfair? All I want is the ability to eat everything in sight and turn into a giant ball! Is that too much to ask?! DAMN YOU, REALITY!” (see the end of here if curious; I won’t embed it no matter how whimsical the Times implies we can be.)
Hi Heather
It’s an interesting thought experiment, to be sure. Here in London, for example, the opera costs about £60-100 a pop. There are people who will pay for this because they love opera. (I”m not one of them, I should point out.)
A paperback costs about £8, in contrast. Which I love, because I love to read. It’s terribly convenient for me that they are so affordable. The thing is, if novels actually cost £60 each, universally, would I still buy them? The answer is, yes. Because I can’t live without them. To be sure, I’d be a lot more selective about what I bought. And I’m probably not alone.
So it’s not just, perhaps, a question of what people are willing to pay. It’s also the convention of what things, historically, have cost. It’s interesting to wonder why an opera costs £60 and a book costs £8.
_The sad truth is that some professional journalists aren’t very good writers, craft-wise, either – their pieces may need a lot of spit and polish from the subs to pass muster. _
Never a truer word like what she woz spoked.
For thought experiment purposes, I think the paperback costs less because it costs materially less than an opera to produce (I am not speaking of the creative effort here, which may be equivalent between the author and the composer) – starting with salaries;, there are far fewer people to mobilize for the book than for the stage representation. I agree that for the time entertained, a paperback can be better value, but it is also different. For live opera, music, theatre and dance, one pays for the fleeting aspect of the artistic representation as well. Part of the extra cost and attraction is the danger, as it were.
When I couldn’t afford books (and there was a significant period like this), I was an assiduous patron of the public library. Our Carnegie-sponsored network of local town libraries in the U.S. (and apparently, elsewhere) is a kind of proselytism that I could really support.
There is a similar and interesting discussion of the merits of free versus added value of pay-per-item for different protagonists in this blog post. (In that “I also believe that we independents have no RIGHT to exist, that our time may have passed or be passing, but it would be nice if we could survive; I believe we can–and do–serve a very important purpose.” sounded rather like your post.)
That’s really interesting, Heather, many thanks for the link.
And about this: If society doesn’t (think it) need(s) us
The question is, does society even know it needs us? I would argue that scientists make the world a better place, chiefly via the applications inherent in technology. If it was suddenly taken away, there might be a reassessment of priorities.
I’d be more of an advocate of salaries being based heavily on amount of time it takes to train to become that professional. If a marketeer needs only a university degree and a starting salary is twice what a starting scientist gets, to me this seems inherently unfair. I don’t have a beef, really, with athletes and actors and others who earn so much money — they at least are long-trained and have worked very hard to get where they are.
Good point about knowing the need. It’s hard to do a controlled study in the sense of “here’s what your society would be like without the scientists you fund” the same way it is “here’s your climate without a hole in the ozone and excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere”. When it’s gone, it’s too late.
Unfortunately for novelists, there are
the possibility of having a second simultaneous career
so many good novels already out there that no one could possibly read everything that has already been published
lots of competition from qualified amateurs as well as professionals.
France seems more keen on basing salaries on training time than on demonstrated potential or past accomplishments (in theory); in reality, it’s not true (witness scientists vs. medical doctors vs. university professors) and when it’s invoked, it’s just done to keep the young upstarts (or single parents or any non-typical career path) out of the upper reaches.
I’ll stop now with the millions of parentheses. I’m actually supposed to be writing something myself; when I go on like this, sure thing I am procrastinating.
I’d argue strenuously that there are no amateur or professional novelists; there are novelists, full stop. The writing programs are doing real damage in promoting the idea that one must be a duly licensed creative writer, otherwise no good. You science types have at least got the (weak) excuse of access to training on expensive equipment. Nothing like that for writers.
I’ve been trotting this figure out periodically now for 15 years, but in 1993 Nan Talese was quoted in the New Yorker as saying that the market for literary fiction in the US was 4000. People. I thought that was absurd, then started doing the numbers — I’d been working in bookstores for three years by then, used, new, independent, chain — and saw that she was about right. By and large, people don’t read novels, and with the death of the canon in the US even the names are going. Ten years ago I had to explain, in a bookstore up the street from Brown University, who Sartre was. (Some would not be displeased, but still.) Most people have never heard of the writers, let alone the novels, I’ve been reading over the last year or so: James Agee’s A Death in the Family, John Gardner’s The Sunlight Dialogues, John Cheever’s The Wapshot Chronicle. All of them big famous books and big famous writers in their time, 30-70 years ago. Beautiful stuff. The Agee book, which I’m reading now, is ranked 345,727th in book sales on amazon.
So no, by and large people don’t want this stuff. They like what’s derived from it, the movies and cartoons, but they don’t want to wade through all that themselves. A healthy chunk of the US population is functionally illiterate, anyway — I think the figure was put recently at 11% or so, which virtually guarantees it’s closer to 20%. Would they be more interested if better educated? Maybe. Maybe. My daughter’s arts education in school is a misery, and it’s probably better than most, because we’re such a selfconsciously arty community.
I’m thinking of some lab reports I recently graded — mat sci reports, graded in part on how well they’d been written (I still think this is a bad idea, farming these things out to people who don’t know the engineering, but the idea was that the readers were “non-expert managers”. Fine, it pays). They were, of course, abysmally written, all up and down the line. College juniors, mostly, and most of them couldn’t distinguish the experiment they’d been set from the point of the report, few had any sense of audience, the sentence construction and fumbling with language could make you pass out and refuse ever to cross another bridge. The thing that got me was that when I turned these things in, the amount of markup I’d done made my boss blanch (expected), but the one he liked — the one with the amount of markup he really wanted to see — was the one written by a kid who couldn’t speak English. And of course I’d mostly left that one alone; no point in making with the red pen when the problem’s that the kid hasn’t learned the language yet.
These are the brighter kids in a state that spends over half its tax money on K12 ed and takes it rather seriously. And the more I look at it — the more I think of what’s gone on in the classes I’ve taught here, the K12 stuff I write, and of what goes on in my daughter’s classroom — the more I see that we’re just afraid to give them anything worthwhile, because the presumption is they’ll hate it, find it frustrating, feel worthless, give up, and produce bad test scores. And my guess is that in large measure that’s because the people who go to ed school found the good stuff frustrating and impenetrable, and it made them feel worthless.
Hasn’t really worked out well, has it. Anyway they don’t want to buy novels. Though they respect the people who can write them. That’s actually worth something, though it’s hard to notice till it’s gone.
Amy, by ‘professional’ I meant in the strictest, old-fashioned, like-when-they-wouldn’t-let-you-compete-in-the-Olympics sense — not earning money from it. I think ‘amateur novelist’ is a non-concept — anyone not getting their book(s) sold yet probably aspires to it. Maybe a better word for those is ‘proto-professional’. For me, the distinction between professional freelance news and features writers, versus bloggers, is more salient.
Yes, I’m quite aware of the dismal reading figures for trade fiction in the States, and wonder if it’s better here in the UK. Lots of people read novels on the Tube, for example, probably more than those who read the paper. But last night on a Radio 4 business chat show, they rounded up with their standard whimsical question, asking the three entrepreneurs what was the last novel they read. The first two men said they don’t read novels, and offered non-fiction choices. The third, a women, was just finishing ‘Incident At The Fingerpost’, which was at least something. The presenter wondered whether it was their professional that led two out of three of them not to read fiction. Might have been their gender, if some studies are to be believed. (Mind you, on the Tube, there are plenty of men reading literary fiction.)
Someone once told me I was a “professional musician” because I sometimes get paid to play at weddings. He hadn’t heard me play, or he would never have said such a thing, ha!
the more I see that we’re just afraid to give them anything worthwhile, because the presumption is they’ll hate it, find it frustrating, feel worthless, give up, and produce bad test scores
Hurrah. I’m pleased to see I’m not alone in agreeing with this sentiment. The best teachers I ever had were those that drummed the basics into us, even if we hated it at the time. None of this namby-pamby education-must-be-fun let’s-all-be-bunnies nonsense.
Someone once told me I was a “professional musician” because I sometimes get paid to play at weddings. He hadn’t heard me play, or he would never have said such a thing, ha!
Last summer I took the Hammond organ to play on some tracks in a session and got paid £100. So, there you have it, a ‘professional’ gig. But that was the only one, so I can’t claim to make a living at it, so I’m not really a professional.
But last night on a Radio 4 business chat show, they rounded up with their standard whimsical question, asking the three entrepreneurs what was the last novel they read. The first two men said they don’t read novels, and offered non-fiction choices
I’d be willing to bet that the people who said they didn’t read novels were either lying, or making the point, albeit unstated, that they were SO Busy and Important that they’d never have time to do something so trivial and unconnected with their Masculine Thrusting Business as reading a novel. And as everyone has known since the days of Jane Austen, novels are things that idle housemaids read on their days off. They’re not for serious people.
What people get up to on the tube is another matter.
Don’t quote what I write on a private forum in a public forum. The comment about citizen journalism doing freelancers out of a couple of quid was mine, written in a private forum, and has been quoted here without permission and completely inappropriately. While I stand by the remarks entirely, I do not believe it is appropriate to take remarks made in private and use them in this manner, however thought/debate provoking the author may view them. Out of line, big style.
Hm. Henry has a dinosaur book that Junior Wintle #1 doesn’t own. Astonishing. I’d remedy that right away, except that he’s admitted he doesn’t get royalties from it.
Jenny – one thing I’m interested in knowing (and might have missed) is whether your publishing contract would allow you to retail Experimental Heart direct from the author. Would this be an option, and, if so, would it be a viable one? Could you obtain copies from the publisher closer to cost than the general public and then re-sell them for a larger slice per book?
On the topic of “science writing”, my only successes have been paid non-fiction works (once or twice at maybe $150 for a few hundred words) and one crowning glory, a government report that was $10k (which I split 50:50 with a co-author). There don’t seem to be enough of those around to live on though, unless you happen to be sufficiently expert to lead a multi-million-dollar Royal Commission Enquiry or something similar.
Katherine, I’m perfectly within my rights to mention things that people have said directly to me, whether it be in a public forum or in private correspondence, when I’ve taken pains to keep it wholly anonymous. I’m sorry you disagree, but you hardly needed to out yourself here.
Richard, I’m not sure I have an answer to your question. There is no wording that I think even covers it. I am entitled to an authorial discount, and I think even a number of free copies. But then when you think about shipping and fulfillment…and tax…I don’t have an interest in even going there. Money is not, actually, my motivation for writing novels (thank goodness!), although obviously it would be nice to earn a little.
I’d be willing to bet that the people who said they didn’t read novels were either lying, or making the point, albeit unstated, that they were SO Busy and Important that they’d never have time to do something so trivial
Henry, do you think that’s really true? I love the thought of closet novel readers. Let’s hope they are legion.
The professional versus amateur debate is not new – see Andrew Keen’s “The Cult of the Amateur”:http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cult-Amateur-Internet-Killing-Assaulting/dp/1857883934 How Today’s Internet Is Killing Our Culture and Assaulting Our Economy
Oh…that’s very interesting indeed, Frank. Thanks. The internet may be killing some things, but all this access to information (and people quick to point it out) is definitely on the plus side.
And I’m perfectly with in my rights to request that you remove that statement from your post. Please remove it.
I’m perfectly within my rights to think that you’re making a big fuss out of nothing, Katherine, and now you look like…
someone on the internet.
Katherine, I’ve now rephrased. As your quote has been said many times before, and indeed it was the third time I’d heard something along those lines in the past week (a convergence which inspired me to write the post), please know that what I’ve said in the first paragraph now refers to those other comments, and most specifically not to yours. And don’t worry, I won’t be taking inspiration from you in the future.
It beats me that an opera ticket costs so much, and it’s—what, three hours? A good book will pleasure me (quiet, Brooks) for lnger than that, and many more besides.
And it’s not just about the cost of production. A performance of Ruddigore could be just as technically good and enjoyable as La Traviata, but costs much less to see. And I don’t think any less work goes into such a production.
It’s just snobbery, perhaps?
(I don’t know if I like opera or not. I can’t afford it)
When I was an undergrad in Newcastle, students could get day-of opera tickets for 6 quid. I saw lots of great performances, mostly from the Gods but occasionally from the good seats. On one memorable occasion we saw La Traviata from one of the boxes, looking down on three of our profs who must have paid a fortune for their tickets in the middle of the stalls. They weren’t too happy to see us up there!
Even in the Royal Opera House you can get tickets in the cheap seats for £8. I think tickets for Premier League football matches can be pretty pricey too, it’s not just opera.
Are you asking me out, Frank?
I have nothing to wear.
Well, I’d quite like to go and see Doctor Atomic but I think it’ll be all over by the time you get here?
Opera – once, student rush tickets, centre of the Orchestra for… I think it was about $10. Granted it was a long time ago. The Marriage of Figaro or something, I really don’t remember.
I wouldn’t mind seeing Alban Berg’s Wozzeck, although I suspect it might be a bit of a hard slog. Seen the Georg Büchner play before.
The thing I don’t like about opera is I can’t suspend my disbelief. I like the music, especially when it’s something like Mozart, but the plots and narratives are just too camp and unbelievable for me. If there are any operas out there that have more literary plots, I’d love to know them.
Amy was a bit disappointed by the Chicago production of Dr Atomic – check out her review on LabLit if you’re interested.
Congrats Jenny for having some success in the randomly brutal field of novel writing.
Amateurs writing about a topic they know very well can often provide much better information and context than a random journalist who “parachutes” in. But the journalist, if working for an actual media outlet, will have a bigger audience. Science writers hopefully combine the best of both, with background, perspective, and writing skills (though I often see evidence to the contrary in my area of expertise).
Writers of books best do it either via an advance (but be famous first or you won’t be able to live on it), or else write entirely for their own satisfaction. Of all the arts, writing is the one which requires the most initial mental effort on the part of the audience – and that’s a lot to ask for something book-sized. (Though to me it’s a less daunting request than being asked to attend the opera.) I chose zero royalties for my own novel because I hoped it would hold the cost down – but it didn’t very much, sadly. Still, I don’t get an ego-deflating tiny check periodically, so I view it as a good decision.
more literary plots
Bluebeard’s Castle (not very camp); Damnation of Faust (maybe a little bit camp and not very believable, but definitely literary); Othello; Macbeth; Death in Venice. Also check out Janacek’s operas – Jenufa is heart-rending stuff, e.g.
Thanks, James. I think you’ve hit on something with the whole active vs passive argument. Reading does take some work, compared with sitting in a seat for a few hours being performed ‘to’. Another factor has got to be fatigue — is it just me, or are there zillions of novels published every month? I can’t remember if I wrote this already, elsewhere — apologies for any deja vu — but it’s well known that a number of the Booker Prize shortlisted books, before the shortlist is published, only sell a hundred or so copies.
In this environment, it’s no wonder authors struggle to make profits.
Frank, our posts crossed. Many thanks for the tips – seriously. I’d like to give it another try, especially if there are cheap seats at the ROH. As long as they’re not restricted view – I’m getting too old for the big neckache.
The Magic Flute – that’s what you should see.
The production I saw was in pantomime style, which actually fit perfectly (the director came on stage afterwards and said that taking it seriously was completely impossible).
I find the plot to be almost completely irrelevant to my enjoyment of a good opera. But then I’m an unsophistimacated prole who prefers operas with tunes in them (don’t see Tosca).
Like the man said – those in the cheap seats, clap. Everyone else, just rattle your jewellery.
I don’t like opera and I don’t like Mozart, but for some reason I am fine with operas by Mozart. It balances out to something I can stand to watch and listen to.
I also at one point knew the words to the piece “Prematurely Air-conditioned Supermarket” from Philip Glass’ opera “Einstein on the Beach”, so my views on opera are probably a little odd.
Einstein on the Beach, that wasn’t the one with the beach-volleyball-court set and all the pretentious chanting, was it? Long time ago? I saw something like that at ENO — first act, anyway, had to leave at the ice cream. Was snorting and giggling too much at being there. Someone pretentious in front of me was annoyed. Ice cream might’ve helped his disposition.
_Are you asking me out, Frank?
I have nothing to wear._
Damn it! I was just saying yesterday what a shame it was I hadn’t stretched myself a little more back in college, when my flamingly gay boyfriend invited me to come to Salzburg with his family and go to the Opera Ball. I find it incredible, looking back, how few people take the opportunity when you say, “I have nothing to wear.” Well, then again, wrong orientation. But it was all so pre-ACT-UP, you know, nobody noticed these things.
You know those warning sort of feelings people get when they feel they might become alcoholics? I think I just got one of those warning me I might become Auntie Mame. Dear.
Amy, I’ve never actually seen Einstein on the Beach, but that’s probably it, yes. There is definitely pretentious chanting involved.
I got the CD as a gag gift one time. In fact, I’m pretty sure all EotB CD’s ever sold were gag gifts for someone.
Another thing about the whole book business that looks very different now that I’ve got a book for sale is the time-honored custom of lending. Every time one of my friends says, Hey, just finished your book and loved it so much I’ve lent it to my sister/spouse/rabbi/fencing partner! I cringe and thing: damn, I wish you’d encouraged them to buy it. (I should point out that it’s not about the money in this case: it’s that I suspect my second novel will be more easily sold if I have a great track record with the first.)
And I know that’s pathetic, because lending books, and as Heather points out, borrowing them at a library, are deeply traditional, lovely customs that I’d never want to die out. I am sure that the practice probably leads to more sales, just as downloading free tracks might lead people one day to purchase more music by the same artist.
(Interesting note: Sony eBooks can’t really be shared like a real book, due to digital rights management. So they cost more, and you can’t share lend them to a mate. Intriguing dynamic. Has anyone ever seen eBooks in a library? I haven’t darkened the doors of a non-academic one for years.)
hahaha.
I’m refusing to lend your book out!
lending books, and as Heather points out, borrowing them at a library, are deeply traditional, lovely customs
I’m very glad to hear you say that, Jenny! Your book is currently on our new book display shelf and we hope it will be borrowed frequently. Some people are inspired to buy after borrowing. If I borrow a book and decide I like the way the author writes I’ll probably look out for their next book and buy it.
Re. ebooks, lending and libraries
The non-shareability of ebooks intrigues me. Without wishing to be morbid, what happens to ebooks when we die? Is all that investment in building a personal library over many years just lost?
Yes, libraries are into ebooks, though there are challenges. Academic Libraries tend to go for online access (via web interfaces). Public libraries have been doing pilots and stuff for several years, though I’m not sure where they are at now.
I heart libraries. They are such an amazing concept: you can walk into a building and come out with an armful of books, and it costs you nothing. No. It’s not amazing: it’s fucking amazing. I love them.
Dear Frank
I’m chuffed you’ve got my book in your library! I think I just died of happiness. Can you take a picture of it in the display shelf for me, or does that violate some arcane NIMR Health and Safety rule?
The eBook thing, on the Sony side, it very complex. You can only license five computers at a time, but they have decided not to give the user a way to deauthorize old computers and reauthorize new ones, unlike what Apple does for iTunes. I’ve already had to decommission a computer at work because it’s being mothballed — maybe I was the first customer to ask, but after a flurry of activity, my support ticket has gone eerily quiet.
If the book only lasts the lifetime of five devices, it will be shortlived indeed. I’ll keep you posted.
The good news about eBooks is when they are out of copyright, they are freely dispersible. There are a number of wonderful websites, including the Guttenberg Project (hat-tip to Richard for spotting it) that format them all for free. I’ve been enjoying Rupert Brooke on my commute in as a result.
Not sure exactly about that. The Gutenberg project was set up years before ebooks came to the fore. All their texts have been rekeyed by volunteers, in plain ASCII; they do not use publisher’s electronic versions.
And of course, copyright lasts a long time. 70 years from death of the author.
BTW, the Gutenberg originator, Michael Hart, was an extraordinary man. He used to send out long emails about Gutenberg, all typed in lines exactly 80 characters wide. He didn’t use extra spaces or other cheats, but composed his words just to fit exactly.
@Frank ha ha! That’s bricktext, a favoured skite for Usenet veterans.
Amy?
My $0.02 (and I haven’t read all the comments here so sorry if someone’s made the point): I think that one effect of the rise of bloggers is to actually force professional writers to raise their game. Not everyone who writes for a living loves to write; I’ve accused you before (unfairly) of romanticising journalists/ism, but plenty of professionals just do not bother to write factually or elegantly. But I, and others, will still pay to read a well-researched and beautifully-written article despite the swathes of free content out there.
In other words, the professional writers most threatened by ‘citizen journalists’ are the ones that aren’t bothering to check their facts, get second opinions, etc. etc.
Just as the publishers most threatened by open access are the ones that rely on mediocre volume publishing to make their profits and corner-cutting to reach their growth targets.
p.s. those sales – that’s brilliant, congratulations..
And one more before I actually do some work: Opera – Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmelites
Tom, that’s an excellent point, and your comparison with Open Access is apt. (And forgive me for being a hopeless romantic! But then, you knew that already.)
There’s just one thing missing in the string so far: link to the Gutenberg project – new volunteers always welcome (“just a page a day will help”)…
Semi-rhetorical questions:
– What would the consequences actually be if novels cost £60 a time, for amount spent on them, numbers published, and distribution of income to authors especially those who are more Rohn than Rowling?
– Is the publishing industry about ten years behind the music industry?
– Does the fact that other people have already mentioned all the operas I was going to cite as worth paying £60 to see (if you have to) mean that I have good taste in operas? (I was once asked to name the maddest thing I’d ever seen and had to answer that it was a toss-up between (a) a performance of Wozzeck and (b) an actual box of frogs)
– Am I missing some in-joke whereby everybody has noticed the phrase ‘basic tenants of journalism’ (this would presumably be low-rent journalism) but is refraining from drawing attention to it?
Hi Tom
1. No idea, but probably the whole business would tank. Maybe there would then be a revival of oral storytelling — which would flourish until the tellers started griping about how they were worth more than £7.99 per performance.
2. Yes, I think so. At least. But affordable POD will change all that.
3. Yes, indubitably. p.s. Where did you get the frogs?
4. Might be a US/UK thing, but this one went over my head.
_@Frank ha ha! That’s bricktext, a favoured skite for Usenet veterans.
Amy?_
Went the way of compositors, didn’t it? P.G. always seemed eerie to me — posts would crop up on my favorite ngs from some civilized, disembodied project, seeking volunteer typists and proofreaders.
I don’t know about publishing’s being ten years behind music. I’d say more, and that it may not catch up exactly, because music rushed ahead and demonstrated all the intellectual-property problems. Also because the models aren’t really congruent. I hear a lot about a return to performance for musicians, but that involves booking gigs with checks that come in just after. You write songs, you book, you sell CDs at the performance, and essentially you can keep selling the same songs repeatedly for something considerably better than 82p. Nobody’s going to pay readers to come flog their books at readings unless the readers are…well, Updike’s no longer available, but mighty big. I’m not convinced the store here would pay Martin Amis (and he’s shown up often enough for free anyway). It’s not like there’s…mm…added value in most readings, anyway. So there’s a real question of how the writers are to make any money at all off the stuff if piracy’s an issue.
I heart libraries. They are such an amazing concept: you can walk into a building and come out with an armful of books, and it costs you nothing. No. It’s not amazing: it’s f—ing amazing. I love them.
@RPG – total agreement here. Add to this the sales of old/damaged/not longer wanted books that they sometimes have. I bought a hardcover edition of a John Irving novel for a dollar, before it was even available in softcover in the stores. Amazing.
Slightly back towards the original topic – I vaguely remember reading somewhere about rates for freelance writing, but I may have gotten it confused with translation (which is about 25 cents a word). Anybody have any idea what the going rate is, or does it vary far too widely to make any statement?
For science writing, in the UK, it varies from about £.30 a word to £1 a word – but the latter is for serious broadsheets only — or at least it used to be, I don’t know if the credit crunch/internet interloper factor has cut that at all. I think £.50 to £.75 is reasonable.
For American venues, I tend to get about $1 a word.
The irony here is that you were able to use NN as a promotional tool for your book, so by using open source “advertising” you made a profit. Does that mean that sales from all the traffic driven to your book from the NN forums should be subtracted out of your royalties?
Maybe I am misunderstanding your post-
snort
Depends on your definition of ‘profit’, I guess.
The little money I make on this book will by no means cover the costs of producing it. One trip to visit my publisher in New York pretty much used it all up.
Another way to look at it is that my posts might promote the host’s traffic, so I’m hardly a parasite here.
OK, I use “profit” loosely-your point is well taken with the NN host getting traffic…but that does present an interesting dilemma.
If NN can sell adverts based on traffic you generate by writing, (and that money you never see) but you use some of that writing to promote stuff that you make a “profit” from-doesn’t the whole amateur journalist idea help you?
Presumably people will read the shotty work of others along with your work, and realize quickly that your work is better…however in a field of all world-class writers, you may have ended up as just another voice among many…
I guess I don’t see it as black and white as you do in this post-though I sometimes wonder about the state of journalism overall when anyone can post content. (I have written two pretty extensive posts myself on what things like Wikipedia do to science overall).
3. They showed up in the well or whatever it’s called in front of our cellar window. I went down there to get some peas out of the freezer or read the electricity meter or something and became conscious that something was watching me through the glass. The box was to take them to the allotment so they could eat our slugs.
4. furrows brow …. checks dictionary … checks Dictionary. No, US same as UK.