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* Looks at royalty statements * Nope, not seeing it. (Seriously. You're telling my the sky in my work is green with pink polka-dots. Hint: I do this for a livi

by cstross 11y ago

* Looks at royalty statements * Nope, not seeing it. (Seriously. You're telling my the sky in my work is green with pink polka-dots. Hint: I do this for a living. Yes, some self-pub authors make out like bandits. But you might want to look up what the average revenue is, and how big the gap between mean and median looks.)

Moshe_Silnorin 11y ago
What do you think the future is for professionals? I've noticed that there is an awful lot of very-high-quality content being produced for free, Worm and Shadows of Limelight are better than most published fiction, but are free and the authors seem uninterested in anything more than Patreon donations. As making art is something people enjoy and there are no bottlenecks to distribution, maybe we should expect there to be fewer professional artists and vast entertainment niches filled by popular amateur or part-time artists. I sort of imagine a world where one can have millions of readers and still can't be a pro - but probably Patreon would pay a living wage after that point.
- jsnell 11y ago
  Worm is an instructive example. It has some of the best speculative fiction worldbuilding, characters and plotting this decade, and it's amazing that somebody doing this in their spare time while having to work for a living could keep up that pace of writing for a couple of years. But it also suffers badly from the lack of professional editing and could do with major tightening up. It's also not someone just doing it as a hobby, but someone really trying to make a living as an author. And it's not at all clear that it's been very successful. The $2200/month from Patreon is still a fairly pitiful wage for such highly creative work. And I think it's pretty sad if we end up with a world where that's how things work. (I wrote a bit more on both the merits of Worm as a piece of fiction and on the business model last year here https://www.snellman.net/blog/archive/2014-05-24-book-review-worm.html https://www.snellman.net/blog/archive/2014-05-24-book-review... . It's interesting to note that the Patreon campaign has not really made that much progress in 15 months, it was $1200/month then).
serge2k 11y ago
Why don't you tell us?
Turing_Machine 11y ago
What are you talking about? Of course your publisher isn't going to pay you more. Amazon pays 70% of retail. How much is your publisher paying you, assuming you earn out? "But you might want to look up what the average revenue is" The average revenue for traditional publishing is close to zero, because 90% or so of the writers never get a publishing deal. "Hint: I do this for a living." Yes, I understand that you dislike the prospect of competition. That's not actually my problem.

by cstross 11y ago

Moshe_Silnorin 11y ago

What do you think the future is for professionals? I've noticed that there is an awful lot of very-high-quality content being produced for free, Worm and Shadows of Limelight are better than most published fiction, but are free and the authors seem uninterested in anything more than Patreon donations. As making art is something people enjoy and there are no bottlenecks to distribution, maybe we should expect there to be fewer professional artists and vast entertainment niches filled by popular amateur or part-time artists. I sort of imagine a world where one can have millions of readers and still can't be a pro - but probably Patreon would pay a living wage after that point.

jsnell 11y ago
Worm is an instructive example. It has some of the best speculative fiction worldbuilding, characters and plotting this decade, and it's amazing that somebody doing this in their spare time while having to work for a living could keep up that pace of writing for a couple of years. But it also suffers badly from the lack of professional editing and could do with major tightening up. It's also not someone just doing it as a hobby, but someone really trying to make a living as an author. And it's not at all clear that it's been very successful. The $2200/month from Patreon is still a fairly pitiful wage for such highly creative work. And I think it's pretty sad if we end up with a world where that's how things work. (I wrote a bit more on both the merits of Worm as a piece of fiction and on the business model last year here https://www.snellman.net/blog/archive/2014-05-24-book-review-worm.html https://www.snellman.net/blog/archive/2014-05-24-book-review... . It's interesting to note that the Patreon campaign has not really made that much progress in 15 months, it was $1200/month then).

serge2k 11y ago

Why don't you tell us?

Turing_Machine 11y ago

What are you talking about? Of course your publisher isn't going to pay you more. Amazon pays 70% of retail. How much is your publisher paying you, assuming you earn out? "But you might want to look up what the average revenue is" The average revenue for traditional publishing is close to zero, because 90% or so of the writers never get a publishing deal. "Hint: I do this for a living." Yes, I understand that you dislike the prospect of competition. That's not actually my problem.