3 ms·

You'd rather a promising writer serve dishes than write? Would you say that about someone who could code?

weimerica 5y ago
In the age of Amazon print-on-demand, social media, and Patreon, if you cannot make money writing I sincerely question your promise as a writer.
- ggm 5y ago
  Precisely because of the explosion of non-professional writing in these channels, paid writing has dropped in income and effectiveness. That said, the story of the impoverished author was old when "new grub st" was written by George Gissing in 1891 (its a good, depressing read btw) TL;DR patreon makes things worse not better. Kindle destroyed the revenue stream in traditional publishing, for Amazon's net benefit.
  - weimerica 5y ago
    How did it destroy revenue streams exactly? I’ve just never understood that to be the case. (Disclosure, I worked with and attended university on the dime of the folks who built Amazon’s POD acquisition - so I have some fealty (and insight), I suppose)
    - ggm 5y ago
      I've used POD, and within limits, its amazing (the fussyness about KDP print-ready markup is a royal pain, but I blame the PDF standards bodies for that, not to mention the iSBN scam business worldwide. anyhoo) Imagine you have 100 troubadours, touring the kings domains worldwide, for a free food in return for a song, of which only Blondel makes a mint. Then imagine you allow anyone who can play the penny whistle to join: you now have 10,000 touring musicians, all chasing the same meal, but only 10 of them can play as well as Blondel: in aggregate there;s more music but less of it is earning the price of dinner. Kindle has 1,000,000 authors. 999,000 of them write $2 romances or how-to books which earn them side-gig money. 1000 of them will ever be good enough to enter the booker prize. Authors overall are earning on average, less because instead of being essentially broke hobos who live off the advance, they're living off the profits on $2 sells but have to work bloody hard to be "seen" in amongst the success stories. Philip Pullman and Dan Brown aside, on average Authors are not entirely happy with Kindle. Yes, there's more money out there but the jam is being spread thinner. (I was told this by a retiring authors agent here in Australia btw. She was adamant her "list" did worse overall. Other people might say thats not true, and it may be about dis-intermediation. She said the kindle rights were abysmal compared to traditional publishing)
      - weimerica 5y ago
        I suppose destroying revenue streams is a way of phrasing the “issue,” but at the end of the day we’re just further democratizing content. If consumers don’t want $REAL_AUTHOR and so she loses money, that’s her failing to adapt to the market. I don't feel that gatekeepers creating artificial scarcity is a good thing.
        ggm 5y ago
        Absent literacy programs and market growth in non English speaking economies, we're fully literate and read as much as we want. So making 100x supply side choice isn't actually "good" except to reduce income per author because in the end I only have 24h per day to read in. I can't read more. There's a disequilibrium here. Sure, choice. But the net effect is Amazon got richer and most authors and publishers lost out.
BuyMyBitcoins 5y ago
How about both? I’m not being glib but it’s not like you can’t have a blue collar job and write during your downtime. Especially if it is your passion. You’re far more likely to hire a bunch of “writers” who don’t want to do work they consider beneath them than to give the next Hemingway who is stuck at McDonald’s their big chance.
- poopypoopington 5y ago
  Hard to write if you're working 80 hours a week at a restaurant. Yes, that is a realistic amount of time for someone at a restaurant to work before you say "just work part time and survive on $200 a week".
  - ducychbrvtg 5y ago
    Lots of prolific writers composed their early works while working menial jobs. It's hardly a barrier to entry for people with something worthwhile to contribute and if anything it's become easier to publish and find an audience rather than harder.
- uCantCauseUCant 5y ago
  You never once worked a blue collar job, did you?
brodouevencode 5y ago
If there is demand for their product they won't have to worry about having to enrolling in such government programs. The same goes for anyone in any discipline.

In the age of Amazon print-on-demand, social media, and Patreon, if you cannot make money writing I sincerely question your promise as a writer.

ggm 5y ago
Precisely because of the explosion of non-professional writing in these channels, paid writing has dropped in income and effectiveness. That said, the story of the impoverished author was old when "new grub st" was written by George Gissing in 1891 (its a good, depressing read btw) TL;DR patreon makes things worse not better. Kindle destroyed the revenue stream in traditional publishing, for Amazon's net benefit.
- weimerica 5y ago
  How did it destroy revenue streams exactly? I’ve just never understood that to be the case. (Disclosure, I worked with and attended university on the dime of the folks who built Amazon’s POD acquisition - so I have some fealty (and insight), I suppose)
  - ggm 5y ago
    I've used POD, and within limits, its amazing (the fussyness about KDP print-ready markup is a royal pain, but I blame the PDF standards bodies for that, not to mention the iSBN scam business worldwide. anyhoo) Imagine you have 100 troubadours, touring the kings domains worldwide, for a free food in return for a song, of which only Blondel makes a mint. Then imagine you allow anyone who can play the penny whistle to join: you now have 10,000 touring musicians, all chasing the same meal, but only 10 of them can play as well as Blondel: in aggregate there;s more music but less of it is earning the price of dinner. Kindle has 1,000,000 authors. 999,000 of them write $2 romances or how-to books which earn them side-gig money. 1000 of them will ever be good enough to enter the booker prize. Authors overall are earning on average, less because instead of being essentially broke hobos who live off the advance, they're living off the profits on $2 sells but have to work bloody hard to be "seen" in amongst the success stories. Philip Pullman and Dan Brown aside, on average Authors are not entirely happy with Kindle. Yes, there's more money out there but the jam is being spread thinner. (I was told this by a retiring authors agent here in Australia btw. She was adamant her "list" did worse overall. Other people might say thats not true, and it may be about dis-intermediation. She said the kindle rights were abysmal compared to traditional publishing)
    - weimerica 5y ago
      I suppose destroying revenue streams is a way of phrasing the “issue,” but at the end of the day we’re just further democratizing content. If consumers don’t want $REAL_AUTHOR and so she loses money, that’s her failing to adapt to the market. I don't feel that gatekeepers creating artificial scarcity is a good thing.
      - ggm 5y ago
        Absent literacy programs and market growth in non English speaking economies, we're fully literate and read as much as we want. So making 100x supply side choice isn't actually "good" except to reduce income per author because in the end I only have 24h per day to read in. I can't read more. There's a disequilibrium here. Sure, choice. But the net effect is Amazon got richer and most authors and publishers lost out.

BuyMyBitcoins 5y ago

How about both? I’m not being glib but it’s not like you can’t have a blue collar job and write during your downtime. Especially if it is your passion. You’re far more likely to hire a bunch of “writers” who don’t want to do work they consider beneath them than to give the next Hemingway who is stuck at McDonald’s their big chance.

poopypoopington 5y ago
Hard to write if you're working 80 hours a week at a restaurant. Yes, that is a realistic amount of time for someone at a restaurant to work before you say "just work part time and survive on $200 a week".
- ducychbrvtg 5y ago
  Lots of prolific writers composed their early works while working menial jobs. It's hardly a barrier to entry for people with something worthwhile to contribute and if anything it's become easier to publish and find an audience rather than harder.
uCantCauseUCant 5y ago
You never once worked a blue collar job, did you?

brodouevencode 5y ago

If there is demand for their product they won't have to worry about having to enrolling in such government programs. The same goes for anyone in any discipline.