4 ms·

It's probably the prestige. Most new authors are likely subsidized by their wealthy families.

by sturz 3y ago

kasey_junk 3y ago
Most new authors are subsidized by their day job. It’s a huge moment in an authors life when they start making money exclusively from writing. A moment most never get to.
- cableshaft 3y ago
  Same deal with most board game designers. The vast majority are subsidized by their day job, and aren't ever going to make serious money from designing games. I know a guy, for example, that worked two years in his spare time on one game, got picked up by a publisher, ended up in Barnes and Noble and was considered a success by the publisher (they even requested and released an expansion), and the guy got only $9,000 in royalties (with no advance) for all his efforts. Pretty much the only people making enough money for it to be their sole form of income are either hired directly a publisher or are out there hustling constantly and signing like 8+ game designs a year, or have insanely cheap cost of living (one game designer mentioned how he made net income of $12k one year and was able to survive off that because they live super cheaply), or have somehow landed on a massive evergreen hit, like Azul or Carcassonne. [1] https://twitter.com/JPacCantin/status/1647455444884156417 https://twitter.com/JPacCantin/status/1647455444884156417
ryanklee 3y ago
> Most new authors are likely subsidized by their wealthy families. You think most new authors have wealthy families? That is a very odd assumption, given how hard it is to write a book... and given how low the returns are... and given how many other ways there are to achieve prestige... and given how little people regard authorship these days as a measurement of it... and given how unlikely it would be for wealth to have an outsized representation in a career generally associated with poverty... and how all old authors were once new authors which would imply that most of them are wealthy too, which, not so.
- sturz 3y ago
  I'm talking about contemporary literature. It has been this way historically and nothing about it has changed.
  - ryanklee 3y ago
    What historical data do you have?
    - sturz 3y ago
      Wikipedia. Most authors in the western cannon are descendants of aristocracy.
      - ryanklee 3y ago
        "Most authors in the Western cannon" as a group is not representative of most authors, Western or otherwise.
        pi-e-sigma 3y ago
        They are the representation of the _successful_ authors, though. Because they are the cannon now. So the OP is right.
        ryanklee 3y ago
        He is not right. His original claim was that new authors are mostly wealthy. All he did was weaken his claim until it was (more, but not actually) supportable. Further, to address your own point, they are not even the representation of successful authors. There's thousands and thousands of successful authors that aren't even near to being close to the gates of the Western canon.
        pi-e-sigma 3y ago
        Of course he is right. It's similar story to the early scientists whom all were independently wealthy. And your claim about 'thousands and thousands of successful authors' is just ridiculous when an average person doesn't even read a thousand books in his lifetime let alone considers most of the authors of these books 'successful'.
IKantRead 3y ago
I know plenty of authors and none of them are subsidized by wealthy families. All of them do it part time in the evenings out of a labor of love. It is worth pointing out that there's nothing particular odd if it were the case that writing was subsidized by wealthy families. For the vast majority of the history of writing, writing was subsidized an left to monks, philosophers or aristocrats. It's only been in the relatively recent time period that writing was a potential occupation for anyone interested with enough skills/talent.
- sturz 3y ago
  In my experience, in NY, the majority of people working in contemporary literature publishing are ivy leage graduates, mostly women, and they live off of their parents. I'm not judging, just stating my observation.
  - wharvle 3y ago
    Literary fiction, yes. That market's so fucked that the vast majority of literary magazines don't pay at all and you'll often get sneered at for asking about pay. Anyone trying to make any amount of money at writing writes genre fic of one sort or another. Fantasy or maybe sci fi, and probably "juvenile fiction" (tends to sell better to adults, too). Romance (which may or may not actually be straight-up porn, basically). Airport thrillers. Not lit-fic. Never, if your goal is to make any money at all. And yeah, the publishing-side heavily favors people with money, lit-fic or not, for the reason that making a living at it requires excellent connections to get you directly into a high-paying part of it, or else years and years making less than it takes to live on in places like New York, to work your way up the ladder. Either way, that probably means family money. This phenomenon been mentioned, directly or obliquely, in IIRC all of: Bullshit Jobs (Graeber, 2018), Fussell's Class (1983), and The Official Preppy Handbook (Birnbach et al, 1980).

It's probably the prestige. Most new authors are likely subsidized by their wealthy families.

by sturz 3y ago

It's probably the prestige. Most new authors are likely subsidized by their wealthy families.

Most new authors are subsidized by their day job. It’s a huge moment in an authors life when they start making money exclusively from writing. A moment most never get to.

cableshaft 3y ago
Same deal with most board game designers. The vast majority are subsidized by their day job, and aren't ever going to make serious money from designing games. I know a guy, for example, that worked two years in his spare time on one game, got picked up by a publisher, ended up in Barnes and Noble and was considered a success by the publisher (they even requested and released an expansion), and the guy got only $9,000 in royalties (with no advance) for all his efforts. Pretty much the only people making enough money for it to be their sole form of income are either hired directly a publisher or are out there hustling constantly and signing like 8+ game designs a year, or have insanely cheap cost of living (one game designer mentioned how he made net income of $12k one year and was able to survive off that because they live super cheaply), or have somehow landed on a massive evergreen hit, like Azul or Carcassonne. [1] https://twitter.com/JPacCantin/status/1647455444884156417 https://twitter.com/JPacCantin/status/1647455444884156417

ryanklee 3y ago

> Most new authors are likely subsidized by their wealthy families. You think most new authors have wealthy families? That is a very odd assumption, given how hard it is to write a book... and given how low the returns are... and given how many other ways there are to achieve prestige... and given how little people regard authorship these days as a measurement of it... and given how unlikely it would be for wealth to have an outsized representation in a career generally associated with poverty... and how all old authors were once new authors which would imply that most of them are wealthy too, which, not so.

sturz 3y ago
I'm talking about contemporary literature. It has been this way historically and nothing about it has changed.
- ryanklee 3y ago
  What historical data do you have?
  - sturz 3y ago
    Wikipedia. Most authors in the western cannon are descendants of aristocracy.
    - ryanklee 3y ago
      "Most authors in the Western cannon" as a group is not representative of most authors, Western or otherwise.
      - pi-e-sigma 3y ago
        They are the representation of the _successful_ authors, though. Because they are the cannon now. So the OP is right.
        ryanklee 3y ago
        He is not right. His original claim was that new authors are mostly wealthy. All he did was weaken his claim until it was (more, but not actually) supportable. Further, to address your own point, they are not even the representation of successful authors. There's thousands and thousands of successful authors that aren't even near to being close to the gates of the Western canon.
        pi-e-sigma 3y ago
        Of course he is right. It's similar story to the early scientists whom all were independently wealthy. And your claim about 'thousands and thousands of successful authors' is just ridiculous when an average person doesn't even read a thousand books in his lifetime let alone considers most of the authors of these books 'successful'.

IKantRead 3y ago

I know plenty of authors and none of them are subsidized by wealthy families. All of them do it part time in the evenings out of a labor of love. It is worth pointing out that there's nothing particular odd if it were the case that writing was subsidized by wealthy families. For the vast majority of the history of writing, writing was subsidized an left to monks, philosophers or aristocrats. It's only been in the relatively recent time period that writing was a potential occupation for anyone interested with enough skills/talent.

sturz 3y ago
In my experience, in NY, the majority of people working in contemporary literature publishing are ivy leage graduates, mostly women, and they live off of their parents. I'm not judging, just stating my observation.
- wharvle 3y ago
  Literary fiction, yes. That market's so fucked that the vast majority of literary magazines don't pay at all and you'll often get sneered at for asking about pay. Anyone trying to make any amount of money at writing writes genre fic of one sort or another. Fantasy or maybe sci fi, and probably "juvenile fiction" (tends to sell better to adults, too). Romance (which may or may not actually be straight-up porn, basically). Airport thrillers. Not lit-fic. Never, if your goal is to make any money at all. And yeah, the publishing-side heavily favors people with money, lit-fic or not, for the reason that making a living at it requires excellent connections to get you directly into a high-paying part of it, or else years and years making less than it takes to live on in places like New York, to work your way up the ladder. Either way, that probably means family money. This phenomenon been mentioned, directly or obliquely, in IIRC all of: Bullshit Jobs (Graeber, 2018), Fussell's Class (1983), and The Official Preppy Handbook (Birnbach et al, 1980).