Good Authors that struggle

[delete this account pls]

Sometimes popularity intersects with quality though. GRRM is doing pretty well. The Sopranos was the biggest hit show on cable. Inception was a blockbuster. Also, there's a tendency to look down upon the people that watch or read or listen to "crap" as this uniform entity, which isn't true at all. Everyone belongs to the 'masses'. Just because I enjoy reading Shakespeare plays, it doesn't mean I don't also enjoy KFC (popcorn chicken is the bomb, yo)

ETA; Which is a roundabout way of saying quality is always subjective. Arth, I'd agree with you that Bakker is a great writer (cue the howls of derision), but OTOH Kearney didn't do it for me at all. He wasn't bad, but he seemed pretty average to me.

[Spring Bass]

I'm skeptical of the "ignorant masses don't appreciate the genius" argument either. Look at Mark Twain, J.R.R. Tolkien, GRRM, Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, The Grapes of Wrath and other John Steinbeck novels - good stuff does sell, at least when the timing's right.

Ugh. Enough of this bullshit myth. Unless we're discussing a major band, they're not getting rich off of touring. Most semi obscure bands are touring at a loss. Like with pay-what-you-want downloading, it only works if you've already made it and is certainly not a viable method for an entire industry. Let alone for the book industry, as I've no idea why you'd even pay to go to a signing.

It's not particularly viable for the book industry, but that doesn't necessarily mean that books aren't viable in an era with weak copyright protection. As for the music industry, it will survive in an era with weak copyright, just like it did before copyright came along (assuming it comes to that - if iTunes and the various streaming music services survive, then it won't).

Of course, it probably won't survive in its current form, and quite possibly in terms of its past and present profitability. I'm not too sad about that, though - the major record labels are an artifact of when the distribution and production costs of music were extremely high, and there's no economic reason why they should continue to exist when that's no longer the case. It's the same as the way that Borders and Blockbuster have been nearly wiped out.

And wasn't a key part of bards that they were put up where they were staying and so got to avoid those pesky living expenses?

I'm not sure about bards' date=' but musicians and composers usually found patrons who kept them, or who had day jobs involving music (Bach was a church organist, for example).

And, just for the record, I pay money for CDs. I believe that people deserve money for making work that I enjoy, but I guess I'm just weird like that.

Why purchase CDs? They're a dying medium, being made obsolete by technology in the same way that CDs have rendered audio-tapes obsolete (and audio-tapes largely knocked off vinyl records, and so forth). The industry is moving towards a situation where the number of singles an artist sells (among other revenue sources) is more important than the number of albums that they sell (Taio Cruz is an example of that).

Books are another matter. I'm honestly not sure how the book industry will fare now that they're getting hit with the same thing that hit the music industry. E-books are a step in the right direction, assuming they sell well enough.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

fall,

Natural adjustment is coming. Stories will be free or nearly free. Noone will make money anymore. This will remove authors writing for money (e.g. hacks/potboilers) from the game. Only the writers who write for the love of craft, not money will remain. One good thing the electronic age brought.

No, this will be a very, very, bad thing, despite what Cory Doctorow thinks. There is no correlation between love of writing and quality of writing. The key is allowing good authors the time necessary to write. As others have pointed out the system you envision simply relegates writing to the already independently wealthy who would have that time rather than those who can make a living from their pen.

Once the pen will no longer allow a decent living good authors will lose much of the time they need to write the stories we love.

[eta]

As for your idea of writers making a living at "writing concerts". Writing is a different skill from public performance. A musician can more easily translate their talents to a public venue because what they do is aural. A writer does not have that advantage and as such even if the writer is wonderfully talented at writing if their stage presence sucks they will not do well in public venues.

[Astra]

Good writers have a talent. Their write when they have an inspiration.

The rest are a bunch of clowns.

One cannot create a truly good piece of Art for money. Remuneration is a by-product.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Astra,

Yes. But being paid for their work provides the time they need to continue writing. It's not that good writing will end without professional writers. It's that the volumn of writing will drop dramatically if writers can no longer write professionally because everything they produce is free whether they want it to be free or not.

I, For one, do not want to deny writers the ablity to make their livin via their pen.

[Old Nan]

Why purchase CDs? They're a dying medium, being made obsolete by technology

Because they're tangible?

[red snow]

Pretty much repeating the thoughts of others but I'd say that in general you have to stick your neck out to be good, meaning you automatically become more niche and suffer low sales. It's easier to be mediocre and please everyone. An excellent writer is someone who can write something niche that can break through that niche barrier. It's like the examples of Sopranos and ASOIAF that were mentioned - they're not just good, they are excellent.

I don't buy the notion at all that good writer's shouldn't need to be paid. That would mean only nobles could write good books. I could take exception to a successful author writing what the hell they wanted because the sales no longer matterered to them though.

[Rakka]

People are seriously arguing that nobody would ever pay anything for a good story if it didn't come hardcover with a 30 euro prize tag? Considering the money webcomic artists get from micro-donations I'd say that argument is easy to prove silly from the start. Personally I'd rather download a .txt file and pay the author directly whatever I felt the book was worth th an wait for the loan queue at the library for a year or pay the 30 euros to the publishing house. Same for the records, really, if that record didn't come with "you can only listen to this series of zeroes and ones in this single spesific instrument" shit.

[Myrddin]

I know everyone is jumping on Fall´s comment, but I can´t help but join the dog pile...

Writing is hard work and takes time. Anyone who thinks otherwise either has never written (i.e. finished) anything longer than a research paper, or is the rare writer who always feels the words flow.

Most writers I know describe the process more akin to sweating blood.

As a personal testament, I love writing, but it takes up far too much time and brain energy to continue doing for long without any return. I´m finishing up the fourth draft of my fantasy novel and I´ll be starting a historical fantasy after that. If neither sells, I´ll likely not be writing anymore. Sure, I´ll dream up more stories and maybe even jot down notes or write scenes. That´s the fun part. Finishing and polishing the story to be enjoyed by others is the hard part, and quite frankly not worth the weekends spent away from my family hunched over a keyboard just to have something written.

Writing is a process of rewriting. It´s work. This isn´t the Star Trek cooking machine where a meal instantly appears steaming hot as ordered. You have to start with the recipe and then spend hours in the kitchen to prepare it.

When authors can´t make decent money writing, you won´t be left with a situation where only the best remain. You´ll have nothing but NANWRIMO novels flooding the market. Unedited drivel. The people with the talent will likely be putting their energies elsewhere, so they can put food on the table.

Does anyone really think GRRM would be sweating blood for the last 5 years to finish Dance just for the love of art? Does the fact that he writes for a living really diminish the value of his prose? As I´ve heard him say several times, he enjoys having written, not writing.

Ok. Sorry for the rant. :)

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Rakka,

Because "microdonation" have worked for a few does not mean it can replace copyright as a method of authors making a living. I'm extremely skeptical that "microdonations" will work on the large scale. I also don't enjoy the image of my favorite authors begging for their living when they should be able to sell their work legitimately.

[Rakka]

Then don't follow the mistakes of the music industry - overprizing, controlling, artificially limiting the way music can be listened to, hounding their users - but sell the ebooks in a easily portable format cheaply. More people are willing to pay 2-5 euros for an ebook they can read on whatever device they have at hands. A file has negligible production costs, unlike real tangible books. There's no reason for an ebook to cost the same as a real one, and even less for the artificial difficulty in exporting one from one device to other.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

You know what fuck "ebooks". I'm old fashioned I like books that don't require batteries or electrical outlets. I like books that aren't suceptible to some bloody virus that could end up deleting my whole library.

Ebooks suck.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

But, rereading my post, I noticed I just dropped right into a fallacy. Just because I don't like ebooks doesn't mean others shouldn't. My post above this one sucks.

Apologies.

[Myrddin]

Regarding eBooks being priced higher with the hardback release and then lower for the paperback, it makes sense from a business point of view.

At least as much sense as only having a $25 hardback available for the first year and then the identical text available in MMPB later. You're paying for having the novel earlier, as well as the improved binding. When the paperback comes out, then sure the price of the eBook should drop accordingly. (Just as the price of the hardbacks often drop on the discount table, where I usually pick them up...)

I don´t have the link handy, but I remember reading a breakdown of production costs between eBooks and paper. While there was a difference, it wasn´t as big as I thought. I'll see if I can find the link...

[kuroishi]

People are seriously arguing that nobody would ever pay anything for a good story if it didn't come hardcover with a 30 euro prize tag? Considering the money webcomic artists get from micro-donations I'd say that argument is easy to prove silly from the start. Personally I'd rather download a .txt file and pay the author directly whatever I felt the book was worth th an wait for the loan queue at the library for a year or pay the 30 euros to the publishing house. Same for the records, really, if that record didn't come with "you can only listen to this series of zeroes and ones in this single spesific instrument" shit.

In my opinion, one of the main asset for webcomics in this situation is that they update and can propose new material very often, thus staying in the readers' focus all year long and building a very loyal and dedicated following.

I'm really not sure it could be adapted to litterature or music.

Maybe if litterature went back to serialization, like some of the XIXth century writers used to do, but it would change a lot of things. How could a writer like GRRM do that?

[Werthead]

One cannot create a truly good piece of Art for money

Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings for the money, because his publishers made a lot on The Hobbit and wanted a sequel and talked him round to it.

You cannot create a good piece of art on demand the second someone pulls out their chequebook, but many pieces of art have started out being created for financial renumeration.

A file has negligible production costs, unlike real tangible books.

Nope. As has been said repeatedly, only a small amount of the cover price of a book goes on physical production. The bulk of it goes on paying the author, the editors, the cover artist, the various people who work at the publishers and so on. Most of these costs are the same for an ebook as for a physical volume.

Ebooks should be a couple of quid cheaper than their paper equivalents, but the notion they should be half or a third of the price is not supported economically. Not unless you want every author to do all of their own editing, line-editing, marketing and distribution, dealing personally with online stores and so on. If so, then expect the waiting time between books of your favourite series to double, at the very least.

[Astra]

You're paying for having the novel earlier, as well as the improved binding.

Where is the improved binding in ebook?

Moreover, hardback you can sell later, sometimes at much higher price. Ebook? Today's ebook with DRM lock, you might not be able to read it next year if you get another ebook reader, or online shop closes down.

If you do find the link, please make sure it doesn't come from publishers. All of sudden they say that producing dozens thousands of printed books (obtaining paper, having factories for printing, people to work at factories), delivering them all over...the country/world, having a place where to store them, getting rid of unsold copies and tearing away the front cover, is negligible cost.

[Poobah]

Current gen ebooks suck. I refuse to buy into a technology that hates me. I hate that various industries dealing with digital goods presume, as their default position, that I am a dirty dirty pirate whose money they are only willing to accept on sufferance. Well fuck that and fuck them.

[Grack21]

You know what fuck "ebooks". I'm old fashioned I like books that don't require batteries or electrical outlets. I like books that aren't suceptible to some bloody virus that could end up deleting my whole library.

Ebooks suck.

Sir, I love you.

[Grack21]

Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings for the money, because his publishers made a lot on The Hobbit and wanted a sequel and talked him round to it.

So did a certain man named Shakespeare.