This weekend I participated in a writing and publishing workshop at the local library. In general, it was a wonderful experience. But one thing upset me.
Before I get into what it was, I’ll mention that I’m Canadian and this was a Canadian event. If we’d been in the US, maybe things would have been different. Or maybe not. Let me know what you think.
So, here was the thing. Some people seemed to believe that: (1) it’s extremely unlikely that any Canadian fiction writer will ever make a living (albeit a modest one) from their writing; and (2) there’s something rather unseemly about even thinking about your writing in terms of making money.
Excuse me?
Writing is an art, like painting, music, theatre, dance, film. Society needs art. Arguably, it needs artists as much as it needs hairdressers, dental hygienists, and chocolate-makers. All of whom get paid for their work (I know this for a fact, because I pay all of them). But artists are supposed to do it for free? It would be sort of rude and lower class to actually ask to be paid, much less to perhaps make a living?
So I suppose the idea is that we writers should spend 7-8 hours a day, 5 days a week, styling hair or cleaning teeth or making chocolates (hmm, that one might not be so bad…) in order to make a living, which will support our cute little artistic hobby of producing novels (or lovely music, paintings, theatre, etc.).
Seriously? How many books would your favorite author produce if she/he could only spend a couple of days a week at it versus writing full time?
Now of course not every author who puts out one book a year, or three, or even ten, is guaranteed of making a modest living. So many factors go into determining an author’s income. But shouldn’t it be possible – shouldn’t it be a reasonable business objective – to make a living? Why on earth should that be ridiculously optimistic, or unseemly?
And does this perhaps tie into an attitude of entitlement on the part of consumers – an increasingly prevalent belief that entertainment (the arts) should be free? How else can you explain sites where books and music are pirated (i.e., stolen)? Those consumers obviously believe that authors and musicians should not be paid for their work, they should simply do it in their spare time out of the goodness of their creative hearts, to provide delight to their audiences.
Actually, that would be quite lovely – if someone else was paying for the rent, the groceries, the kids’ education, the dental bills, etc. etc. If society gave generous grants to artists to produce, then perhaps artists could afford to send their creations out into the universe free of charge. I quite love that vision of the world. Unfortunately, it’s not the world I live in. In my world, authors and other artists must make a living just the same as hairdressers, dental hygienists, chocolate-makers, and pretty much everyone else.
Is it wrong to hope that creating art can be a career and business versus a cute little hobby?
What do you think?
The defense of pirating I’ve read is unbelievable–”It helps people learn English,” “Books are too expensive for some people,” “I used to have the book but I lost it so now I need a new one and don’t really want to have to pay for it twice,” “It really will help an author’s future sales,” etc.
For the amount of time one labors over a book, one is already looking at below minimum wage per hour, LOL. I admit I’m not in it for the money, but I’m also not a charitable organization, an English as a second language instructor, a fairy godmother. The art/crass commercialism conundrum will probably never go away. Publishing IS a business, and art has value, or should. I think people are so used to getting everything easily “for free” online that they fail to recognize the humans behind the words and images and music.
I believe we should be paid just like actors, painters, and singers. And I like that the e-publishing works is allowing us to put our work out there for the world without having to rely on the agents and large publishers.
As for what people in the US think… I believe they also think if you write you should be paid and not give it away for free.
Thanks, Paty. And, BTW, it seems that WordPress decided to censor virtually all of the comments that came through on this post. I was away from my home email today and returned to find that all the comments had gone to “moderated” status, meaning I had to approve them. What’s up with that? It’s not like we were talking about sex!
Good arguments. And, of course, it’s SO obvious that artists and writers should be paid, but this is a discussion of the why of it.
Another reason for artists and writers to be paid is inherent in our system–the copyright.
The reason there is Copyright is to encourage the arts, and the production of the works, because otherwise, artists and writers might not produce–they would not/ perhaps could not produce or produce as much. So artists and writers were given copyright, through the law–it was THAT important–copyright for a duration that was considered fair to the artist/writer.
Piracy is against the law of the land, against art. Most religions state that people should follow the laws of their country, and that is because Order is important. Without order, you would not have civilization (order), you probably wouldn’t have much religion, either–or at least religion applied, which is, obviously, the most important kind.
Janice, that’s an excellent point about copyright and the law of the land. I wish you’d been there on Saturday to point that out to the people who seemed to think artists should work for free! I was kind of clenching my teeth and keeping quiet because I’d been on the planning committee for the event and didn’t want to get too mouthy and offensive – even though I was feeling deeply offended by the comments…
Hear, hear, Susan and Maggie. (and hi, Susan! from a fellow GVCer) Well said. I struggled for years with the ridiculous either/or concept of art vs. commerce. Or literary vs. commercial. I’ve written both, enjoyed writing both, and been paid for both. Have I given away my work? Not since the very early days, when I had zero street cred. Now, I insist on being paid, as much as I can negotiate, please, and am up-front and unapologetic about wanting to make a living at this. (My just-barely-above zero cred means the publishers maintain the upper hand, but still.)
I choose to write material with commercial appeal, because ultimately, without an audience I’m a (starving) tree falling in the woods. No readers, no money. Mo’ readers, mo’ money.
Shame on anyone who suggests we should do this for free, or who feels righteous about stealing intellectual property. If you want it, admit you want it, man up and pay for it. Or borrow it from the library, so we’ll get our Public Lending Rights commission. But do NOT try to make us feel guilty for valuing our own work.
Very well said, Roxanne! I applaud you, and agree with you.
Free books is what libraries are all about. Can you imagine a world where where movie producers, actors and screen writers worked for free? How about professional athletes? Writing might be considered an art, but it is also entertainment,and while I don’t know much about Canadians, we all know that Americans are quite willing to pay for entertainment. Novels are as deserving of a few bucks as other entertainment.
Thanks, Jean. I love that you mentioned professional athletes. Not to devalue what they do, but do they really need to make all that money? If their incomes were split among 100 or more artists, maybe all of us could make a decent living!
I have no problem with art being free so long as boots for my kids, my makeup, food at a restaurant and so on are free. And shoes. Pretty shoes from Neiman Marcus should be free.
Online piracy just confuses me. Stealing is stealing. But maybe these people do walk into Target and steal poptarts. Hopefully they’ll get caught at some point.
A well-written book provides both a good and service all at once. As such, the author should be compensated. Just my two cents.
LOL re the expression “two cents”, Rebecca. Yes, in this society we even thing our opinions are worth money, though it may not be much. And so should books be worth money, and shoes as well! There are definitely pleasures in life that are free, like stepping outside and breathing fresh air, but no human being slaved long hours to create them.
As a writer AND a musician, I run into this issue all the time. People are surprised when I won’t perform for free. Isn’t the love of doing it enough? Um, no, not when there are bills to pay…
I can think of lots of Canadian authors who are doing well. Margaret Atwood springs immediately to mind.
Thanks for the interesting post, Susan!
Thanks, Anthea. Wow, a double artist. You’ve chosen a tough life, haven’t you? LOL. Yes, there are Canadian authors who are doing well. On the panel were an agent who reps Canadian authors and a literary lawyer who also reps them. You can bet they figure their clients will make money. And also in the audience were several pubbed authors who are serious about our writing careers, and definitely making money even though not all of us are yet making a living at it. But it’s a goal to aspire to, and I’m certainly not embarrassed to have that goal.
Perhaps this is a form of jealousy exhibiting itself? I’m from the US, and recently read that 85% of us here want to write a novel. That’s a lot of people, some of whom are no doubt jealous of those who DO write, and actually sell, books.
Maybe it even has something to do with the fact that people who write screenplays, etc., are in the background. They get paid, but the public pays for the movie ticket or the TV cable, so the fact that the writers get paid isn’t up front.
Who knows?
An excellent point, Sarah. I think you may well be right. It’s like that old saying, “If you can’t do, then teach.” Nothing against teachers – I think they do an incredibly valuable job (and sure deserve to be paid for it), but I do know there are people who have aspired, maybe tried and failed, themselves and are suffering from sour grapes syndrome.
Maggie, that’s an interesting comment about people maybe not recognizing there are humans behind the artistic creations. Makes me think of the roomful of chimps all hammering away at keyboards, and eventually one of them will turn out something brilliant. But hey, someone is providing room and board for those chimps. LOL. No-one’s doing that for us humans. And that in turn makes me think of the days when some artists were lucky enough to find patrons who would support them so they were free to create beauty. That doesn’t sound like a bad life at all! Where do I find one of those patrons???
I agree, but I think why this attitude is out there is working in the arts is not viewed by non-writers, actors, artists as a real job.
I suspect this is the case because I’ve given up trying to explain to my non-writer friends why I can’t go to the dinner or the movie etcetera. I tell them I have to work. This is far easier than trying to say I have to write.
People who’ve never written a book or even a short story have no idea how much work it is, and that even if it sells the work doesn’t end there.
Hundreds of hours of work go into writing a book. Should we do this for free? Why would any reasonable person think this? Do they do their work for free?
I also suspect there is a little jealousy involved.
Nice article, Susan.
I think that’s very true, Russ. We can understand that a surgeon has put lots of years of learning and practice into his craft, and he/she devotes a lot of time and energy to doing it professionally. People seem to think any darned fool can just sit down and write a book. Though, as Sarah said, something like 85% of people want to – and so, what’s stopping them? If it was that easy, wouldn’t they do it? And if they did, and realized how much work went into it, I bet they’d actually liked to be paid for their effort. After all, if they hadn’t spent those hundreds if not thousands of hours writing the book, they could have been golfing, partying, hanging out with friends, making love with their loved one, eating chocolate, or working at some job that pays way more than writing! (Says me who has a law degree and definitely could be making more money if I actually chose to be a lawyer rather than an author…)
A very interesting topic and one that seems obvious when you look at it logically. Yes, artists should be paid.
I’m American and do know quite a few people who happily pirate cds. One of the music piraters is a musician, of all things. I even know someone who copies the Netflix dvds, using the “It’s for my personal home use” excuse. Pardon me–you didn’t pay for those.
The musician said you can make good money doing concerts and selling merchandise…as if to excuse his behavior. As a writer, do I now sell t-shirts? Try to book football stadiums for readings?
Margaret Atwood–Canadian–gave a great speech about authors and how everyone wants to make money off of them–but nobody wants to pay them.
Stephanie, I know that some children’s writers make more money from school appearances than from book sales. It seems very odd – but at least reading their books to kids is better than selling t-shirts! And at least schools value that and pay for it. Wish there was a similar option for those of us who write books for grownups… No, actually I just wish enough people bought my books that I could spend most of my time writing more books.
Sadly, those of us connected with any sort of artistic endeavor cannot be assured of making a living from it. Witness poor Van Gogh who sold only one painting during his lifetime. It’s enough to make you weep when you consider the millions his canvases bring at auction now.
I can’t control what happens once I release my words into the world. I can only hope my literary children are received kindly and will find readers who love them enough to take them into their hearts and homes and share them with their friends.
I let my agent worry about how we’ll make a living at it.
Mia, why would you leave the decisions on how you make a living to your employee? Agents after all are employees of the writer.
And here’s a third opinion on agents.
I think of my agent as a business partner. We both have a financial stake in my career and we both believe in my work. I value her expertise and I think she values mine, and we work as a team. The final business decisions are my responsibility, but I feel much more confident making them when I have the benefit of my agent’s wisdom and experience on my side.
Susan, you know I agree about taking advice from professionals but as you say the decision should always be yours as the writer. it is your business. As the comment suggested everything is left to the agent to decide. This troubles me because it means the financial decisions are being made about a writers business by someone else.
Other professionals I hire give me advice but I make the decisions. A literary agent (a good one that is) is an employee you hire to do certain things for you. Some of them this to give you advice on markets and contracts. But you should decide which markets to submit to, and you will sign the contracts, not the agent so you better know what you’re signing.
I as a writer I control my business not my employees.