Comments on: Aspiring Writer Stockholm Syndrome

By: Douglas

Douglas — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 15:05:22 +0000

A GOOD, healthy, exciting fiction/horror/sci-fi/whatever market would be one in which there is a whole range of guys… from those who pay us NOTHING to those who pay us WELL. I want the full range. Are you arguing that all the small shops should dry up and shut down? Uhh… no thanks. I want a chance to get started. I want motivation to keep writing and trying new things, improving my craft, and I want a full range of exposure possibilities.

And, well–it’s a competitive market. Every publication will juggle around what they pay and how they operate, and the winning models will endure, the poor ones will fail.

I also want to be able to say, in my cover letter, that I’ve published X and Y. Being able to say that makes it at least slightly more likely that the next place to which I submit will at least glance at my first page and give me a chance to hook them with my writing. Which is the whole point, after all.

Another Example: I like making funny videos and putting them on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWUxoumYQxA). No one is paying me ANYTHING. I enjoy the audience I get, for what I get, and that motivates me to keep making funny videos. And if I get really good at it in the process, maybe I’ll make a buck someday. (As it happens, I am now paid to make instructional software videos, and the practice I get making silly videos improves my craft).

Publication, like marriage, is not some kind of finish line. It is part of the ongoing process, the growth, the journey.

Oh, but yeah– .002 a word is horrible. :-)

By: Sylvia

Sylvia — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 20:21:46 +0000

what I wanted to write and whom for

Yeah, you got that right. I want to write for people who use whom correctly but don’t mind ending a sentence in a preposition.

*mutter*

By: Sylvia

Sylvia — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 20:16:21 +0000

Liane Merciel @97
I did the same thing and received a lot of validation (and lessons) from the early acceptances and reader responses. Having said that, I made an active decision to submit to places where readers were encouraged to comment and authors were asked to take part in discussions. So for me, it wasn’t about the pay (or simply being “published”) but a progression from the message board where I’d been posting my stuff previously.

The editor of the website made it clear that authors were expected to move up and move on. He didn’t imply that they were a top market and he was very clear that the payment was token *because authors should expect to be paid* but that he enjoyed the broadrange of stories he was receiving for discussion.

I submitted there for a year, effectively getting the hang of what I wanted to write and whom for. But I knew what I was doing and I recognised the payment as *token* and certainly not for services rendered.

In the same way, I know someone who has published short stories in extremely specialist publications for little or no compensation. Each one is an excerpt from her novel and she’s spreading them all over the U.S. – for her, it’s a part of a publicising campaign where she’s getting interest from a very specific group. I understand that and respect that she’s made that choice.

But there has to be a clear reason to take that route (“No one else would take it” is one, I suppose) . I take Scalzi’s point that the people who are counting on this attitude and collecting words at lesser rates because they know they can are suspect.

By: ss

ss — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 17:02:09 +0000

[Deleted for being low-grade fly-by profanity -- JS]

By: ek weaver

ek weaver — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 16:20:23 +0000

Thanks so much for this post – it applies to so much more than SF writing, too. I’m forwarding this to a bunch of aspiring comic book artists. (You won’t believe the page rates some publishers offer… well, actually, you probably would.)

By: Linda Formichelli

Linda Formichelli — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 21:06:54 +0000

I’m the wife Eric talks about in the post above. My post, On Writing for Peanuts, gave counterarguments to all the reasons new freelancers put forth for writing for pennies. You can find the post here: http://therenegadewriter.com/2009/11/29/on-writing-for-peanuts/. It’s gotten a lot of positive response.

I’ve been a freelance writer since 1997, and my *very first* sale paid me $500; from just about that moment on, I supported my family through my income as a freelancer. Now, new writers are fainting with pleasure that some content mill is willing to pay them $10 per article.

By: W. Eric Martin

W. Eric Martin — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 17:16:06 +0000

My wife, Linda Formichelli, has been a freelance writer for mainstream and trade pubs full-time since 1997, and she still hears arguments similar to what Scalzi quotes in his piece: "I want to get my foot in the door." "I want to build up clips." And so on. She wrote an article in Nov. 2009 called "On Writing for Peanuts" that covers this topic in the field of non-fiction. Lots of gullible wannabe writers out there...

By: Mike Brendan

Mike Brendan — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 03:36:11 +0000

GWH @160.

Wow… just wow…

By: John Scalzi

John Scalzi — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 01:27:37 +0000

[Deleted because a case of me being overly pissy -- JS]

By: George William Herbert

George William Herbert — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 01:01:37 +0000

Perhaps my hobbies are more potentially dangerous to life or liability than yours.

I’ve never seen anyone who lost a business or quality of life due to the costs of incorporation. The opposite is not true.

I’ve said what my criteria were for judging BM a “real enough” business or not from the beginning; if anyone has sales figures, I’d be open to being shown to be incorrect. Did anyone bother to ask them? They probably won’t answer (I didn’t try) but who knows…