If you write five hundred words an hour, that’s forty five bucks an hour. This is by no means a pittance. I average a hundred an hour for most of my writing work, so I’m fairly happy with my hobby rates.

The kind of projects that you can get paid dollars per word for are, generally, projects that require of a great deal of non writing work in research and leg work.

Oddly enough, my highest pay per word actually was for fiction, and that amounted to seven dollars a word, although I wasn’t actually being paid by the word.

Anyway, indeed nobody is making a full-time living writing short stories these days, but who is also spending forty hours a week writing short stories? Short story writing is a part-time sideline; one can generate a few thousand a year and get other gigs teaching, editing etc. based partially on one’s record of publication.

Good NYC writers (business journalism for trade and corporate publications, some PR) that I used to try to commission wouldn’t touch things for under $2-per-word. That’s rarefied company, and it was generally too rich for my clients’ budgets, but you’re looking at a story needing to be re-sold more than 20 times to reach comparable earnings at the same length.

I don’t doubt that some people make a living from what looks like a hobby. On the other hand, a typical pay scale that it is one-tenth to one-twentieth of the pay for relatively similar work is not what I would call “good.”

I’m waiting for the day (which will never come) when someone gets a rejection slip from a pathetically bad-paying market that says:

“Scalzi TOLD you not to submit to us.”

I say apparently because according to Amazon CreateSpace has that honour, but then we all know that Amazon has difficulty keeping a straight face when presented with the opportunity to market a 200 page paperback by an unknown author with a pricetag of $13.95.

BM says that it published it ‘by arrangement with the author’, which would look distinctly odd for a real publisher but probably par for the course with a vanity press.

Presumably they’re hoping that the intended readership of young adults won’t realise that it’s extortionately overpriced, which is almost as optimistic as expecting people not to notice that BM is following in PublishAmerica’s footprints…

http://www.amazon.com/Advent-Tour-P-E-Snyder/dp/1449536158/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260367991&sr=1-1#reader_1449536158

I would pay at least 12 cents per word* over cost of item production for an actual approved Scalzi coffee mug, via Cafe Press or whatever. I was half thinking of just throwing one into CP, but I’m not sure our esteemed host would appreciate doing that without asking first.

* (12 cents, 3 words, $0.36)