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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Writers, editors, publishers and, yes, even readers respond to "The Confessions of a Semi-successful Author."
Mar 24, 2004 | [Read the story.]
How much does Ms. Doe expect to earn for writing a book that nobody reads?
Based on her numbers, she's spent five years writing her three published books, earning $240,000 for her work. $48,000 a year may not be easy street, but it's not skid row, either. She may feel mistreated by her publishers, but she's been paid nearly 50 grand a year for five years to do something she loves.
Oh, the misery! The cruelty! The crushed dreams!
-- Ronald Moss
Oh God, how many of these whining articles do we have to suffer through? Boohoo, you got a $150,000 advance on your first book and it didn't sell. Do you know how lucky you are? How many people with twice your talent will never be published at all?
And another thing, publishing has always always, always been a business whose only goal is that of any business: profit. Read "Lost Illusions" if you don't believe me. As it was 180 years ago, so it is today. You just got your cherry busted. Welcome to the real world.
You are a victim of too much success too early. Learn to survive. Write another biography. Write journalism (not the self-pitying kind), write film scripts like Gore Vidal did when his career was flagging. Film work gave him enough "fuck you" money to write whatever the hell kind of novel he wanted. And that is when he wrote "Julian," which was a huge success.
You've been dealt a winning hand. Now learn how to play the cards, and if you must cry in your pillow, have the good sense to do it in private.
-- Frank Celia
As someone who works at a smallish publishing house -- where our authors can't even come close to the "pitiful" advances and earnings of Ms. Doe -- I find it hard to have sympathy for her. It's been claimed that as many as 160,000 books were published in the United States in 2003, with only perhaps a few dozen achieving the kind of major commercial success that so many authors expect.
There are way too many books published every year. Even if everyone read books all the time, only a small portion of those books would be wildly successful. It never ceases to amaze me that so many authors don't seem to get these simple facts.
And I can probably think of, say, 159,000 or so other authors who would love to have the success of Ms. Doe.
-- Greg Houle
Jane Austen Doe's article is so dull, patronizing, self-indulgent and toothless. She seems to see herself as the sole victim with very little awareness that most mediums in American culture (and therefore, global culture) have taken the same route, whether it be film, music, television, theater, even museum exhibits. Shouldn't she be addressing the larger problem -- that this is the ultimate end in an ultra-capitalist society whose citizens have OD'd on consumerism? She also presupposes that the rest of us are somehow ignorant of the changes in publishing over the last 20 years -- she's not exactly pulling back a veil here.
At the moment, there are far greater tragedies in the world than a midlist author who seems to feel the game should conform to fit her, instead of just playing the game.
The article itself is meaningless under the moniker of Jane Austen Doe -- maybe the problem for her is ultimately one of cowardice since, despite her sales situation, she doesn't dare to give her name. I'm sure her publisher would've preferred that she did.
As for all her jealousy and envy, moaning and whining, it would seem to me she should pick up a copy of a great little book called "Bird by Bird," by our own Anne Lamott. It might not help Jane Doe's sales figures, but it will most certainly help her make peace with the life decisions she has made for herself.
-- Sean O'Neil
Reading Ms. Doe's "Confessions" reminds me why on occasion I struggle to publish some of my own thoughts. Her article betrays no love of her subjects, no passion to publish because of her desire to tell the public things it has never heard or ideas uniquely her own. Instead, she comes across as pursuing a career as a writer solely as an exercise in ego.
She actually laments the $260,000 she collected in advances over eight years, which works out to a respectable salary of $32,500 and change each year, not counting additional income from pieces not discussed in her article. For those of us who can only aspire to such a salary in actual employment, such carping resembles sour grapes. I should make more money! Who among us does not think as much?
Ms. Doe's "Confessions" forces me to wonder, what is it she wants? She has published five books, and any number of small publishers would be willing to publish five more if money were not her object. But it's clear that what she wants is cold, hard cash. If she laments that book publishing is all about money, she might do well to look in the mirror and ask herself what she really wants. For those of us who write after work and on weekend mornings out of love, Ms. Doe's "Confessions" serves as a helpful reminder that the passion to publish, to talk to the public and to future generations, will remain long after the money is gone.
-- Jason Colavito
I'm 32 years old. For the last seven years, I've been a professional ghostwriter -- I wrote more than 10 books for an "author" who has his own private aircraft and hasn't actually written a word in more than a decade. I've been published in national magazines and metropolitan newspapers. I'm working on my first novel. My editors love me. And I just quit my job ghostwriting to pursue the dream. When all things should be going well, when the horizon should be bathed in hope, I have this strange and unsettled feeling, like instead of riding the road into the future, I'm standing on it with my eyes wide open, staring like a deer into the headlights of a process and industry that eats people like me for brunch. I think, "If I'm just good enough, just work hard enough, it'll be OK. As long as I can survive, I will show my son it can be done, he will learn from my example." Jane Austen, you freaked me out. I should have listened to your warning and skipped the article.
-- Anonymous
Cry me a river, Endangered Midlist Author without the guts to reveal your name. Boohoo. You only got $80,000 for a book it took you two whole years to write. Do you know that, according to the National Writers' Union, the average writer in America makes $4,000 a year from their writing? And that's when you figure Stephen King and Nora Roberts into the equation.
I, too, have struggled with supporting myself and my family since I became a full-time fiction writer at the dawn of time four years ago. My advances have gone up and down. Sales haven't always matched publicity. Of course I've felt sorry for myself. But tough leather, sister. This is a business.
If you don't like the way you're being treated by your publisher, go to the back of the line. Or do something about it. I generate a lot of my own publicity. I tour incessantly, often to the detriment of my writing, not to mention my health. I do anything I can to make money.
Ten months after being named the "Hot Writer" of 2000 by Rolling Stone, I was writing promotional copy for Weight Watchers. I needed the money, they asked, I delivered. Last September, the day before leaving on tour for my first novel, I turned in a $750 essay about the joys of Passover to a magazine published by 1-800-FLOWERS. But I still don't believe that I hacked for your sins.
If you think that you're going to get a career boost by condescendingly telling readers to patronize readings by "non-bestselling authors," you're sadly deluded. Independent bookstores have been the linchpin of my career, and I love them, but I'm still glad to see my book at Borders. I support funding for the arts, but I have this silly idea that arts money should, at first, go toward music and art programs in public schools, or community theater, or not-for-profit societies for the preservation of noise jazz. Anything but midlist authors, for pity's sake.
The publishing industry, if my figures are correct, churned out 300,000 books last year. Some excellent books were commercially ignored, and lots of dross sold well. But most books eventually find the audience that they more or less deserve, especially because one hit book can float any author's backlist for a lifetime.
People who work at Wal-Mart or Wendy's deserve a living wage. Authors deserve to take whatever they can get. Note to my publisher: I want a lot. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to encourage my politicians to enjoy and create culture.
-- Neal Pollack
"What will we lose if writers like me stop writing? What are we losing now?"
Whiners.
-- Stephan Zielinski
