Being Famous or Not

A few years ago, two other writers and I got together for a day in San Antonio to talk about writing and publishing, and share our experiences and ideas. One of the things we did was to look at a book I had bought called Word Work: Surviving and Thriving as a Writer by Bruce Holland Rogers. It had a lot of great topics in it, including discipline, procrastination, rituals and whether you should quit your day job. He also talks about "Matters of State" - meaning depression, affirmations, negative thinking and those around you who may encourage or block your writing.

The strange thing is that we sat there and did an exercise from the book called Pig Will and Pig Won't. Strange, because I've just gone through that book twice and I can't find it! Pig Will and Pig Won't are from a picture book by Richard Scarry. How the mind does like to trick us. Nevertheless, the exercise is about imagining what might happen if you are incredibly successful with your writing - what might be the great things about this, and what might be the negative impact. The results, when we shared them, surprised me. We all had entirely different ideas about both answers. (And if I could find my notes, I'd share them, but this must be my week for losing stuff, so I'll add them to the textbook, bill, magazine and brochure that are somewhere in my office).

I remember that some of my negatives were to do with not being able to walk down the street without being recognised, and much higher expectations on your next book. The positives are always to do with being able to give up your day job! Except then you have to entertain yourself at home seven days a week, and procrastination becomes a major issue instead of a small worry. All this, of course, was brought back to mind by the documentary I watched on Saturday night. It was "J.K. Rowling: A Year in the Life", made in 2007 while she was working on the final Harry Potter book (first broadcast Dec 2007).

I missed the first half, but in the second half the interviewer seemed to decide to get tough with the questions. Hence we had something along the lines of "The media says you have 574 million pounds - do you have that much money?". To which she eventually answered that she didn't have that much but she did have many millions of pounds. And the result of this is that she gets asked all the time for money. She has an assistant to help her respond to requests and decide to whom she will donate. And she does give away a lot of money, mainly because "unlike most politicians" she knows what it is like to be very poor and what it does to your quality of life.

99.9% of us will never earn as much as JK from our books. Most of us are doing well if we come anywhere near earning a living. Hence the term: don't give up your day job! But, going back to Pig Will and Pig Won't - what does being a famous writer actually mean? What restraints and extra expectations might it put on you? Can anyone understand what it means until it happens to them? When you're writing your first book, there are no deadlines, no one waiting for it, no one to tell you how it should be. With the second book (and those thereafter) comes a new set of expectations, issues and challenges. Something to think about.
And now I'm going back to find that darned Pig exercise!

The Royalties Big Dipper

In Australia, for many writers, 30 September is royalties time. We only get them every six months usually (unlike the US where I believe a lot of publishers pay quarterly), so when the time gets close, you tend to hold your breath. There are a number of ways you can find yourself on the big slide down. One is that just when you were expecting to start earning out your advance on a book and receiving more money, there were a lot of returns back to the warehouse. (For those of you who might not know, bookshops are just about the only retail outlet - that I know of, anyway - where if they don't sell what they order, they're allowed to return the books and get a credit.) So you end up back in the red.

Another slide down occurs when something happens at the publisher (such as they go out of business, or are running at a loss) and they decide to remainder your book. Either a big lump of copies, or the whole lot. Suddenly, instead of them paying you money, you have to pay them in order to get hold of what you can before your book goes to the great pulping machine. Or there aren't many copies of your book left so the publisher decides it's not worth reprinting and they deem the book out of print, and again you're offered what's left. If you're lucky.

What can also happen is that your book has been out for quite a while, and is no longer selling more than the odd copy. So you receive royalty statements, like I did this week, for minimal amounts. One of mine was for $2.13, the other for 48 cents. If I put them both together, I can buy myself an icecream!

This is all in the nature of publishing, of course. It's a business. Just as I wouldn't go down the street and buy a pair of jeans that was manufactured in 1994 and been sitting on the shelf ever since, neither do I expect people to keep buying my old books when all those bright, shiny new ones are out there now. I'm not going to buy Agatha Christie in preference to the new Stieg Larssen (and I am so happy my copy of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest arrived today - yaayyyy!).

There is a constant debate, somewhat quieter at the moment with the economic worries, about the size of advances. Should you push for a big advance? The logic is that if you get lots up front, it pushes the publisher into doing more marketing of your book. But it can backfire. You could be offered $8000 and manage to get $20,000 instead, but if you don't sell enough copies and earn out that advance, the publisher eyes you a bit negatively. Marketing budgets are tight, authors now are expected to do plenty of publicity on their own. Everyone is responsible! That can make you feel as depressed as a $2.00 royalty payment.

With new technologies coming in - ebooks are only the tip of the iceberg - royalties will become even more of an issue. How much should an author get? The standard on a book is 10% here, but that takes into account how much a book costs to physically produce. When you start talking internet downloads onto Kindles and such, why shouldn't authors reap some of the benefits of cheaper production costs? Ah yes, the future will be very interesting indeed. I'm not making bets on anything. Can't afford to. I've only got $2.61 to gamble with!