There's an article over on Salon entited, "My Amazon Best-Seller Made Me Nothing."
The gist of the story is that most writers don't make money. Even well-known writers. The money they make is much less than anyone is willing to admit.
They talk about a $5000 advance from major publisher by a well-established writer as being standard. (Which, if I remember rightly, isn't all that much better than it was 30 years ago.)
What was disheartening, as usual, were the comments, which amounted to -- 'Well, you must be some kind of loser because I happen to know that so-and-so (let's say Stephen King) made a gazillion dollars!'
They also talked about how it is nearly impossible to know if you're getting accurate accounts of what's selling -- which was also a big surprise to me 30 years ago. I didn't think of publishing as a potentially shady business.
The more I knew about publishing, the less attractive it seemed. Going into it, I was completely ignorant. And Ignorance was Bliss.
This isn't sour grapes. It's just the way things are.
But it certainly factored in my decision to skip the whole process and put stuff up online.
The gist of the story is that most writers don't make money. Even well-known writers. The money they make is much less than anyone is willing to admit.
They talk about a $5000 advance from major publisher by a well-established writer as being standard. (Which, if I remember rightly, isn't all that much better than it was 30 years ago.)
What was disheartening, as usual, were the comments, which amounted to -- 'Well, you must be some kind of loser because I happen to know that so-and-so (let's say Stephen King) made a gazillion dollars!'
They also talked about how it is nearly impossible to know if you're getting accurate accounts of what's selling -- which was also a big surprise to me 30 years ago. I didn't think of publishing as a potentially shady business.
The more I knew about publishing, the less attractive it seemed. Going into it, I was completely ignorant. And Ignorance was Bliss.
This isn't sour grapes. It's just the way things are.
But it certainly factored in my decision to skip the whole process and put stuff up online.