Should first-time novelists be paid? (hat tip Mur Lafferty)
Wow, I’m glad my first manager didn’t have this perspective. “Congratulations, you’re hired! Of course, we have little reason to expect big returns on your first job. And hiring someone like you, from an economic perspective, is hardly worth our time. As the party who puts money into the costs of training, a cubicle, a computer, heating and lighting, and a FrameMaker license, we’re the ones who stand to lose the most. Therefore, we’ll start you out at a salary of $0 with no benefits. If things go really well, after twelve months we might revisit your contract. How does that sound, kid?”
Who out there has such poor self-esteem and business sense that they would buy this argument?
And don’t say “graduate students”, that’s not funny.
I can’t even follow his? train of thought. It’s like one giant verbal hiccup.
New writers should get profits only after the first novel? Or get better royalties on the first and less with subsequent novels? Or not paid at all until they’re famous?
What about authors who write infrequently? Harper Lee comes to mind. What if the first novel is a once every ten years kind of thing. Some people write like that.
I couldn’t figure it out either.
At first I thought that the argument was: if first-time authors didn’t get paid, you would have a lot more first-time authors getting published, and this would be A Good Thing. Except there’s already a massive oversupply of authors.
Now I think it’s a variation of the old “It’s tough out there for writers, kid” essay. This is just a more uber-manly version than most — you newbie writers should be grateful to be paid at all! Except Zadie Smith, because she is drop-dead gorgeous and much more talented than *you* are.
Or maybe it’s all a Jonathan Swift piece.
Speaking of uber-manly, you all should just check out the video at the top of the linkroll: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pi2t58CRmbU — I would have liked to post about “300”, but this video trumps everything I was going to say.
Yes, the “beautiful” comment tweaked me too.
And he never brings up the possibility of a first novel ending up like The Chinatown Deathcloud Peril or Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell or To Kill a Mockingbird….
To be fair — and not to minimize her considerable writing talent in *any* way — but [Zadie Smith](http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?p=zadie%20smith) is, like, *totally* cute. In real life, most writers look like some variation on a hungover Christopher Hitchens. It’s amazing we manage to reproduce at all.
I beg your pardon. I do not now nor have I ever looked like a hungover Christopher Hitchens.
Harumph.
Hi folks,
I wrote the original post. Thanks for reading! The basic idea behind it is that making it more lucrative for publishers to put out first novels could help promote new writers–even lumpy trolls deprived of the kind of hype lavished on such photogenic talents as the lovely Zadie Smith. So it’s part of a “how to promote new writers” train of thought. And also a product of speculation about how to mitigate the blockbuster sales model on which big corporations tend to rely.
I agree that a major flaw in the argument is the implicit assumption that first-timers are necessarily going to embark on writing careers, and would be willing to sacrifice initial earnings for a chance at building reputations. What about first-time novelists who are one-time novelists, like Harper Lee? I suppose if I really stuck to my guns, I could go ahead with the extreme “writing is its own reward” line. There are ancillary benefits to literary success–like landing a teaching job–but overall this reasoning seems absurdly harsh. My argument probably works best overall if you tone it down to a low-advance/high-royalty model like the one Macmillan’s trying with their science authors. That way, publishers don’t have to take the risk of handing money up front to untested talent, but if a book’s a hit, even the crustiest Hitchens clone will win big.
Hi Nick! Thanks for dropping by.
I’m just not seeing the connection between not paying first-time authors and promotion of first-time authors. First, regardless whether they’re paying $8500 or $0 to their first time authors, publishing houses can only produce so many books per year. This scheme isn’t going to create an explosion of new authors or help new authors in any way. The advance is not the roadblock.
As for “writing is its own reward” — you are clearly a pleasant and articulate guy, so I don’t mean this to sound overly harsh — but this is just crap. Publishers are entities that exist to make money. Professional writers are in the business of earning a living from their writing. Once we start talking about sending manuscripts to publishers, we have left the world of fanfic and personal diaries and private/family memoirs and Wikipedia contributions and [INSERT NON-REVENUE GENERATING MATERIAL HERE] behind us. From that point on, asking authors to forgo fair-market compensation for their work is just a non-starter.
Also note that for almost any successful book, marketing expenses, which generally must be “earned out” from royalties before any royalties start flowing to the author, are frequently far larger than the advance (which also must be earned out).
Re “writing is its own reward”:
If I were a publisher of any-less-than-sterling scruples, and there were a steady supply of new novelists who would give me their first novel for nothing down and a series of difficult-to-verify sums of money in the distant future, why would I *ever* buy a second novel from one of them?
EH. VER.
As a successful published nonfiction author, I was amused by Nick Wolven’s suggestion of low advance/high royalty for untested authors. Publishing companies pay a pittance in advance money AND the royalties are modest AND you get virtually no editing beyond copyediting AND you will be, to all intents and purposes, doing the marketing of your book yourself.
— Henci
P.S. Note to neophyte authors: Do not under any circumstances in the glow that accompanies the realization that a publishing house wants your manuscript sign the boilerplate contract. The publishing house is hoping you will make this newbie error, and you will live to regret it if you do. Get your hands on a book about publishing contracts that explains what the clauses mean, what is negotiable, and what is a reasonable counter offer. Also, do not assume that your agent, if you have one, will go to bat for you, although this is one of the things an agent is supposed to do. The reality is that unless you have a potential blockbuster, your agent has far more interest in staying on the sweet side of the publishing house than in making waves on your behalf.