Agreed. I think it proves that artists are pretty silly people. But it also proves that we MUST be our own best advocates for our professional lives.They were given 6 figures twice and managed to squander it? Got to be honest, that's on them, and I'd be real happy if I had the opportunity to risk becoming a cautionary tale like this!
Chuck Wendig wrote a good response. Not necessarily safe for work. It's Wendig.
How To Be A Professional Author And Not Die Screaming And Starving In A Lightless Abyss
Thing is, it is a job. Just one paid by a lunatic with little rhyme or reason - or so it seems most days. You have to think of writing as a job to be able to churn out one or two or three books a year, to show up everyday at your desk (or wherever) and make pages. It just doesn't pay like a normal job.She keeps calling it a pay cut - which I think shows that she's thinking about it all wrong. It's not a job. She wrote the book, and she sold the book. That's not the same thing at all.
Publishing a book is much closer to running your own business than it is to a job or to freelancing work. You've got a product and you're selling it through distributors. Seems pretty straightforward.
That's exactly it. Writing is a volume business. Book series - especially in my genre, urban fantasy - traditionally don't pick up steam until Book 5 or 6. To merely survive you have to put out one or two or three, preferably two or three, books a year just to keep up with demand, so multiple series are recommended. A slower writer like me struggles with this pace, though we're working on ways to speed up my production.Yeah, it's like many corporations. You have a great product that practically flies off the shelves, but you either have to keep developing new products, innovating, or over time you'll end up without a business. Which has happened many times in our economy. One-hit wonders in music, or actors who leapt into the public consciousness via a single role who subsequently disappeared: examples in art. Not everyone produces a Minecraft that can keep going and going and going forever bringing in the big bucks.
That's the state of the arts. It's not what we dreamed of but it's what we've got.And here I thought I was an artist and not a factory.
Sorry, carry on.
That's the state of the arts. It's not what we dreamed of but it's what we've got.
Well... You can alway try the Monk route and see PF thinks about the deal?Maybe we could seek patrons? Find an Elon Musk or Pope Francis or Donald Trump who will let us live in a little cottage on their estate while supporting our artistic endeavors? Are there any de Medici still alive and not already tapped out?
Maybe we could seek patrons? Find an Elon Musk or Pope Francis or Donald Trump who will let us live in a little cottage on their estate while supporting our artistic endeavors? Are there any de Medici still alive and not already tapped out?
Anyways a benevolent patron of the arts could drop you as easily as a company, so it's not better.
Maybe we could seek patrons? Find an Elon Musk or Pope Francis or Donald Trump who will let us live in a little cottage on their estate while supporting our artistic endeavors? Are there any de Medici still alive and not already tapped out?