Money myths and promo hype

Ever since my move, I've been trying to do the writer-thing, y'know--go to meetings and study, work harder on my writing and editing, stuff like that. I used to live near this RWA chapter where the members and I were on polar opposites of the genre scale. 'Sides, trying to break into an established chapter is hard. It's all clique-ish.

I kind of figured the one close to me now would be a better fit. It's bigger, more members=more chances at finding people to connect with. Writing is so damned lonely, it's like iron deficiency. You start getting the urge for spinach.

I'm not connecting so well--it's, er...I guess the word I'm looking for is clique-ish. The dictionary defines "clique" as members of a group who identify more closely with each other than the group, and maybe it's like that everywhere, but it makes it hard to join once the cliques are set up.

There are good sides and bad sides to cliques. The good side is you either belong or don't belong--and outsiders tend to stick together, which in turn creates more cliques, so maybe that's also the bad side.

But at the last meeting someone approached me to talk about her work. She'd subbed to the house I work for--an odd piece, not odd in being weird or anything, but odd in not really fitting into an established sub genre. Vintage is a new field covering the time period from 1920-1970, and outside of mainstream fiction, the publishers for it are few and far in between.

She got accepted and withdrew her work. On the verge of getting published, she decided it wasn't where she wanted to be, because we wouldn't swing a promo budget behind her. I really wanted to ask her who she'd been talking to, since even before I got the editing gig, I knew NO one will promo you--I don't care if they're HarperCollins or some little fly by night operating out of some kid's garage. Mid-list is a bunch of do-it-yourself-ers, that's why so many people at Nationals have bookmarks--there's no money in writing. You promo yourself unless you're on the verge of what Maas would call "the breakout novel" and then your publisher "might" do something for you.

Writers are a dime a dozen. Money flows toward the writer, but it sure as hell doesn't flow toward some big name publicist on your behalf. It might not be as much money up front because a small press pays less and you don't get your advance up front, but you'd basically get the same promo-package no matter who you sign with.

Today, I had the pleasure of listening to a lecture (in my opinion, the best part of belonging to a chapter--the monthly lecture) where the writer was kind enough to share her income and sales figures. People tell me all the time--writing for a small press is stupid, because there's no money in it. That's true, but I went into it, KNOWING there's no money in it. I sold to TWRP because A) they were okay with my horribly "extreme" setting (Hawaii isn't a popular setting for some reason) and B) my rs "lite" as one big name--really really big-name--editor once called it didn't trigger an auto-reject. So this woman wrote for a BIG press, six books--honestly, she had a bunch sitting in front of her, all new and spiffy in their radiant "big press-ness". Firmly mid-list. And of her advance and earn-outs, she made two thousand dollars a year after paying her agent and taxes. Then they dumped her, because her sales figures weren't good and they're cutting that line. So she's back on the street, looking for a home.

It's hard to make a living at your writing. You need a day job or some other source of income--the arts have got to be the only field where negative income is acceptable. I've been filing as a writer for years and each year I say, "oops, another negative" and make a little smiley face, because y'know--smiley faces make everything better.

I have no promo budget outside of my wits, and one day--when I get my first check, it might sort of pay for a burger or something. And I'll eat my Big Mac and be all happy for a few minutes. I might read my book (it'll probably be out in print by then) and wonder how anyone can buy into the whole JR Rowling mythos (I want to buy a castle, wah!).

A couple thousand is nice, but--honestly, I can make that working, and I'd put in less hours. I did a break down once, and figured I work for air, because peanuts cost too much. I might still have some scruples--not a lot, mind you, but some--where I'd better see a stable outlook for the houses I sub to, and they need to have print, because I want to hold my book, but I'm starting to wonder if NY is the end all and be all--it might just be an ego thing on my part.