Writing is a business, and a writer is a self-employed business owner.
It doesn't sound quite so romantic put like that, does it? No floppy hats and Paris cafes, no sitting in the sunshine looking cool and sipping latte (whatever that might be). No, it's work or you don't get paid.
Okay, when you've made a few million you can buy yourself a floppy hat and sit in a Paris cafe sipping at latte (is it alcoholic, I wonder?) but you'd better have a notebook and pencil handy.
You can argue that writing is an art form, not a capitalist venture, and that writers must be Free to Explore New Things. Writers should have nothing to do with evil capitalists and their sharp suits and neat ties and fancy cars and wads of money. That's a great attitude. Stick with it. I can use a little less competition here.
Seriously, writing is an art form. Making up a story convincing enough to transport someone into your world is an art and a skill. The writing skill can be learned, the imagination can't. Yet if you want to stay a writer, if you want it to be your one and only life choice, then you need to earn money by doing it. Otherwise you starve and die, and nobody wants to do that. It's unpleasant. Besides, you won't be able to write any more.
Back to business then. Once the imagination is done, the writing skills honed, the story crafted and completed, revised a few times so it all makes sense and fits together properly, then you have to get it published. There are basically two ways to do this.
The hard way is to self-publish. If you don't want to get involved with the capitalist pigs at all, then you can get Lulu or someone to print it for you, and then you can be publisher, marketer, and salesman. You can be all those capitalists you despise. If you can find the time.
The easy, or perhaps the less hard way, is to find a publisher who will do all that for you. It does mean swallowing your pride and touching filthy money from evil capitalists, but hey, you have to make sacrifices, right? I will willingly make such a Sacrifice for the sake of Art. In fact, I'll accept as much money as anyone is willing to throw at me, just to save other Artists from contamination. Aren't I generous? No need to thank me, cheques will do.
Yet not all publishers are great guys. Most are, but a few are out to stiff you. If they ask for money, run away. That's a good general rule for life. I find I get most of my exercise by that route.
Remember the business part. You have a product for sale. A product you've probably taken years to craft into shape. Let's say it's not a book, let's call it a chair. You've made a wonderful, ornate, carved chair. Someone comes to you and says 'It is indeed a very fine chair. I will put it in my living room as long as you pay me to do it'. 'Why yes,' you say, 'That would be great'.
What? Did something strike you as odd there?
That's what vanity publishers do with your work. They print it but you pay them to do it. It's exactly the same as if you built furniture and paid people to put it in their homes. if you run a business that way, how long do you think it will last?
You have the product for sale. A particular arrangement of words in a specific order. You're selling, not buying! You are the business at the start of the chain. Well, if you don't count the guy who makes the paper...
Your business sells product to the publishers. Through an agent, if you can find one. The publisher sells to bookstores, bookstores sell to the public. That's the direction the product goes. Money flows the other way. That's how business works. Any other method will fail.
Ah, I hear you say, but what about investing in your own business?
Haven't you done that? Haven't you invested in a computer, paper, printer, and masses of your own time and anguish? You've done your investing. It's time to look for a return.
Now, back to the product. A book. A specific arrangement of words. That's what you sell, so if anyone changes the words to make it better, they must be due for a cut of the profits, right?
I don't think I'd be allowed to use the word I was going to use so I'll just say 'no'.
If you invent a time machine and someone sprays one pink, does that mean they get a cut of your royalties because the pink ones sell faster? If you said yes, would you think the same if the painter was already paid for the job of spraying, and all he had to do was pick a colour? Still thinking yes? Well, try this.
The company that sells the time machines for you employs the painter. His salary is already entirely dependent on sales of the time machine because if they fail, the whole company goes down. His idea to spray them pink improves sales, the company makes more money (so do you) and the painter gets a raise and becomes head sprayer. Now. Should he also get a cut of your royalties? Does he, or the company, have the right to claim all or partial copyright on the machine?
(The word I can't use goes in here again).
The publisher employs an editor. The editor makes changes or suggests changes for you. The changed book sells. The publisher makes more money. You make more money. The editor gets a raise.
All good, right? Well, not so good if the publisher has declared that the changes belong to them, not you, and if they fold, or if they ditch you, you can't sell the book elsewhere with those changes in place.
None of the big publishers would do this. It's bad business. If they decide to ditch you, it's because your books don't sell so the changes they made are irrelevant to them. If they did this, it would get around and writers would seek out places that didn't do it.
A few small presses are doing it.
The writing part is art. Selling the writing is business. No business will work with a business partner who makes unreasonable demands. No writer should either. Your business isn't responsible for keeping other businesses going.
There are rules writers must follow. You want to be shopping a book that fits with publisher's guidelines. You need to know who to send it to, and who won't look at it. You have to be able to spell, and there are other onerous duties.
There are rules going the other way too. Writers tend to think the publishers rule all, that they have total control. If there was only one publisher, that would be true. There are many publishers and they are competing with each other. True, they are competing for sales, for market share - but what are they competing with? Books.
Where do they get the books they sell? Writers!
If they want the brightest and best, they need to be fair to their writers. If the next Clive Barker sent a book in to Publisher X, and Publisher X shafted them royally, would the neo-Clive send his next book there? No, he'd send the next twenty blockbusters to Publisher Y who treats authors fairly. All the big publishers recognise this, and that's why they're all big successful publishers. New small presses sometimes miss this detail and don't last long as a result. Just as a furniture shop that shafts carpenters will find it increasingly difficult to get new inventory, a publisher who shafts authors will find the submission rate declining or the quality of authors falling off.
In order to keep writing, you have to stay alive. In order to live, you need cash. In order to get cash, you have to sell your work. You don't have to sell to just anyone. You can pick and choose. Better yet, get an agent to do that part. They know about publishers and about contracts.
Don't be scared of capitalism. It's the only way to get rich. If you dream of lounging around making up stories all day long, then you need to have all your bills paid.
I'd love to be a capitalist. If anyone can help with that, let me know and I'll tell you where to send the money.
