Exposing Yourself: Do You Write For Free?
Time to jump all the way toward the other end of the spectrum — yesterday, I yammered on about what to eat before you write, and today I’ll blather on about the payment (or non-payment) that comes after you write. It’s not inappropriate, since a lot of a writer’s work is work that circumnavigates the actual writing but is not the actual writing.
Let’s talk ch-ching. The bling. The cash. The money.
So, over at Do Some Damage, the inimitable Steve Weddle talked up flash fiction and pondered why it was so bloody awesome. In there, however, was some discussion about publishing in places that don’t pay you. They pay you in exposure, that pay you in attention. But you don’t get pennies on the word. Hell, you don’t get pennies at all.
Is that reasonable?
Should you write without getting paid?
Writing Is Work
It’s like this: writing is work. It’s a job. A career. Abstractly, it’s no different than swinging a hammer or replacing an alternator under the hood of a car. Now, in practical terms, writing is a whole big bag of different, but I don’t want to stray too far from the idea that writing is work, and work is something that ideally pays you. There exists a dirty connotation between “art” and “payday,” which is why I continually assert that writing ain’t art. It’s a craft. I build a chair, I want to sell the chair. I write material, I want to sell that material. Nothing dirty about this particular act of capitalism: I need to feed my kids (thatdontexist), I need to pay my mortgage, I need to pay off my bookies, I need to afford my habit of rectally-inserted powdered rhino gall. I need money, motherfucker.
If you don’t care to write professionally or be paid for your writing work, more power to you. Are you really a writer, then? Well, that’s an argument for an earlier time.
Further Comparison
An easy and dumb comparison would be, would you work a week at a company without pay just to show them that you can do the job? Unless you were desperate, you probably wouldn’t. (Er, unless you’re one of those creatures known as “interns,” though then that’s part of your “education.”) Would you work a week at McDonald’s for free? Would you slaughter cows for free? Would you work at a call center? A help desk? A brothel? A meth lab? For free? Really? Probably not.
A less dumb comparison might be: let’s say you’re starting your own business. Costs go in, but they don’t necessarily come out right away. On paper, this is worse than free: you’re actually paying into something without the promise of reward. Is there a parallel here? Maybe. You could argue that writing for free is an investment in the same way that paying the costs to open your own… I dunno, Ye Olde Dildo Shoppe.
Difference there is, you’re paying into your own business. If I allow a site or journal to post my work for free, I’m largely paying into someone else’s business. Right? Assuming my work is any good at all, I’m putting shiny goods in their storefront, not my own.
Is it fair then to go back to the “intern” comparison? Is getting work up for free with a third party comparable to interning? Maybe. The deviation here is that interning is meant to teach you the ways of a business. It’s a modern version of the apprenticeship. Getting published for free teaches you very little. It doesn’t teach you process. The process is the same submitting material to a paying site or journal as it is to submit to a non-paying one.
Attention And Exposure As Currency
Let’s tackle the notion that paying attention is useful — meaning, they’re offering you a place to showcase your work, to give you a credit and to earn you readers. Does it work?
For new writers, maybe it’s not the worst path. I guess the worst path would be “I published this on my mother’s fridge!” But is it the best path? The wisest?
Let’s say you’re a new writer. Let’s say you’ve written a story that doesn’t suck, and that in fact people have told you it’s “pretty dang special.”
Assuming they’re right, do you really want to just give it away?
Dirty secret time: sites and journals that do not pay the writers are clogged with shit. Sorry. It’s true. Just to confirm, I went through a half-dozen or so (I won’t name names), and you know what I found? A tide pool of aggregate garbage floating on scum-topped waters with the occasional gem glittering beneath the murky surface. The unspoken shhh here is that people who are willing to get published without payment either have a low estimation of their work or instead have a perfectly adequate estimation of their work and in fact realize that the only people who will publish their material are the ones who pay in imaginary chits and ducats.
Yes, you can really find some gems in there. Not all the material is junk.
But my question is: why wasn’t that material in a paying journal? Why did I have to wade through sewage to find a delicious sandwich? Is that really the exposure that Quality Writer hoped for? To be King Fuck of Sucktown? To be the edible peanut in the turd? To be the flower in the Frankenstein Monster’s hand?
That writer probably could’ve gotten some coin for that story.
And therein lies the truth: if your story is any good, you’ll probably find both exposure and some pennies-per-word for it. No, it won’t happen overnight. You have to have persistence in this industry and not go for the easy path (the free path) every time. I wrote a story when I was 18, and I submitted it and workshopped it and in fact did quite a lot of work on it. I did so much work that I decided I didn’t want to submit it to any of the “for the love” zines or journals, and instead went for Not One of Us. The editor saw some potential, we workshopped the story, and then — holy crap! They paid me.
Your first publication should also be called something else:
Your first sale.
Hop The Fence
Okay, no, I’m not giving much lip service to the people who actually run these sites. I don’t believe that these people are selfish jackholes trying to milk talent from writers in return for not paying them. Well, I’m sure some are (you occasionally come across a for-the-love we-don’t-pay-shit website that’s truly gorgeous and looks professionally crafted, which tells me they can afford to pay the goddamn writers), but you can tell that a lot of these people are doing it because they love it, not because it’s a business. No advertising. A crappy web-host. And so on and so forth.
And I’m not saying these are universally bad. Some sites are challenge driven or offer social networks of writers. Some offer peer review above attention and exposure. Those can be valuable, as it gets you in with other writers more than it does readers, and it helps you hone your craft. Good. Great. Like that.
If the site’s doing it for the love, isn’t that good enough?
Maybe. That’s a call you have to make.
For me, I dunno. See, I’m not doing this for the love. Love is one part of it, yes. I do love it. I love it dearly. But to be able to do it and do it well, I set the bar pretty high. That bar includes dollar signs. Not a lot of dollar signs, mind — I’m realistic enough to know that selling a short story isn’t going to pay my (notactuallyreal) kid’s way through college.
Further, let’s break my own rule and say you’re an artist. Let’s say I love art, and I set up a gallery — for the love — in my garage. I can’t afford much space or decor or even heat, but fuck it, I love love love me some art art art. So I open up “The Wendighaus Gallery Of Velvet Beauty” and I select artists to showcase their work, even though I can’t pay them.
Are they really getting a lot of traffic in my driveway? Is my garage earning them a look? In fact, aren’t the truly-talented artists finding real galleries to display their work? I’m probably getting a quality of art to hang that’s on par with “4-year-old draws giraffe with wings on top of what might be a house or might be a spaceship oh who the fuck really knows.”
Yes, I’m being harsh. Yes, I’m painting with a broad brush. No, not every “for the love” site is on equal footing.
It does mean you need to scrutinize. You need to measure things honestly and take an unpolluted look.
Because really, you’re in this for you. You have to be.
Do You Control The Source?
If you’re going to be exposed, then expose yourself.
I’ll wait for you kids in the back row to stop sniggering.
Yes, ha ha ha, MY PENIS. Get over it. It’s not that impressive. Just because it has a face and looks like Robert Plant from Led Zeppelin (and yet sings like Lady GaGa!) doesn’t mean I’m some kind of freakshow.
See, I hear what you’re saying. And you’re right. “But Chuck! Magic Talking Beardhead! Herr Doktor Wendig! Don’t you post things free to the web! What about Jet Pack? What about Shadowstories? What about this dumb-ass blog of yours?”
Touche, I say.
Except — psych! No touche! Suck it! *motions toward crotch*
Oof. Sorry. Got a little childish there.
See, outside of working with peer review or sites that challenge you or connect you with other writers, another way of “putting work out there for free” is by controlling it yourself. What that means for me is, I’m genuinely trying to build attention and exposure by directing it back toward me. Not someone else. Me. (Or, in the case of something like Jet Pack, me and two awesome-ass cohorts. In fact, may I refer you to The Distant Hindmarch’s “Dirty Model?” And no, the dirty model is not Kate Moss.)
Might I note that Do Some Damage is just the sort of author collective that I think has value? I like what I read there. I pay attention. I note names and ideas. They’re in it as peers, not as a “subject to submission” process.
If I put work elsewhere for free, I’m mostly directing work to someone else. Yes, it might come back to me, but it also might not. Remember how I said I read a few gems mixed in with the waves of trash? I don’t remember who wrote that stuff. I wish I did. But I don’t. I have a brain like a sieve. The Internet only makes that worse. The more clicks I have to make, the less likely I am to make those clicks or remember why I wanted to click in the first damn place. Internet-born ADHD takes over.
To go back to our “opening your own business” metaphor, that’s what this is — it’s investment in your own space, your own place. If I invest in someone else’s place, I’m basically cooking up awesome burgers or making awesome products that end up in someone else’s storefront. My name might be on them, but they may never get back to my place. And worse, I didn’t get paid dick in that situation.
You want to build your audience, not someone else’s.
Then Again…
Hey, the floor is long gone from the short story market. You won’t make what Hemingway made. Rates pay less now than what the pulps paid in the 1930s. Stephen King now probably doesn’t make what Stephen King 15 years ago made. You won’t get paid much from short story sales — a pittance, really. You might say, “Well, fuck it, I’ll just throw some shit at the wall and see if it sticks,” and that’s viable and I wouldn’t fault you for it. A “for the love” journal is a credit on your CV, though an astute editor or agent might note that “Jim Bob’s Unicorn Hut” is not really an esteemed journal. Further, I’d point out that the process of submitting to a Paying Journal and submitting to Jim Bob’s is likely the same effort, work-wise.
As such, do me a favor —
Aim high at first.
Try it. Go top down. Start with the pro markets. Try five of ’em.
They come back rejections, go semi-pro. Try another five.
That doesn’t work — well, fine. Try five “for the love” markets. Make sure first though that the reason you’re being rejected isn’t because the story needs work. It damn well might, which means that, if the “for the love” market accepts it, you might have a sub par story posted publicly.
But it is possible that the paying markets just didn’t have a taste for your work.
Do what you need to do and are most comfortable doing.
The Broad Brush Is Unmerciful And Also A Jerk
I get it. I’m being a bit of a jerk here.
But I’m trying to help you.
I’m trying to help you realize that You’re Awesome, and you should aim for Awesome.
I’m trying to tell you that you should be in control of your work.
I’m trying to say, “Don’t sell yourself short.”
No, not every site applies here. And who knows? An editor or agent might tell you differently. I’m not working off of fact, just opinion, and that opinion is: “What you do has value, so claim value for what you do.”
Of course, Harlan Ellison says it more directly:
“Pay the writer.”
January 5, 2010 @ 8:57 AM
One of the things that was pounded into my skull back at GameX, other than the sound of people playing Guitar Hero over a shitty PA system when I was trying to hear what Russ/Yahtzee/you were saying, was that if you want to make it as a writer who both writes and gets paid, you have to ‘chase the dragon’. You can’t just toss your words out into the Interwebs for all to see and hope somebody realizes your genius. You have to go after people. Tie them down and make them read your work. Eventually one of them will concede to paying you for what you write before the cops break down the door and you have to explain why the innocent person was restrained and weeping in your basement.
January 5, 2010 @ 11:11 AM
Right-o, Joshy.
Though, Christopher Simmons (strangeasangels!) points out that he ran a site called ELN, and I did post things there for free — however, I’d be clear in noting that the site was community-supported rather than a strict “literary submission” site. Because it was part of the game community, it had people who were a part of it that belonged to companies like, say, White Wolf. So, with a site like that, the signal-to-noise ratio is favorable towards more signal, less noise. Exposure there actually meant something.
A lot of the lit journals or e-zines are more noise, less signal. Yes, on the one hand, you don’t know who’s swinging by and reading your fiction. You might get lucky. But in that case, what does “lucky” mean? Contributing to ELN probably helped me cement my White Wolf freelancing, but there was an end goal there. Nobody’s going to hire you to write a novel off of a short story. So, might as well try to paid when doing so, especially if your work is of quality.
— c.
January 5, 2010 @ 11:14 AM
Word up, Eddy Webb.
It’s funny, I have this gut reaction away from the word “brand” when it comes to being a writer — it sounds super-corporate, and yet, it’s absolutely on point.
— c.
January 5, 2010 @ 11:26 AM
Oh, holy crap. And the porno crowd goes wiiiild!
— c.
January 5, 2010 @ 11:07 AM
Writing for yourself for free (like Shadowstories or Whitechapel) is the equivalent of marketing your “brand” as a writer — instead of paying for your marketing with money, you’re paying for it with your time. So, naturally, you want to keep your marketing of your brand under your control.
January 5, 2010 @ 11:19 AM
I admit, I learned a lot when Michelle worked in Marketing at P&G. Yeah, it all sounds corporate, but it’s language that works. (Plus, I find it’s a bit of an advantage — it helps to speak to other business people and shows that you actually know what the fuck you’re talking about professionally.)
But yeah, sometimes it seems completely at odds with sitting in front of a laptop talking to yourself and making imaginary people conform to your whim.
January 5, 2010 @ 11:25 AM
If you didn’t post Mr. Ellison’s (can I say?) anecdote, I was going to.
January 5, 2010 @ 11:25 AM
Will:
WE ARE BRAIN BROTHERS.
Or something.
— c.
January 5, 2010 @ 11:32 AM
Thanks for continuing the discussion.
One question: Doesn’t publishing widely help to build community? You’ve touched on this, but if your story appears on some top “for the love” sites, well, maybe it brings readers back to your site, if they remember who you are. But maybe it also brings other writers to you, other folks to review your piers (or whatever you were talking about up there)?
I can see how a site could take advantage of the situation, though. Writers send in their stories and the Web site owner sells ads for the site. User-generated content. You get people to provide all the content and you make a killing. Facebook
January 5, 2010 @ 11:37 AM
*If* the site is a community-driven or community-focused site, sure. But most of those don’t seem to be the “we’re a literary journal, please submit” kind of gig. They’re not publishing opportunities as much as they are community-building opportunities.
Even out of paying sites, I haven’t found that fiction was really what brought people to me. Instead, I bring people to me via blog and other resources, and then redirect to fiction (if that makes sense; this blog is like a drunken, vomit-lacquered traffic cop). And most “for the love” sites don’t give off a sense of community, of people interacting.
Further, a few that do are actually a little self-damaging. It’s a lot of people congratulating each other on their work without offering it up for genuine peer review. At Jet Pack, we strive to speak fondly of one another’s work while also remaining critical — not to be assholes, but to overall improve the quality of the end product.
— c.
January 5, 2010 @ 11:51 AM
Art is also craft, and anyone who wants to dispute that can face my X-acto knife and acid-edged words about the fussiness of Color Aid and acrylic paint. It’s never something you slap together and call art (unless you’re someone named Marcel Duchamp) — it takes time and effort and craft and practice if you’re going to be a professional artist. Otherwise, you’re a hobbyist. Brutal, maybe, but true. So don’t listen to the snobby cunts who whine about “selling out” when it comes to art or writing: these are the people who are living parasitically off of others because they can’t be assed to do something properly and get PAID for it.
January 5, 2010 @ 11:52 AM
Word up, Elissa. Preach!
🙂
— c.
January 5, 2010 @ 12:00 PM
First off, a sad note: A wonderful newer writer, Jim Hines, posted his income stats for the past few years. Seeing that he’s sold five novels, at least two of which are very, very good, it hurts me as a writer. He deserves so much more: http://jimhines.livejournal.com/484130.html
Second off, you’re absolutely correct. Writing for free is sad. I’ve heard a lot of requests for writing, and even editing, for free. My father-in-law (a professional musician) has a wonderful story where he was asked a caterer if he was being paid, when the hosts of a party mentioned the possibility of not paying the musicians.
Frankly, I think someone that doesn’t see why writing is a quantifiable resource that takes an investment of time is someone I don’t really want to work with. Now, if the publishers aren’t being paid, and the whole staff is volunteer, then I don’t have a problem with it. I probably won’t work for it, but I respect their decision. If someone on the staff’s getting paid, bullshit, they can pay the writers, and not doing so shows me their opinion of writing in general.
Although there are exceptions, like charity, where I’ll do work for free even outside of writing. But that’s my benchmark. If I’d do sales or marketing consultation for free on the project, I’d write for free.
January 5, 2010 @ 12:13 PM
Believe it or not, Hines’ report isn’t wholly depressing. It’s not super-cheery, but it’s better than, “This year, I was in the hole.” Making that kind of money isn’t bad, especially if you’re supplementing it (preferably with further writing work, but that’s just me).
— c.
January 5, 2010 @ 12:02 PM
Another exception: Friends helping friends. I’d help a friend replace their floor if they wanted it. I’d help them move their shit. If a friend asked, I’d give them a little writing, so long as they recognized the blood and sweat that went into it. I’m that kind of guy.
(Shit. I’m starting to sound like I write all the time or get paid for it or something.)
January 5, 2010 @ 12:18 PM
There’s so much to talk about here. You’ve done a geat job with this post.
I just want to add that I think we need to start questioning what is “free” and what should be.
Right now the internet is kind of like the gold rush – the only people making money are the ones selling picks and axes and jeans.
When I go online to read these stories lots of people make money – the internet providor makes a profit, the company I bought the computer from makes a profit and Google makes money but the people responsible for what I’m using all that stuff for don’t make anything (editors of e-zines work pretty hard, too, it’s not just writers).
There may be all kinds of models to deal with this. I just feel that we’re already paying to read the stories, we’re just not paying everyone involved.
January 5, 2010 @ 12:22 PM
John:
Thanks for coming by!
“Free” is definitely a discussion worth having. Part of the problem with the Internet is that people are assuming it represents a new model. As yet, it doesn’t — most of the zines and journals are just as they’ve always been, only given a website. The advantages of the Internet haven’t been brought to the table in many of these places (though, I’d note that Do Some Damage *does* utilize what’s great about the connectedness, and serves a positive example), and no community is being fostered. They’re using old models, calling them new, and working with the “information wants to be free!” model without examining what that really means.
Certainly editors of the zines work hard; I’m with you on that. Ideally, they would seek models by which they too got paid for their effort. Without that into the equation, the bar gets lowered. And when the bar gets lowered, when everybody rushes the playing field, the overall reduction in quality and craft only makes it harder to find the signal through the noise. For audiences and for other writers.
— c.
January 5, 2010 @ 12:19 PM
You’re absolutely correct. I wouldn’t say it’s wholly depressing. But it saddens me that he and many people like him can’t afford to write full-time.
January 5, 2010 @ 12:25 PM
Well — Hines could probably afford to write full-time, he just couldn’t write his novels full-time. That’s the sticky wicket, and a tough choice, but a choice nonetheless. I write full-time by writing broadly. That’s not the right way to do it or the wrong way, it’s just *a* way of writing full-time.
The shame is that a novelist will have a hard time writing as his only career — but it takes time to build up to that, I think. Outside of 2009’s blip on his graph (and 2009 is a blip on *everybody’s* graph), he’s showing a gain overall, which could be a trend for him.
— c.
January 5, 2010 @ 3:42 PM
On novel writing vs. other kinds of writing, I’ve recently been thinking about it in terms of scrum story points (because, working for a company that develops software, I’m learning all sorts of neat things about scrum, and it has the word “story” in it). Obligatory link:
http://agilefaq.net/2007/11/13/what-is-a-story-point/
A novel is, say, 16 points — the highest level of complexity. Writing a blog post or a short article with minimal research is 1.
I’d be curious to see how many full-time freelance writers do lots and lots and lots of 1 or 2-point projects vs. one or two big 16-point projects, and how they get paid accordingly.
(If I were to go back to full-time freelancing, I’d probably do a spread — one 16-point project, a couple 8-point projects, a handful of 4-point projects, and so on all the way down.)
January 5, 2010 @ 4:56 PM
Please stop reading my brain please?
While I wouldn’t say, post a for free a short story nor novel I intended to publish, I think you’re spot on about controlling stuff you were thinking of giving away for free anyhow.
Branding, it’s totally about branding.
I started seriously considering serializing a novel I have and love and don’t care to get published up on my blog. It’s good and a lot of fun but I don’t feel any real need to make money on it. (That said, I’ll put up a donation button with it because … that’s what you do right? Ask for money when you give out free stuff?)
This is all making me think that’s not as crazy an idea as it was last night an four in the morning.
I, like Ellison, do not take a piss without getting paid… But the UTIs are getting a little hard to manage.
January 5, 2010 @ 8:25 PM
Heh. UTIs. Yeah.
As for serializing the novel — do it. My only advice is, make sure it’s something you definitely don’t want to sell or think is worth only for the audience-building awesome effect.
— c.
January 6, 2010 @ 2:05 AM
Hell no I don’t write for free. Unless you count stuff I hope to sell, but I don’t think you do. I’ve even turned down jobs that wanted to pay me a pittance. I have some definite ideas about my own worth. 😀
January 6, 2010 @ 7:59 AM
High-five, Newman.
TERRIBLEMINDS: Chuck Wendig, Freelance Penmonkey » Blog Archive » “The Future of the Blog: Robots Win,” by Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
January 24, 2010 @ 12:04 AM
[…] But like Chuck said, “If you’re going to be exposed, then expose yourself.” […]
March 4, 2010 @ 12:25 PM
I have to admit, I thought about the free route before but you are the second person that told me to aim high. So there, I’m swinging for the fence
March 4, 2010 @ 12:36 PM
Liss —
Glad to hear it. Go big or go home, right?
— c.
Exposing Yourself: Do You Write For Free? « Creative Chocolate
March 6, 2010 @ 12:10 PM
[…] Exposing Yourself: Do You Write For Free? Exposing Yourself: Do You Write For Free?. […]
April 12, 2010 @ 3:02 PM
Continuing Twitterversation:
Steve asks — “I don’t disagree with your point that writing has value. I’m just asking where the revenue comes from.” And adds: “Should you not start a fiction collection until you can monetize it?”
Now, I’ll get a little passionate about this, because I while I talk a big game about a lot of things, one thing that I’m genuinely passionate about is: Pay The Writer.
I didn’t write for free when I was *18* — much less now, when I’m (almost) 34.
To respond to Steve:
If I do a service for someone, I do not care how they obtained the money to pay me. And I suspect they won’t tell me. It’s not my problem. I perform a service; I should be paid.
Should one start a fiction collection without figuring out how to monetize it? I dunno. I’m not starting a fiction collection. Especially one, in print, that people have to pay for. It’s not the burden of the writer to do that. That’s on the burden of the editor that creates the magazine. I don’t care if it’s monetized or not. I only care that the role of Writer gains the respect it deserves as a profession, not as some namby-pamby arts-and-crafts bullshit. You want to know why it’s hard to make a living as a writer? Because too few people are willing to offer the writer *value* for what the writer does.
Pay the writer.
— c.
April 12, 2010 @ 3:03 PM
Does all payment have to be in monies? Discuss.
April 12, 2010 @ 3:08 PM
@Will:
Usually. Not always. My post here tries to make clear what counts as value.
But in this capitalist society where I have to do things like Pay A Mortgage and Buy Food, then money is the #1 ichiban way of obtaining value. I mean, I guess if someone says, “I’ll give you my HDTV if you write me a story,” I’m in it to win it. Someone says they’ll mow my lawn for some flash fiction, fuck it, I’m down.
Otherwise, pay the writer. Y’know, in money.
Like you do with, ohhhh, other jobs and careers.
— c.
April 12, 2010 @ 3:12 PM
Great Scalzi pages, cross-ref’ed from Andrea Phillips:
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2009/12/01/in-the-spirit-of-the-pulps-and-paying-even-less/
And
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2009/12/04/my-short-fiction-rates/
— c.
April 12, 2010 @ 3:12 PM
“Should one start a fiction collection without figuring out how to monetize it?”
The “fiction collection” has no value. It’s an empty box. It’s nothing. The fiction in the collection has value. Pay the writer.
April 12, 2010 @ 3:12 PM
Word, Jim.
April 12, 2010 @ 3:15 PM
Interesting discussion.
Writers should be paid. But as i’ve said before, the world is changing and we need to change with it.
Yes i’ll write for money. I’ll also write for free. The common link is that i write.
There is craft to writing. Just as there is craft to painting, sculpting, filmmaking, acting and making that perfect strawberry milkshake.
But it aint building a chair. Thats the minmum requirement. A chair maker AT MINIMUM should be able to make a chair. Thats the craftsman. A great chair maker, an artisan, can make something special.
A writer AT MINIMUM should know the craft. Cause and effect. internal logic. Conflict and (hopefully very little) resolution. But a great writer is an artist.
Me? I aim as high as i can, but i’m no fool. I’m simply getting better at the basic requirements. I’m learning how to put in the foundations and lay a floor. Jim Dodge? That dudes an artist.
SHOULD he get paid? Yes. Does that effect his art or wether or not he’s a writer? Not a jot.
(like how i said ‘jot’ there to stick with the theme? I’m talented, me)
I guess maybe it comes down to why a person writes. There are as many different reasons for a writer to write as there are for a singer to sing. None of them need be any better or worse than another. For me, and this might just be me, i write for myself. I want to write. It’s what i do. I want to get paid for it, sure, but i won’t stop just because thats not happening right now.
Quick aside before i end.this.damn.essay;
You ask the question ‘would you work at mcdonalds a week for free’. Nope. But those are just extremes for me. I’ve worked millions of hours (authors licence) a week in jobs that i hate to pay the biils. I’ve also volunteered by time at work that i’ve loved. I’ve exhausted myself doing unpaid youth work, teaching, filmmaking and even extra hours in an old zoo job because i found them rewarding. They bettered me in some way.
I find ways to pay the bills so that i can keep doing the things i love doing. I don’t do the things i love to pay the bills. If that makes any kind of sense?
April 12, 2010 @ 3:21 PM
Jay:
I agree that art and commerce needn’t be linked.
I don’t agree that the writer should write for free — okay, yes, certain circumstances soften that, like if you’re in control of it, or if you’re getting “paid” in some other way (genuine, honest-to-god exposure), or if you’re doing it as a favor for a friend, fine. Okay.
But those circumstances are rare.
What happens is, a boatload of amateurs are willing to write for free. They assign writing the same value as, say, flying a kite. I do the latter for amusement, hence, my writing is done for the same.
Hey, fuck that. There are professional writers who think that’s watering down the entire thing. You know all those classic authors we love? Hemingway? Joyce? Yeah, they got paid. Dickens got paid. Lovecraft got paid.
People are less and less willing to pay writers because — hey! Surprise, more and more writers are willing to work for naught but a lick of ballsweat. Further, this reduces the overall quality.
People always treat “writing” like it’s some precious little thing. It’s not. It’s my job. It’s my work. And I’m not the only one. I know a lot of people who are able to eat *only* because they find people willing to pay them.
So, writers should be paid.
This is especially true if you’re *charging money for a magazine* — it costs people $$ to buy it, and so it should cost the magazine creators $$ to populate that magazine.
— c.
April 12, 2010 @ 3:25 PM
Let me reframe it, especially to those authors who are members of Team Decker.
You are members of Team Decker because you have novels, right?
Novels you want published?
What is your aim with those, exactly? To get paid? Or is it simply the joy of publication? Let’s be honest; the publisher may not make *any money* at all on your work. So, clearly, they shouldn’t pay you, right? Isn’t it enough to have the book on shelves? Hey! It’s great exposure. It’s on shelves. You might get more work out of it. Someone might pay you to go on a speaking engagement.
So, if you agree — you’re comfortable with the writer not being paid — then go. Offer your novel for free. Hell, pay to self-publish! It’s all the rage, I hear. Good exposure, that.
You do what you like. Me, my writing takes time. It takes effort. It takes resources. You talk to more pro writers, they’ll tell you the same. They don’t dance for free, fellas.
— c.
April 12, 2010 @ 3:16 PM
Jim,
That’s exactly right, and exactly what boggles me about these sorts of discussions. The writer is the only part of this process that is *absolutely essential*. If you* don’t edit, don’t professionally typeset, or any of that, the magazine won’t look good, but it’ll still exist. If you don’t print, you can still publish electronically. But if you don’t have stories, you don’t have a magazine. The authors should be the *first* people you pay, not the last, and the *last* people you try to make work for free.
*(This is the “general you,” not you specifically, obviously.)
It’s really the equivalent of trying to build a house by paying the people who install the sinks and the carpeting, but not the actual carpenters and bricklayers.
April 12, 2010 @ 3:31 PM
Ari:
Word up.
It’s always assumed that, “Well, we’re just starting, we don’t have the funds” is an excuse. It’s not. Either don’t start the project, or figure out a way to pay the writers. David Hill is rocking his own RPG, Maschine Zeit, and it’s a small budget indie affair. And you know what he did?
He paid me for my writing.
Whoa! Holy shit.
It’s funny — the game industry, so often thought to be sort of backwards, is actually ahead of the curve in terms of fiction writing when it comes time to pay the writers.
Not a bad time to mention, actually, that Machine Age Productions has a new site: http://machineageproductions.com/
— c.
April 12, 2010 @ 3:36 PM
Please don’t let word get out that game companies pay writers, man. It totally blows the image.
April 12, 2010 @ 3:40 PM
Jim: Heh.
April 12, 2010 @ 4:05 PM
@Chcukycheese
(thats some american thing, right?)
Thorny and interesting issues to be sure. And i’m not in total disagreement with you, theres a large part of me that agree’s and see’s what you’re saying. Its just not all of me. I’m like Germany in the 80’s, and that wall aint come down.
On the whole ‘should writers write for free’, it simply comes down to a different point of view maybe. Neither one wrong. I’ve been a writer ever since whenever. Rarely a paid one, but the payment is an afterthought. Money is an inconvenience to me. Its what i need to pay bills but, again, it’s not linked to who i am or what i do anymore than it has to be.
All of those great writers got paid. Many more great writers didn’t. Many died unapreciated, or starving, or lost. Their work stands tall and they get a new audience a year later, ten twenty…maybe that sounds over worthy but, i worship the written language as maybe only someone who struggles with it can. I see the art in it, and the business is an afterthought.
IAnd even in the best cases, those authors were working in a different world. The world is changing. The world is changed. Musicians are ahead of us. Filmmakers are behind us. We move or die.
I dont think that people writing for free on the net is the reason that less people are willing to pay for it. Its simply change. The delivery is changing, the value of information is changing. I won’t go naming people who aren’t in on the conversation, it wouldn’t be fair, but some of the best crime writers around today -respected authors with proven material- are out of contract and trying to find ways to break back through. It aint because their materials bad, and it aint because some other guy is writing lesser material for free.
I mean, is Springsteen struggling to turn a buck or get a message across because there are guys busking for free on street corners? Nope. No watering down by availability there. And some of those buskers happen to be amazing, doing it for free because they love doing it.
I’m a realist, which simply means i have to balance doing what i love (writing, and it IS precious) with things that can pay the bills. I’m not going to eat only because people will pay me to write, because then i wouldn’t always eat.
Totally agree writing takes time. I pull my hair out. I write and rewrite. And i also now that what i REALLY want to write, the stories i want to tell, are not mass audience items. I want them out there, and i want them in print, but i’m not going to be a blockbuster.
Its precisely because writing takes so much time and effort that i’m happy with that. I’m not going to spend so much time, energy and passion on something i don’t want to write. I want my stories to be in print in whatever the current working model of the industry is, be that novels right now or ebooks over the coming years.
But the chicken and the egg from where i sit is; I’m a writer and i love doing it. Its what i’m best at. I’d like to get paid for it. But i don’t do it to get paid.
April 12, 2010 @ 4:15 PM
String:
Chucky Cheese is as American as a heart attack. Which is probably what will happen to all the kids who play at Chucky Cheese.
Listen, I have no math that supports how “authors working for free” waters down the industry. It may not. Part of why it doesn’t is, for the most part, Writers Of Quality are not willing to write for free. (Again, opinion — I have zero evidence! I’m just making shit up.) And I’d encourage said writers to continue to exhort getting paid. Because, if they can find a place who will pay them nothing for their story, I’ll bet they can find someone to pay them Something for their story. I’d bet.
The other side of it is, it’s somewhat unethical for a journal to want to publish people’s work for free.
Remember that thing in November? Where Harlequin Romance basically wanted to get writers to kind of “pay in” to get published? And how the Romance Writers Association came out against it?
There’s a reason for that: writers have fought to get paid. We’re still fighting to get paid. We’re fighting to make this seem like an industry and an outlet that is more than just creative piffle — “Oh, I love writing so much, and I just want to be published, even at the cost of my own time!”
No! No, no, no! The pro authors are fighting to feed their goddamn kids, and everybody else is willing to pay into the idea that writer is subservient.
Bullshit! The writer is offering a product, man. Own it. Own the value of that. Be impressed with yourself. Be aware that the writing of a story — of a quality story — is deserving of praise, attention, and money. Don’t be a whipping boy. Too many writers are willing to take it up the ass.
Writing is awesome.
Writing is something I love.
Which is how I know it deserves to be treated like a right proper profession, not a throwaway endeavor where the writer is the leastmost creature on the ladder.
You love writing? You truly love it? Then give proper to the writers, both yourself and everybody else.
Pay the writer.
— c.
April 12, 2010 @ 4:35 PM
@Chucky the murderous possessed toy
(okay that ones a stretch on chuck references, but it was either that or chuck dixon…)
Again, i’m not in total disagreement with what you say.
Ideal world, i get paid for everything i do.
real world, i gotta pay my dues to get paid, especially in the current market when great writers are out of contract and i’m not a great writer.
and in my world, i just don’t see my writing as a product. Not that i think you or anyone else is wrong to. And not that i don’t need people around me who can see my work that way. Team Decker is a great support network for this, for every one of me who has no interest in business or “product”, theres someone else to keep me on my toes and remind me that business also needs to be considered.
Yin and yang. Wax on, wax…something.
April 12, 2010 @ 7:23 PM
In theory, man, I’m right with you. But in practice there are a few problems. First, Some of the best stories I’ ve written so far don’t have a paying market available that will publish them. In crime fiction we’ve got the two big mainstream mystery mags and then a handful of small zines that pay squat. And believe it or not, the places that pay are inferior to the top two crime zines Plots with Guns and Thuglit. But publishing in those places led to reprint deals that made me some cash, and led to exposure which led to more opportunities to write stories for money. But the fact remains, if you write hardboiled dark crime fiction there are no paying markets and I refuse to stop writing the stories I like just because there’s no way to get paid for them. Like Jay said, it’s part of my dues and it’s helping me fine tune the voice in my novels.
One thing that’s looked over is the long history of giving art for free as an apprenticeship. Literary writers routinely have several publications in small journals that, while very respectable, don;t pay anything. Same with playwrights. If there are paying markets for what you write, yeah, start there. But if not, write what you want and find a good place with good design and high quality work.
April 12, 2010 @ 7:52 PM
@Bryon:
Certainly good points, and cogently stated. 🙂
I’d offer a few comments — not disagreements, but qualifications, maybe?
Plots With Guns (which is always a great read) at least offers the writer a drink. I mean, it’s a joke, but you don’t want to feel like they’re doing you a favor, y’know? Plus, it and Thuglit don’t cost the readers anything. I don’t have to buy in to read it, and so the writers know that no money is exchanging hands either way.
(That said, I could’ve sworn there existed more than two crime fiction outlets out there that paid. Maybe many have folded since last I looked.)
I guess the shame of it is, from my perspective, Needle had the chance to come out of the gate and do something different. By rocketing out of the gate with what appears to be a truly gorgeous magazine and with truly potent talent attached, it’s a little disheartening to see their submission guidelines boil down to, “Payment is the honor of being published alongside great writers.” I guess. To me, payment is payment. With the monetization and revenue models afforded to the Internet in this modern age (offering the writers a slice of profits at the back-end, Kickstarter models, offering ePub in addition to print to create deeper revenue, etc.), it feels like a hamstrung effort from the get-go. With such a high volume of talent attached, it seems like it’s a great time to get together and say, “Fuck it, let’s band together and claim value for what we do.”
I mean, hey, listen, if this works for you, so be it. If it works for others, so be it. It may work great for Needle and all its participants. But just because it’s a system in place doesn’t mean it’s a system I like. I don’t think it counts as the same thing as an apprenticeship, either. Further, I don’t think an apprenticeship was ever a relationship that was fair for the apprentice, and so that’s why you see that model flagging. I’m not angry at anybody over it, but I also don’t agree, y’know?
— c.
Oops, I Think I Upset Some People
April 13, 2010 @ 7:24 AM
[…] there’s a lot of chatter both here at terribleminds and over at the Needle Mag […]
April 13, 2010 @ 2:24 PM
Hi Chuck,
Long time lurker, first time caller. GOOD ON YOU! The masses need to hear these things. As a graphic designer I’m right there with you. The calls for free work from artists have echoed for a long time in our halls and have gotten louder in the age of the internet and in my case Photoshop. I mainly wanted to leave this link: http://www.no-spec.com/archives/i-wish-i-had-written-this/ It’s something that has been passed around my community for the last couple of years and has been one of our rallying points. I hope for the same with your post.
April 13, 2010 @ 2:25 PM
Craig!
It’s great to see you here, my good sir. Great link, and that’s worth pasting around the Twitters, too.
Rock on. I imagine artists and Photoshoppers and web-designers long must endure calls to provide free work.
— c.
April 13, 2010 @ 11:34 PM
Hey Wendig,
I’ve got a couple of longish comments, as a writer and as a publisher. They’re both coming from the same place – ie I think you’re absolutely right on this – but if that was all I was gonna say you could just write my comments for me. Which, you know, would be a lot funnier if nothing else.
Anyway, writer’s comment first.
I’m in the same boat – I won’t write for free, and I think writers who do write for free devalue their own work (although not mine, because I’m just that awesome). I get passion and love of writing – well, okay, I don’t really get it, because I’m lazy and mercenary, but I acknowledge these things are true for other, finer people than myself. For me, writing is work, it’s time and effort, and most of all it’s not something I enjoy all that much when compared to the simple pleasures of getting drunk and playing Rock Band, so I need that incentive of a payment at the end of it. I don’t write for free.
…but that’s not actually true, when you think about it a bit. Not true for me, and I daresay not true for a lot of the people saying the same thing. Because the vast bulk of the time, we write a story/story/poem/whatever without the promise of payment at the time. We write it on spec because we have the idea and want to get it down into a form where we _could_ be paid for it, but we’re probably _not_ writing to a commission or the definite promise of payment for services rendered.
(Although some of us are, or used to be. And I think that makes an impact on your attitude towards why you write and what you expect in return. I can’t speak for you, Chuck, but my time freelancing for White Wolf pushed me even further from writing for love and to the expectation that I should _always_ look to make scratch from my work. Perhaps writers who don’t dip their toe into the world of contracts and deadlines don’t have that same pressure on their convictions.)
Anyway, we almost always write for free.
So what we’re talking about, 9 times out of 10, is not _publishing_ for free. About not taking that story that you worked on because you thought it was worth the effort and time and then giving it out to the wide world under someone else’s direction with nothing in return except a namecheck and good vibes. (And apparently ‘honour’, in some cases.)
And given that the work is already done, the desire is already sated, the time and effort already went into the story with no promise of return… then yeah, okay, I can see how some writers may feel that they’ve done what they set out to do, and that they don’t need to care so strongly about payment. Because they didn’t do the writing – what they see as the actual work – for money, so why care about getting anything for the publishing, which is maybe just an afterthought? Well, okay, probably not an afterthought, but a whole different activity.
The difference to me, and I’m guessing to you and a lot of these other folks, is that I don’t see getting a story published as a separate activity to writing it. These are two sub-branches of the same activity – being a successful writer. So is marketing yourself, networking, creating an online presence, scamming speaking engagements, begging for pocket change and assassinating the character of other writers on your blog. It’s all part of the whole. And okay, the part where you actually write something is the most important part – unless you’re me, who is so goddamn lazy and easily distracted it’s taken me a year to write 3 chapters of this fucking novel – but it’s _not_ the only part.
But if you think it is, then you’re maybe not going to care so much about getting paid for what you already did. And you’re maybe going to be okay giving that stuff away, because the alternative is having it sit unread on your hard drive forever. And you can maybe hope that the free story does the work of establishing your presence and rep for you, because you don’t see that as being something _you_ do for yourself.
The real alternative, as far as I’m concerned, should be revising your self-opinion so that you see yourself as _already_ a writer, rather than someone trying to _become_ a writer. Fuck paying your dues, whatever the hell that means. If you’re serious about writing, be a writer, and own the full process of writing; control your brand, get your work out there, and get paid for it. Get paid for being a writer, even if no-one actually paid you while you were writing, because what comes after writing is important too.
If you don’t care about getting paid, that’s your prerogative, but you’re not thinking of yourself as a writer yet. Change that shit up. Because if it’s good, it’s worth getting paid for.
—
Patrick
April 14, 2010 @ 8:19 AM
@Patrick:
You speak mighty wisdom, and it’s something that hadn’t occurred to me before: the romantic notion of “writer” as “person who writes” is a fallacy (I think my agent prefers the term “author” to remove the verb action from the term), and it comprises so much more than that. But some people think their job ends when they write “the end” on the page.
— c.
April 14, 2010 @ 1:31 AM
…christ, that last comment was big enough to kill a man if you hit him in the face with it.
I gotta work on being less verbose. Especially when commenting while at work.
—
Patrick
April 14, 2010 @ 9:09 AM
Okay, now to chip as a publisher. Generally, when not whining about how I can’t be bothered to write but still want to be considered an author, I edit and publish high school textbooks. This year, though, I’m branching out by publishing two anthologies of short fiction, which are coming along just swimmingly, thanks for asking.
Two things occur to me.
First, I get that publishing is complex work. I get that margins are usually razor thin, if they exist at all. I get that everything takes more time and money and energy than you expected, and a dozen times more than that if you don’t have the resources of a big multi-national company behind you. I get that the publishers of small-press journals and indie mags are doing it for love and passion and probably lose money every issue.
You still need to pay the writers. Okay, fine, let’s broaden that – you need to make it work their time and effort. Money is usually the best way, but maybe there are options like professional services and credit from sponsors. Shit, get them drunk on your dime. That works for me. Exposure isn’t enough, because they can get exposure elsewhere, and maybe control that exposure better. You need to offer something _concrete_.
Chuck already weighed in on how there are ways to find funding and capital for a project, and I don’t think I need to add to that. In the end, it’s the publisher’s responsibility to find ways to pay for what s/he uses. You found the money to get the magazine printed. You found the time to negotiate with your distributor. You found the energy to organize this whole thing. Go back to those resources and put them towards the individuals to whom you have the most responsibility – the writers who are putting their work in your care.
—
And second, I want to echo what Chuck and others have said about writers controlling their ‘brand’ and managing their own exposure. Because from a publishing point of view, that works better than giving your stories away for someone else to promote.
When tracking down stories for the two anthologies I’m currently publishing, I found it a metric shittonne easier to find stories that were published and promoted by their author rather than a small-press publisher. If I do a search on subject matter, or style, or country of origin, I’ll find many short stories online. If those stories are on the author’s own site, it’s easy for me to read them, easy for me to contact the author, easy to arrange rights.
If they’re on a small-press site or in a hardcopy zine, however, it can be harder to actually dig down to the content, harder to work out where the rights lie, hard to get hold of the author. If the press goes defunct, the stories vanish from the site; if they’re printed in hardcopy, and I somehow manage to find a copy of the journal and want to follow up, I’m stymied because the emails bounce. If the press is still kicking, great, but can they get me in touch with the author? Or has that author moved house and changed email address, but not bothered to tell the press because hey, it’s not like any money was going to come from that source, so it just fell off the radar.
These are not hypotheticals. These are not issues confined to online publishing. And true, they’re not issues confined to small presses and no-payment publications; they happen with the big boys too, which is why we have to hire permissions editors to just chase up rights all day.
But the point is that authors need to retain responsibility for their stories, and they need to maintain a thread of connection to stories so that follow-up sales and publications become viable. That’s easy to do if you keep control of your stories at all times, self-publishing or releasing them into the wild yourself. It’s reasonably easy if you’re published by someone who pays you, keeps records and invoices, and gives you solid financial reasons to maintain that connection to a given piece and platform. It’s a lot trickier if you just give your shit away.
When you sell stories, you take yourself more seriously, and your publisher takes you more seriously. That’s the minumum buy-in; it’s the same reason you take poker more seriously playing 10 cents a chip than for matchsticks. That extra stake pushes everyone involved to bring their A-game to the table, and the end result is better for the writer, the publisher, and any other publishers waiting at the next table to deal themselves in.
—
Patrick
April 14, 2010 @ 9:14 AM
Man, I gotta get succinct here.
One last thing. I think ‘exposure’ is overrated. Publishers might look for stories in a whole pile of places, from new zines to old books to Google (and it’s Google first most of the time, trust me). What they find (how good the story is) is going to be a lot more important than where they find it. The notion that no-one will consider picking up a story that hasn’t seen ‘respectable’ publication elswhere is old and increasingly shaky; a good story easily found on your personal site carries the same weight as one in a small-press journal or even a big-name magazine; shit, a less-exposed story may be more attractive to a publisher that wants to re-release it, because there’s less risk the new audience has seen it.
Insofar as exposure matters, it matters in creating a presence and a name for yourself so that when you do start approaching bigger-name publishers, they recognise you and bump you up the slush pile, or even come to you with offers. Nice in theory, iffy in practice, because there will always be other stories and other authors, and once you get past the big names, the slush pile and even the midlist are full of people with a bit of exposure, and with the best intentions from the publisher they all meld into a stew of vaguely remembered names and titles.
What’s better than exposure? Good writing and focused, careful publication efforts that put your stories and your name in the right places at the right time. Exposure is a broad brush. You need to be a fine brush. You need to be a laser pointer. You need to work at it.
And if you’re going to work at it, you should get paid for it.
—
Patrick
April 14, 2010 @ 9:16 AM
Man, Patrick, these are so good — especially the “realities from the publisher” angle — that you should post them on your own LJ. Or everywhere. Hack CNN. Post it there.
April 14, 2010 @ 5:11 PM
Chuck:
Hmm. Yeah, I might just do that.
—
Patrick
August 10, 2010 @ 2:01 PM
Chuck, thanks for this very amusing and very cogent article. I, too, am fed up with the “free” thinkers. The Internet has created the culture of free, in many ways, and for someone who has spent years getting degrees and writing, it’s very disheartening. I started my blog just for that reason: if I was going to write for free, it would be to promote myself. This has worked because I’m a wonderful writer and reached out to other professionals that I respect. Because of my blog writing, I have gotten some paying gigs and am building on that now. I also self-published my literary novel this year, and therefore had a built-in platform to let people know about it (besides the other websites, Facebook, etc.)
But what galls me more than sources that want free content, is a mentality that has pervaded our culture at large, in which people feel entitled to ask others to work for free. Isn’t there a law against slavery? In my day job life, I have a freelance PR business and work with independent filmmakers and creative types. You won’t believe how many time people who need PR have asked me to work for free—for the exposure. Seriously.
If I want exposure, I’ll go down to Malibu and lie on the beach. I’m with you: I want a paycheck.
November 26, 2011 @ 2:10 AM
This is definitely something I think about often.
I don’t go around proclaiming to be a writer. Usually, what I tell people is that I want to write for a living. Right now, I write for fun and for practice – I write a lot of fanfiction, which is not publishable for profit. Actually, I started out writing original stuff, and went to fanfiction to polish my craft. At 18, the novel idea I had was much too big for my ability.
Here’s what I’ve found in my six years of writing fanfiction – writing fanfiction, in and of itself, makes me something of a writer. It does not, however, make me an author, or a professional, neither of which I claim to be. (I typically don’t claim to be a writer outside of fanfiction circles, either.) I have found that writing fanfiction in and of itself has a value to me, but not the value I actually want as an aspiring author. I love it and will probably always do it – it’s a very different beast than trying to publish original pieces.
I’ve learned a lot from writing fanfiction. Technical stuff, as well as overall plot crafting. I’ve also learned quite a bit about what makes a story good – I’ve seen a lot of fanfiction that is better than some of the published novels out there. And that’s great, if that’s what they want to do. But, as much as I greatly enjoy myself when I write fanfiction, I am not quite satisfied.
I started writing fanfiction because I was afraid I wasn’t good enough to publish. That’s really what it boils down to – I figured I could hone my craft without feeling bad about never being published. But the thing is, I never even tried. As a fanfiction writer, I’ve won contests and have a following of 200-300 people. And yet still, I haven’t tried to publish. Fear is a ridiculous beast. I thought, hey, I won, but it was only a fanfiction contest. But then, what about those people who I’d declared better than most of the published novels on the shelf? And I think about how it’s hard to get published, and there are a million people out there who are probably better writers than I am, right? …But look at some of the shit on the shelf. (Twilight, anyone?) Plenty of people have been published without being the best of the best. So is it luck, I ask? Because, damn, I’m not really all that lucky.
It’s circular thinking at best. I know that I know how to write. I know that people are interested in my original ideas, not just my fanfiction. What the hell is holding me back?
I don’t plan to stop writing fanfiction. But I do plan to actually take to steps to get published. Because, damn it, if I don’t start trying now, when will I? I’m 27 and a hundred times the writer I was at 18. Maybe in another ten years, I’ll be a thousand times better. But if I’m always waiting to get better, I’ll never actually start.
So… guess it’s time to give it a go. Because damn it, what I write IS worth something. Time to try to cash in on that.
May 4, 2018 @ 11:17 AM
Hey Alisha, just spotted your comment here. I totally agree that fanfic is great practice for the craft, and also mildly (!) addictive for the reads and follows and lovely feedback.I hope you get (or have already got) the courage to share your non fanfic work with the world.( here).
On Trying to be a Sellout | Dumb Stupid Fake Stories
December 10, 2015 @ 9:36 AM
[…] Mr. Wending absolutely nails it in a post entitled “Exposing Yourself” (author’s note: not in the sort of way that involves a zipper and a restraining […]
May 4, 2018 @ 11:15 AM
Every so often I come back here and re-read this post. I need the reminder to value my work! I resent invitations to give it away for free (or worse, to pay to submit, ugh.) But what about those ‘paying markets’ which offer me, say $3 for a 1500 word story? *Three dollars.* That is a third of a Starbucks where I come from. I can’t work out whether I should be Yay, payment or, How dare you insult me.
Thoughts?