On the Money We Make (or Fail to Make) Through Writing

Getting paid more than zero for your work is the first step toward learning what it’s really worth to you, the best way to learn to stop obsessing about what it’s worth to everybody else.

This brilliant piece I just found on Slate.com touches on some of the key elements of making a living through writing. Many authors I know say it should never be about the money. Many others believe it shouldn't be about anything else. Some feel that making money off their 'art' is akin to 'selling out'; some consider payment the ultimate validation.

Either way, though, and as the article says, 

"Few connections are more mysterious than the one between writing books and making money."

Oh, and this:

In their candid moments, most publishers will admit going into business with writers whose work they regard as subliterary because they believe that they can profit from their books. This is still considered shocking in some unsophisticated quarters, but publishing isn’t literature: Literature is literature.

Read the full article at Slate.com.

It's up. It's out. It's done.

 August 9th, 2015. Quiet Sunday, no plans other than lazying around the house, maybe do a bit of yard work later in the afternoon, when the heat goes down. My dushi in the kitchen, preparing me an avocado-and-tomato sandwich for lunch. Facebook spewing its inane entertainment. The dogs asleep around my desk chair, immobilizing me.

The ping of an email. I don't know it yet, but my comfortably ordinary Sunday is about to end.

The email is from my publisher. It's up, says the subject line.

No need to say what. Or where.

The book. My book. It's published. THE MIRACLE OF SMALL THINGS. Out into the world, into the hands of whoever wants to have it, including perfect strangers. Including, most conspicuously, the people who've cheered me on. The people in my life.

Yikes.

It seems so stupid, after 9 months of prepping -- working -- for this, 9 months of knowing it was going to happen... But it still blindsided me.

It's up. It's out. For better or for worse, it's done.

My first book has been published.

The MIRACLE Saga of Unforeseen Obstacles (& Pleasures): The Copyright Melee

I'm lucky that my publisher has a sense of humor.

Somewhere in the revisions round for the first proof copy (which, like anything else ordered from abroad--abroad meaning anywhere, Curaçao being an island--took forever to get here), the publisher asks,

Oh, hey, your MC quotes a line of poetry in the second chapter. Shouldn't that be credited in the copyright page?

Yes. YES. How did that slip through the cracks? It's a fragment from T.S. Eliot. T.S. Eliot. Of course it needs to be credited. Easily fixed; a quick look inside my favorite Eliot volume, an email to the publisher, and phewalldone.

And then,

What about the lines of this one song the guy sings at the end? Who should we credit those to?

What am I, an idiot? How can I possibly forget about freaking attributions? First for T.S. Eliot, and now for one of Mexico's most popular mariachi singers... Seriously. Yes, please include a credit to Mr. Pepe Aguilar.

Just like that? Pepe Aguilar?

No, I guess--wait, let me check how exactly the dude's name is listed in the song's copyright info. And, also, whether the song is, in fact, his. It's a popular song. Many artists have recorded it.

Oooohboy.

What's taking so freakin' long??? (Part I)

Writing--no, scratch that; publishing is not for the impatient. And I am the mother of impatience. Which is why I'm kind of amazed that I haven't thrown a hissy fit yet. (Yet, I emphasize.)

No, actually I know exactly why I haven't. It's because I'm so damn busy. I don't have time to be impatient. As a matter of fact, days are going by like sand through toes at the surfline. Like, for instance, it's Tuesday already and--what do you mean Thursday? I NEED MY WEDNESDAY BACK!

I mean, how hard can it be? THE MIRACLE OF SMALL THINGS had already been published in Pure Slush's 2014 A Year In Stories. Well, sort of. Last year, when Truth Serum Press (sister press of Pure Slush) agreed to publish it as a standalone book, we felt there was a piece missing from the original 12 stories, so--okay, I wrote a 13th story. Which turned out a tad longer than expected. And took longer, too, to finish. (I sweated blood on that one.)

But aside from that, I thought it was a matter of some small (fine, smallish) revisions. You know, quirky wording that somehow escaped both my and the editor's eagle eyes the first few times. And then there were the places where, due to the word count limit for the originals, I cut character arcs short or held back on information that actually did move the story forward. So these things had to be remedied for the standalone version. And then revised. And re-revised. And re-re-re...

On a coolish autumn night in New York's Lower East Side...

A reading. In front of an audience--that, let it be said, contained only two friends of mine. Only two people I knew from before that night. Everyone else--and it was a pretty solid crowd--was a stranger or had been until an hour or so earlier.

The crowd.

The End: 2014 A Year In Stories

After twenty-one months, the 2014 A Year In Stories project has finally wrapped up. The last three volumes (October, November, and December) are available for purchase and/or download. All twelve volumes--a volume per month, a story a day, 31 novellas--are now out.

Yay!

#atozchallenge: B is for Bachelors

The singles of the 2014 A Year in Stories project. They're as varied as they're complex. 

Mars. Don't you love that name?

Take the three bachelors of Gay Degani's Old Road stories: Gus German, his son Mars, and Ian Shane.

Gus finds solace--from his disillusionment, from the loneliness his long-dead wife left behind--in his dog, Gracie (come back on D day for more on her and the other Dogs of The 2014 Project).

Plotters, Pantsters, And Self-Pubbing Success

Mona, the Montana Scribbler, had Rasana Atreya (author of A Thousand Lies) guest-posting on her blog today. If you're ever considering self-pubbing, this is a post you must read. And, by the way, A Thousand Lies rocks. Get it. Read it. You'll love it. 

A Thousand Lies blurb: 
In a land where skin colour can determine one's destiny, fraternal twins PULLAMMA and LATA are about to embark on a journey that will tear their lives apart.  

Dark-skinned Pullamma dreams of being a wife. With three girls in her family, the sixteen year old is aware there isn't enough dowry to secure suitable husbands for them all. But a girl can hope. She's well versed in cooking, pickle making, cow washing -- you name it. She's also obliged her old-fashioned grandmother by not doing well in school.  

Fair skinned and pretty, her twin sister Lata would rather study medicine than get married. Unable to grasp the depth of Lata's desire, the twins' Grandmother formalizes a wedding alliance for the girl. Distraught, Lata rebels, with devastating consequences. 

As Pullamma helps ready the house for her older sister Malli's bride viewing, she prays for a positive outcome to the event. What happens next is so inconceivable that it will shape Pullamma's future in ways she couldn't have foreseen.

Indie vs. Traditional Publishing Bullies & Anne R. Allen

Anne R. Allen has a MAGNIFICENT post up on her blog: Indie or Traditional Publishing? Don't Take Sides: Take Your Time. It is a MUST read for writers everywhere--she puts all the squealing and jabbing and screaming into clear perspective. Please. Go read it now.