God bless Harlan Ellison.
He's funny, brilliant, and damn right to fight for pay for his and other writers' work.
If you're a writer, it's very easy to watch this clip and get irate about suits at corporate megaconglomerates trying to get writers to work for free.
But it's just wrongheaded to take that message and apply it to a tiny, fledgling publication put out not by suits but by writers just trying to do something cool.
Hey, if they ask you, it's certainly okay to suggest they find a way to pay writers whose work is accepted. If you know of business models that have worked elsewhere, pass them along. That's great.
But don't say, "I dunno where the revenue comes from. Elves. Advertising. Unicorn shit. I don't care. I'm not a businessman. I'm a writer."
Fight the power! Down with The Man, man!
Horseshit.
For one thing, that's a gross simplification. "Don't look at me! I'm just a poor working schlub, trying to get by! You're the ones who put on top hats and tails and started smoking cigars! You figure out how to divvy up your gold! Oh, and 'shit, shit, shit,' too, while I'm at it."
For another, while we'd all like to think that we do our best, I seriously doubt that anyone involved in such an argument would come out smelling like a rose.
The purest of the pure would say that every bit of content you make available for free devalues content, because there's just that much more out there that a consumer can get without paying for it.
Doesn't matter if it's on your own site. If it's free, it's part of the problem. Hell, if it's cheap it's part of the problem.
And this argument certainly isn't limited to writing. Photographers decry the existence of istock, saying that cheap photos are putting them out of business. You put your photos up on Flickr or your Wordpress site, you let other people use them--for whatever reason--and you're taking supper off the table for some photographer's kids. Same goes for writing. If I'm reading your blog, why should I pay to read some columnist in a newspaper? So long, columnist. Give coal mining a try.
And I don't doubt that in some senses they're right.
But what's the solution? Avoid sources such as istock, or not patronize print or online publications that don't pay writers professional rates?
Seems reasonable enough, right?
But does your obligation end with your own profession?
Do you shop at Wal-Mart?
How many items do you own that were made in China or Third World countries?
Where do you buy your food?
Where does your computer go when you're done with it? Have you made sure it isn't disassembled in disgraceful conditions, the chemicals seeping into the water supply and causing children to be born with horrific birth defects?
You might want to say, "Oh, these are just distractions. I'm talking about paying writers. Writers should get paid. It's that simple."
Well, no, sorry, it's not that simple, chief. (It's 'chief,' right? That was your word.)
Your ethical responsibilities don't end when you shut down your word processor and head off to Wal-Mart (or many, many other places) to buy food and clothes at rock-bottom prices.
And there are plenty of questions to consider even before you shut down that word processor.
Are you doing a lot of self-marketing and promotion online? That's stuff marketers and publicists used to do. Is that okay, because the world's no poorer with fewer marketing goons? Hey, every one of those marketing goons was once someone's baby.
How about those books you want to see with your name on the spine? Where were they printed--overseas, by Third World laborers?
How about the paper on which they're printed--does it come from sustainable sources?
I'm not saying you have to buy only local food, and only items made from sustainable resources by people making living wages. I'm not sure that's even possible, and the world's just not that simple anyway.
I saw a bumper sticker the other day that read, "For a town this size, it sure has a lot of assholes." I laughed. Bumper sticker slogans have their place. But when you're asked to move beyond bumper sticker slogans, don't get belligerent and say "up yours, you figure it out." The Internet is still very much the Wild West--despite the best efforts of the aforementioned suits--and folks are using it to figure out cool new ways of doing things. Don't crap all over those sincere efforts.
UPDATE: Chuck Wendig takes issue with my not naming or linking to him. If that's a mistake, my apologies, and I will correct that. I was commenting on his post, and including a link to this one, even as he was commenting on mine.
This post arose from a long exchange yesterday that sprang from my friend Steve Weddle asking for thoughts about a new submission policy for Needle, a crime fiction anthology he and some fellow writers put together (which you should get, by the way.)
Chuck tweeted back that they ought to pay the writers whose work is accepted. An exchange ensued which included the tweet from Chuck you can find above. I haven't tracked down all of the tweets in the exchange, but you can search through Chuck's and Steve's tweets if you want to read them.
Anyway, after watching this exchange all day, I decided to open my big mouth, and responded in kind. It was not one of my finer moments, and it would have been safer to keep my mouth shut, but I was annoyed at what seemed to be pretty clear belligerence on Chuck's part.
I don't really see how this post is "lowering the dialogue," especially after remarks like Dana King's in Chuck's post here. And I certainly don't think the language here is any more antagonistic than Chuck's. Perhaps it is. It was an attempt to take it beyond 140-character exchanges and discuss the broader implications of the issues discussed, not to obfuscate the source of the discussion. In any case, I stand by what I've said here and elsewhere.
UPDATE 2: Chuck, you're more than welcome to respond in the comments, or if you post your thoughts elsewhere, I'd be happy to add a link if you like. Or not.
April 13, 2010
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9 Comments:
Needle shouldn't be happy it has you in its corner.
Nice Donate button, by the way.
You needn't respond. But hey, your blog.
-- c.
Christ, you're a douche, Chuck.
One of the problems with debating an issue online -- something I've fallen victim to myself many, many times over the years -- is that it's a lot easier to be a leaking catheter bag from a distance than it is to someone's face.
Chuck's basic premise is correct, I think. Anyone who does any sort of work, whatever it happens to be, should receive compensation for that effort. Underlying his point of view, I think, is something Harlan said in the embedded video -- amateurs make things more difficult for professionals to make a living. And that isn't wrong, either, but it is also beside the point.
Chuck's position, from what I can tell, is that all venues, no matter how small or basic or poor, should pay for the writing or design or what have you that provides content for that venue.
Basically, what he's saying is "Amateurs, go away and let us professionals do this sort of thing."
I work for an organization whose members have been seriously affected by the rise of the Web over the past 15 years or so. Rather than deal with the implications of this paradigm shift, though, a lot of the organization's members are basically burying their heads in the sand and hoping this Internet fad will just go away. They are holding onto a paradigm that is simply untenable considering the advances in technology not only on the Internet, but things like the print-on-demand services that allow someone to produce a magazine like Needle.
Chuck is holding onto a paradigm that grew up through the 19th and 20th century, when the technology to allow relatively cheap publications came online, but was still expensive enough that you needed some sort of company to pay for things. If you wanted to get into print, you pretty much had to go through a limited number of gatekeepers, and those gatekeepers, more or less, were willing to pay for the privilege of publishing your work. Sure, you could scrape up some money and get a small fiction magazine published, or pay to have your novel self-published or whatever, but it was rare that such efforts had any sort of broad impact.
Unfortunately for people like Chuck, that paradigm, while it isn't dead, now has to compete with the new world of people being able to produce professional-quality print products and online content to compete with the work produced in the old paradigm. And that's just the way it is. Burying one's head in the sand and saying, "Go away go away go away" isn't going to do anything.
Basically, the new paradigm of self publishing forces those who want to conform to the older gatekeeper paradigm to be better than the amateurs, good enough that people will be willing to pay out their hard-earned shekels for the professionally produced content rather than spending their limited time and energy supporting amateur productions that are available for free or at a significantly reduced cost.
Is Chuck a better writer than I am? I have no idea -- I'd never heard of him before yesterday. I think he is certainly better at running through the hoops and obstacles traditional gatekeeper publications and publishers put in place to determine whose work they want to support. For that, sir, I salute you.
Just stop pissing in our corn flakes because some of us are trying a different approach.
L.
Dead on.
Query - why should a writer submit to a non-paying magazine when it's just as easy to self-publish? Are not the editors (unpaid) gatekeepers?
Also, what is this new paradigm? Spend all your time being an expert at writing who doesn't get time to write because she's spending all her time marketing?
The new publishing model has not settled down yet, and any new venture probably has a sparrow's chance in hell of making a profit - or even for staying open for a year. Not to say the old model was a good idea in all cases or that it's working now - the writing I get paid for doesn't follow the old model. However, it doesn't follow the new paradigm, either, whatever that is.
Made the mistake of going over to that guy's site and reading comments.
Hoo, boy.
Gives a whole new meaning to the word oblivious.
DeAnna,
Thanks for stopping by.
Those are good questions and I sure wish I had even partial answers.
The one thing I do know is that it's always been the rare writer who could actually spend all of his or her time writing while someone else handled the marketing and promotion. I suspect that will be even more the case in this "new paradigm."
While there are folks like Jeff VanderMeer out there with great advice for writers, I think that ultimately everyone will have to find his or her own path, and I don't believe in raining on anyone's parade. If you're just making money off someone else's hard work, well, chances are you may suck. But if you're like the rest of us--trying to figure things out, hoping to do no harm but inevitably making mistakes along the way--then I'm on your side.
True that we're all going to have to find our own paths, and also true (though not part of your point, I think) that some writers just want to lie back and have things happen for them magically.
However, I think Chuck's point is that he's not the publisher in this case and shouldn't have to do the accounting. Publishers should care about funding; if you're self-publishing, by all means care about the funding. But the writers, who are not invested in the profit or loss, are working for a flat fee, which is fine - no risk, no percentage.
So why should any writer work for a flat fee of zero?
Unpublished writers need credits. Yay! Credits! I'm still at the point where the credits are possibly worth more than the money. However, the credits from a non-paying mag are almost zero anyway; credits from a paying mag, even one that pays $5, are worth more, because I'll be getting published in a place that has the money worked out to the point where there's some for the writer, and places like that are working to sell units for a profit, not as a labor of love.
Even $5 would make a difference.
I'm going to send my stories, no matter how perfect they are for a labor of love periodical, to the money periodical first. The labor of love periodical is my last resort, because it's new and it doesn't pay and it probably will disappear within a year. This has happened to me several times already, both with money-based and labor-of-love-based sites, but the labor-of-love sites tend to go first.
Am I sucking up the fruits of other people's labor? Yes. My editors have been godsends, each in their own way, and I am not willing to self-publish for just that reason. Are they working for free? They're working for money and love, and have worked out the money to the point where I get paid on time.
$5. Surely the new paradigm can spare $5. You can't make a living on it (you can't make a living on the sites that pay $400, come on), but the credits are ten times better than they are for free.
DeAnna,
I think that's a perfectly valid argument, one I have trouble disagreeing with. I'm totally supportive of anyone who can find a formula that gets writers some compensation for their work.
As I said on Chuck's site, I generally agree with his sentiment. What I took issue with was his approach--and, I must admit, perhaps mine wasn't the best either. I see a fight breaking out on the Internet, I'm like a shark smelling blood. Fish are friends, not food, I should tell myself.
But I do have an issue with someone making a statement and then, when asked for solutions, shrugging and saying, "I dunno, not my problem, you figure it out." I don't know another word for that other than 'asinine,' and that's what got me worked up.
I just don't buy the argument that Steve & Co. chose to be "The Man," and so now it's working stiffs versus management, and that's just the way it is. Warner Bros., Harlequin, okay. And yeah, I do get the slippery slope point argument, I really do. But Steve wanted a conversation, and I don't think he really got one from Chuck, at least not after a certain point. Now maybe Chuck didn't mean to come across the way he did to me and others. I can certainly appreciate that. Been there, done that.
Like I said, I totally get where you're coming from. You hitch a ride on the labor of love, you're making a real leap of faith. You have a choice between that and some place that pays a decent amount, well, you're most likely a fool not to take the money. On the other hand, there's something to be said for getting in on something that's just beginning. Some, probably most, of those efforts are doomed. But there are some, like Needle, that have real professional polish, good and earnest people behind them, and just might get there.
But I don't have the answers. I sure as hell wish I did. In any case, I wish you the best of luck finding your way.
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