Ugh, hardly anything in the bookish blogosphere irks me more than authors whose only writing motivation is to make money.
TELL ME TUESDAY is a feature that oozed from the brains of Brittersweet from PLEASE FEED the BOOKWORM, and myself, after a mind-melting Armchair BEA Twitter party. It is a weekly, or bi-weekly feature depending on your reading style, where we ask you what you are reading now, and why, and what you will be reading next from your TBR pile, and why. Pili from In Love with Handmade is our *only child* feature follower and we luff her so much! We are all so curious why people read what they read.
ME
LET ME TELL YOU...
I first became interested in this book because of its cover after seeing it on Netgalley, and I still love it, the cover, that is...
I think everyone who requested it was approved, so a lot of people have this eARC. I started reading it soon after I received it in September. The beginning was lack luster and left me scratching my head in a few places, but I have a three chapters before DNFing rule, and it started to get interesting right before I had to bench it for other ARCs with closer publishing dates. It is about Sleeping Beauty's daughter.
Because I love the cover art so much I entered a giveaway for a hardcover edition for my bookshelves. One of the entries was for following the author on Twitter. A day, or so, after I added PoT back onto my currently reading Goodreads shelf, I saw a tweet from the author saying this was most likely going to be her last book.
I asked her why, thinking there was a health issue or something similar, and she directed me with a link to another author's blog post. This author/blogger was basically saying that the internet was destroying the Arts, and ebooks were making it impossible for authors to have a career in writing (being able to support yourself and family with just your book income).
Very few writers were able to do that before the internet and ebooks (maybe even less). Then he started comparing publishing to the music industry (which I have worked in at least part time, at any given point, for 42 years) and I can tell you, he was way off base with his comparisons. He then proceeded to say he was turning off the comment section on this particular blog post because he didn't post about this saddening subject to get sympathy comments. Ha!! I think he knew readers were going to tell him he was full of shite! But that is not what we are talking about here, so I will get back to my main subject.
After reading the guy's blog post, I went back to the tweet thread and commented that I felt calling something one creates for the sake of making money only, art, was not right. She fired back that she has a family of four to support. I then said I wished I could have supported my family with only my music, but I never quit writing songs and playing gigs. That's when she started back peddling to save herself. She snapped back that she is a hard worker, and was being forced to stop writing in a genre she loves. If she loved it she would ccontinue to write it even if she didn't make a dime. Funny she didn't mention how important this genre was to her in her original tweets.
SO HERE IS MY MAGICAL VIOLIN PLAYING MY HEART BLEEDS FOR YOU...
Now after going back and re-reading the conversation I am angry all over again. She at one point said she was still going to write, just not this genre anymore, and I gather from what I saw on her blog it is those formulaic drugstore romances I saw advertised on her sidebar. So I tweeted that she had just invalidated her original tweet of saying she wasn't going to write anymore books at all. She said she invalidated nothing.
Me thinks the lady thought she would get sympathy purchases of her book due out tomorrow...
She should be overjoyed she was published and people liked her book.
I need a martini...
*UPDATE*
After reading one of the comments below, it dawned on me; how does she know how much or how little the book is going to make if it hasn't been released yet? She certainly can't be basing it on pre-orders if it is the first book in a trilogy. Makes me think even more that the tweet's intention was to gather sympathy purchases.
Anyway, not all is lost in the author feels department. The other book I am reading was written solely because the author wanted there to be a YA Fantasy story with a wheelchair bound MC for his walking impaired son.
Xyz is the sequel to Napoleon Xylophone which I rated four stars and you can read my Goodreads mini-review, HERE. Again, I was lured in by the cover. Don't you just love it? I found out about Napoleon X from looking up this book.
LOVE IT!!!!
About this author
Frank Lambert always wanted to be a Zangulator, but had to settle for being a Chartered Engineer. He lives in North East England with his family and a Jack Russell who always looks guilty. Frank has two main projects on-going right now, Napoleon Xylophone and Witching Hole. Both of these trilogies have a young disabled school boy as the main protagonist. Frank was inspired to write these stories by his young disabled son, Mikey, who is absolutely perfect. Mikey wanted to read about disabled hero’s he could look up to and dream about becoming one day. Without Mikey, Xylophone and Witching Hole would not exist. Without these two stories, Frank Lambert the writer would not exist.
Many authors have to juggle a day job full time or part time because they cannot support their families only on the writing gig, but they don't give up on what they love!
ReplyDeleteI know! I am now having a problem getting back into the book because the money thing is all I can think about. :P
DeleteWow, that's awful (about the first author, anyway. The second author needs an 'awesome author attitude' medal.). I write blog posts and books (that shall never see the light of day) in my free time, but not for the money. I think it's a little ridiculous to think you can make a living writing, when most of the original, classical authors didn't. I think your writing and books benefit from any type of extraneous job, because how else do you meet new characters? ;)
ReplyDelete~Litha Nelle
Bingo!! Yes, the Arts are notorious for being an underpaid vocation, and have been since the begininning. Her problem came from thinking her dimestore "crank 'em out" romances were an artform. I have no problem with her abandoning the Fantasy genre in YA to go back to her change the name and hair color stories. Thanks for dropping by. :)
DeleteWell...I actually totally understand where the first author is coming from. 0.0 Sorry! I just do! I'm an author and if you honestly honestly asked me if I would keep writing and NEVER EVER get to share my stories with the world or make a cent, then I would hesitate to want to write too, I guess. There's also always backstory to that sort of thing. Publishers don't renew deals. And authors fall out of love with writing. Which is totally plausible! What makes you happy for part of your life might not make you happy later. Being an artist is stressful with soooo much pressure. I can imagine not having the time/ability to be able to write if it wasn't making you money to live. Living is hard. Gah. VERY HARD.
ReplyDeleteI don't know about the comparisons of the book world to the music industry though. :( That's sad if that person was comparing things they didn't know anything about. Always sucks when that happens.
I do know the market IS flooded with YA atm, making it actually hard to sell books. SAAAAADNESS. *cries for buckets*
Thanks for stopping by @ Notebook Sisters/Paper Fury!
I emailed a couple of my favorite authors before doing this blog post and they agreed with me that thinking you can support a family on writing alone is a fairytale in itself. If anything they said that the internet has made it possible for many more authors, who would never have seen the light of day, or made a dime, able to make some money for things like a new kitchen, a big family vacation, college funds for the kids. I still stand by my belief that if you are going to quit writing because you cannot support your entire family of four on it, it was never your passion and I don't want to read your "money maker" based books when I can be reading an author who writes from a passionate heart. They are the ones who deserve our money. And to note, she didn't say it was because she didn't make any money, it was because she didn't make a lot of money, and if you agree with that, I really don't know what to say. Besides, how does she know how much money she is or isn't going to make before the release date? Plus, she said she wasn't going to write anymore books, period, and then backpeddled and it was only the YA Fantasy she was going to quit writing because she doesn't make a lot of money with them. As far as the YA ebook market, It is good having a lot to choose from because you can find exactly what you want to read, usually. If an authors book doesn't float to the top it is more likely the book's fault than e-publishing and e-books. One of the faulty connections the blogger/author made to the internet was the fact you can buy single songs off albums and don't have to buy the entire album. Well, first of all there have always been singles and EPs people could buy instead of full albums, and second of all you can't compare that to books because you have to buy an entire book even if it is an ebook; why would people want to buy individual chapters even if tbey could? People forget a lot of the price of physical books come from making them, the author isn't getting less money in the norm, in fact I think there is actually more profit from ebooks. Anyway, if you got published and made some money and you still want to whine and complain, I say don't let the door hit you on the way out.
DeletePersonally, while I think the whole Stacey Jay thing is a bit disappointing, I understand why she thinks that way. Like right now, my parents are working their butts off and don't even have time to breathe--they have no time to do other things aside from the jobs they have now. So I guess that's what Stacey's trying to say. But I definitely think she could have replied in a more respectable way.
ReplyDeleteAre your parents working in the Arts? That is the deal with the Arts, almost no one makes enough money to support a family of four. It is a pretty high opininion of your self that you are so great at writing you should be making more money at it than most other writers. When my ex and I were doing art photography we didn't quit doing it because we couldn't support our family of three on it. He kept his day job AND we did weddings and insurance photos etc... and still did the art photogrqphy on the side. That is the norm in the Arts. The only time I was ever able to sustan on solely playing music was when I was single and sharing a two bedroom apartment with three other musicians. All the rest of the time I had at least a part time day job, if not full time, but I never quit. Working in any creative art is way diferent from working in a mainstream job. I don't think true art should have anything to do with money. If you do end up making some money, you should consider that a bonus. If you can stop because you aren't making enough money, to me there is not enough passion behind it to call it, art. And to blame it on ebooks instead of looking to what you are putting out as an "art" and threatening to quit, is having a bad attitude in my opinion.
DeleteMan, I am so with you on art vs. money. Am I saying that writers shouldn't get money or want money for their work? No! Not at all! I wish they got to be super billionaires like star athletes do! But when you truly love something, you stay involved in some way. Point in case - like you, I'm in music. Do I currently have a job that supports that? No. But I'm still doing what I can to stay involved, performing anyway I can. I totally understand not being able to make a career of something because there just isn't enough money to do it, and just how much that completely sucks.
ReplyDeleteAnd I am SO. TIRED. of having people throw music industry examples back in my face when I talk about the book industry. Are there similarities? Definitely. But they are not the same thing, and it's not like I like the direction the industry has been going as far as supporting musicians, so usually the arguments they bring up have nothing to do with anything. It makes me grumpy :p
I do the same wirh the keeping involved. Although my job right now is considered music industry it has almost nothing to do with my musical talents, so I have performed with different non-profit community groups. I am changing jobs after the holidays, and the new one has not one drop to do with music, or any of my other creative or "artsy" aspirations. I hope you will have the opportunity one day thrive finacially wirh your music. Thanks for stopping by. :)
ReplyDelete