The Economics of Writing

In my writing classes, we talk a lot about PROCESS being the most important thing. And yet, most writers I know are hoping to get a PRODUCT out of that process. Get an MFA, publish a book, get rich and famous, meet Beyoncé. Right?

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One of my friends who graduated from my MFA program a few years ago released a beautiful anthology of essays about yoga. Cheryl Strayed wrote the foreword. Dinty Moore, Brenda Miller, Dani Shapiro and Amy Monticello all wrote essays for the collection. It's on display at Barnes and Nobles and other fine book-selling institutions. And yet, she has not seen a dime for her efforts.

“If I sell 500 e-books,” she announced to a wide-eyed group of MFA students the other night, “I'll see one dollar.”

A few days later, I came across these two articles by seemingly successful women writers, Emily Gould and Roxane Gay, who give an honest breakdown of their economic experiences in publishing. (Interestingly, Gould and Gay have teamed up for the first episode of Bindercast!) 

Emily Gould was on cloud nine when she sold her work-in-progress for $200,000 in 2008. Unfortunately, your writing career weighs heavily on the sales of your last book, and unfortunately, the sales of her book were nowhere near the projected expectations. Living in New York, the advance did not take her very far, and the failure of her last book “guaranteed that no one will ever pay me [Gould] that kind of money to write a book again.” Since then, she has sold a novel for $30,000 and has started working a “a full-time job that, while it leaves me no time to write, is helping me slowly repay the debts I incurred by imagining that writing was my livelihood.”

Roxane Gay tells a different story. She has three published books: one with a micropress, another with a small press, and a collection of essays with HarperCollins. Her experiences have run the gamut, and yet, she writes that “the first and only dream dashed was the one where I could quit my job to write full time.” She writes about her first book: "Ayiti has remained in print for three years. I have earned $205.60 in royalties. That is a success story." Roxane admits to obsessively refreshing the Amazon sales rank for her book only to find that, on any given day, “there are literally 300,000 or 10,000 books selling better than mine.” And this is a woman who writes for Salon, the New York Times Book Review, BuzzFeed, Jezebel. She runs multiple lit mags and she's been a keynote speaker at all the conferences I've been to (or wished I'd gone to) in the past year. Shit, I've even seen her on television discussing the feminist merits of Magic Mike. This woman is everywhere, and yet, she makes her livelihood teaching at Purdue University, not selling books.

So this brings me to my question: Why write? The notion that writing is going to make someone rich and famous is a grave misconception, one that should be dispelled sooner rather than later. As a beginning writer, it's not hard to imagine not making any money from my writing. No one has ever paid me for my writing, unless they were my client with the Family Roots Project, in which case it's not really my writing that they're paying for, but their own story told by me.

Speaking to my friend who edited the anthology, though, it's easy to understand how this misconception melts away once you're in the thick of publication. You see your book on the shelf at Barnes & Nobles. It's normal to assume that this venture will bring you money. Plus, writing takes A LOT of time, like any craft; is it wrong to think that writers should be paid for their work?

Sadly, very few writers make their livelihood selling books, and that's a fact that we MFAers must befriend. Here are a few things I am learning about making a "living" as a writer.

• “If you want to write, keep a low overhead.” —Grace Paley

• Diversify. Think of writing as a trade like any other, and find other venues that will pay you for your craft. You won't make a lot of money doing it, but you'll be doing what you're good at, and getting paid for it!

• Have a different career that makes you money. The myth is that you won't have time for writing if you've got a full-time job, but the truth is that finding the time to write is hard no matter what you do for a living. Perhaps having LESS time to dedicate to your creative ventures will make you use the time you do have more judiciously.

• Being independently wealthy helps!

P.S. Check out this great article by Amanda Hirsch at Having it Alt about "The Artist Tax"! 

AWP Conference 2015!

AWP : Bonnaroo
writing : music

Except AWP is even better!

I had no idea what to expect when I booked a ticket to Minneapolis and signed up to volunteer at AWP 2015. I also had no idea that my experiences surviving summer musical festivals were going to come in handy at the largest writing conference in the country.

AWP is the Association of Writers and Writing Programs and each spring they hold their biggest bonanza - the AWP Conference! Or, as it's known in the writing world, "AWP." 

"You going to AWP this year?"

"Wouldn't miss it for the world!"

This year, it was held in the lovely literary city of Minneapolis - and it basically felt like being at the Grammy's of the writing world. Except sometimes you didn't know that someone was famous and awesome until you read their name tag and then you had an inner freakout moment.

Cutthroat Journal celebrates Joy Harjo

Ways that AWP is just like a giant music festival, but for writing:

1. There are people sleeping on benches and in random corners of the convention center / festival grounds.
2. People huddle around electric sockets to charge their devices.
3. You're trapped somewhere for 4 days. Obviously, the food will be terrible and overpriced. Like at a music festival, I came prepared with the essentials: almond butter, apples, hummus, carrots, and dark chocolate.
4. You are constantly having to choose between one cool band / panel presentation over another one happening at a different stage / conference room.
5. You lose your friends when you go check out that sci-fi author you adore (but they hate) but then run into them serendipitously at the panel on graphic novels.
6. You meet other people who love that obscure band/lit mag that no one else knows about.
7. You have no shame about asking your literary/musical heroes to sign your arm.
8. You sacrifice looking cute to wear comfortable shoes.
9. Your favorite band/writer plays new music/shares new stuff and you pee a little in your pants.
10. Your body and mind are exhausted after day one from all the walking between stages/conference rooms and taking in some much amazingness (inspiration overload?) and you're not sure how you're going to make it to day three.
11. VIP parties are not as cool as you think they're going to be.
12. Free drinks exist, if you can bear the long lines.
13. So much drinking and excitement = the inevitable post festival/conference cold. Cue to me binging on Emergen-C.
14. You leave the conference/festival feeling like you never want to hear live music/read a book again -- but you're also mega inspired to go out there and get your creativity on!

Roxane Gay reading at the Literary Loft

So why is AWP even better than Bonnaroo, the biggest music festival in America? Well, AWP is like seeing your favorite band, and then getting to hear them talk about how they write music, why they write music, what they're working on right now, what they think about dolphins, etc. 

Here's a photo of the keynote speaker, Karen Russell, and a dolphin.

But hands down, my most favorite AWP moment had to be this one:

Joy Harjo on the sax!

Next year, it'll be in L.A. and you can be sure I'll be there, Emergen-C in hand.

Welcome to a Community of Writers

We live in an age of constant digital interaction thanks to our various gadgets and social networks. I'm no technophile but I recently became the owner of an iPod Touch, which is basically an iPhone without the phone. (All I wanted was a music player... but apparently they don't make them like they used to!) Thankfully, this strange Apple product makes listening to podcasts extremely easy which means I have been geeking out on past On Being episodes as well as the newest, coolest podcast, Dear Sugar.

Dear Sugar was an advice column started on The Rumpus a few years back by Steve Almond who later gave the reins over to Cheryl Strayed. Now they have switched over the radio (because radio is all the rage, didn't ya know?) and I am hooked.

Now, this isn't just your regular advice column. When you've got two powerhouse writers running the show, you better believe things are going to get interesting. Almost every show, they call up their friends to weigh in on a question. Luckily for us listeners, these friends also happen to be people like Roxane Gay, George Saunders, Steve Elliott, and Elizabeth Gilbert. Only some of the greatest writers of our time... So yes, these podcasts makes me giddy like a schoolgirl because it's like eavesdropping on a conversation between your favorite writers. We get to hear them being candid and wise and funny and it's simply glorious.

Which brings me to the point of this post: writers and their online presence.

The internet presents several challenges for the modern artist, but it also provides a communal space for sharing and connecting with one another - whether you're a Pulitzer prize-winning author, an avid reader, or a hopeful writer.

Whereas before there was a barrier between writers and their readers, that gap is narrowing everyday, in large thanks to the interweb. Although not all writers partake in the digital world, you'd be surprised how many of them do take advantage of social media.

For example, Elizabeth Gilbert (of Eat, Pray, Love fame) has one of the most fascinating and inspiring pages on Facebook. She posts almost daily about whatever is on her mind that day, whether it be an idea from a book she's reading or a thought provoked by a walk around her neighborhood. She usually includes an uplifting message for aspiring artists/anyone. Not only does she share her thoughts with the world, but she responds to her readers personally, encouraging dialogue between her readers.

Some other examples: Roxane Gay tweets hilarious messages all day and edits an online magazine, Butter. Jesmyn Ward keeps a blog. Joyce Carol Oates is an active tweeter. Even dead writers have an online presence! Raymond Carver and Sylvia Plath both have Twitter pages.

Although some can take social media to an extreme, I appreciate the communal space that it provides  writers and readers to connect. It brings everyone onto a level playing field, in a way. The barriers come down on the internet. Writers are able to communicate informally, which also allows us to get an insider's view into their lives and psyches.

Good art should provoke healthy dialogue, and the internet is a place where those conversations can be held. Thankfully, we can all be a part of this huge, beautiful, messy, artistic world.