Writing as a career

Fred Pohl once remarked; "The good news about writing as a career is that the income curve is asymptotic. The bad news is that it starts at zero." It wasn't till the early '90s that I started making enough money to actually live on and support my family—Lois McMaster Bujold, in an interview that appeared on Baen.com

I'm sharing this quote because it touches on the careers of two people in the topmost rank of my pantheon of admirable writers.

Frederik Pohl, in his memoir The Way the Future Was, recounted that he felt like a failure during the first year of his first marriage, but that certain things he wrote that year continued to earn money over the course of his lifetime, and that in retrospect he realized he'd spent his time more wisely then he knew.

Ms. Bujold informs us it was almost a decade before she could earn a comfortable living as a writer. Yet I can't think of another SF author in the last thirty years who has had a more enviable career than she has.

One thing they have in common is that neither of them gave up.

Food for thought, that.

My first typewriter

It's been more than 45 years since I got my first typewriter.

I was maybe eight years old, and I received it, I believe, for Christmas one year.

It was made by the Marx toy company, and it was called a 'Marxwriter'--but it was no toy. It was a fully funtional typewriter and I wrote many a story on it.

Well, I guess I should be honest here--I started many a story on it. In those days I had a habit of not finishing any of the projects I began. Honestly, I don't think I knew how.

I stall have some of the pages I wrote on it. Time permitting, I may even share some of them here--they're pretty funny.

Oh, the Marxwriter only typed in caps, but it did have a shift key and all kinds of characters and symbols. Way more than a regular typewriter.

I recall that thing with a great deal of fondness. What a lovely present for my parents to give me! Thanks, Mom and Dad.

When I got to be about thirteen I read somewhere that editors wouldn't take manuscripts typed in caps, so I stopped using it and started borrowing my Dad's.

I recall that now with sorrow. I wish I'd remained faithful to that little machine.  I mean, it's not like I was submitting anything anywhere anyway--in fact, it was right around then that I stopped writing altogether; I didn't take it up again until I was almost thirty.

I wish I still had my Marxwriter. It would be an honored, treasured possession.

Goodbye, little Marxwriter, and thanks for the memories.

It's like having a new career, all of a sudden

It's the career I've always dreamed about, too.  Writing for a living.

Dean Wesley Smith recently blogged about the amount of time it takes to write four novels a year.

It comes to something like an hour and twenty minutes a day.

I'm a little slower than Dean, probably--and I do love tinkering and revising, which he sort of advises against--but I imagine I could do three novels a year if I spent two hours a day at it.  Probably.  Even factoring all the time it takes to clean my computer screen.

The thing is, with indie publishing, it's a done deal.  If I just apply the seat of my pants to the surface of the chair and the tips of my fingers to the keyboard, I will produce a product to be offered for sale right alongside Stephen King and John Grisham.

That's heady stuff.

I can write whatever I want.  However much I want.  I can write utter crap and put it out, with no one to stop me.

No one to stop me.  That's an amazing thing.

I've no intention of writing utter crap, by the way.  Just in case you were wondering.

No, if I hope to receive an income from this work, it strikes me that I'd better do the best damned job I can possibly do.

Now, I'm not going to make a habit of blogging much about my personal life here, but today I'll make an exception because it's germane to my topic.

I'm in my late fifties, unemployed, and I live in a trailer park in North Carolina where the newest trailer is well past thirty years old.  I can't afford internet access so I use the computers at the public library.  I get food stamps and unemployment but I'm behind on my rent, and believe me, it's a source of anxiety.  I have 8 cats that I love a lot, but when one of them gets sick I can't afford to take them to the vet--I was going to call the humane society and ask if there was someplace I could take Sugar when she was sick, and if there had been nothing available I'd have tried to work out something with a veterinarian--but obviously, there aren't any guarantees in a situation like mine.

I used to make a sort of modest lower-class living as a ceramic tile mechanic before the economy imploded and the housing market went to hell.  These days I can't even get on at Wal-Mart--I tried.  My last job was working in a factory for minimum wage, and as an English-speaking person I was in the minority.

I've been writing for years, and I've watched in dismay as the number of places you could send an unsolicited manuscript steadily shrank.  And now, as I understand it, the world of traditional publishing is in such a state of upheaval that I might as well not bother with them anyway just now, even if I were so inclined.

So is it any wonder that I greet the world of indie publishing with a great deal of joy and hope?

I've thought long and hard and carefully how I should proceed, and it feels right to me that my first e-book will contain five pieces of my best short fiction, the oldest of which was written in 1989, at an introductory price.

I love it that I'm free to make a decision like that!

I think it's very possible that my income from the book will at least match what I was making at the factory--and I'll be working three or four hours a day sitting down, instead of twelve hours on my feet.

Why wouldn't  I want to be an indie writer?

Things are in flux.

Kristine Kathryn Russch is really doing an extraordinary service for writers.  Check out this post on her blog.

Even though I'm a new unknown writer, I still have preconceived notions about things.  They're generally based on years of reading puclications like Locus and the SFWA bulletin. 

In the 1980s, for instance, new writers sometimes got book advances in the low five figures.  Some of them, anyway.  It was possible.

I always kind of felt I could use some of that action.

Now, since about 2004, I might as well have been living on a deserted island.   I moved to Gainesville from Orlando that year and I could no longer find those publications.

Oh, but I'd occasionally buy a book like The Complete Idiot's Guide to Publishing Science Fiction.  (Seriously--I'm not making that up, there really was such a book.  It was a useful, entertaining read, too.)  In it I learned that publishers still wanted to see manuscripts that looked like they were produced on typewriters.  Which was no doubt true at the time, but I accept it as graven in stone forever.

Another thing I "learned" in those days was that you couldn't make a living with short fiction; it was wise to concentrate on novels.

Many people still think that.  The news that it's not true hasn't gotten out yet.

God bless Kris Rusch.

So obviously it's a new ballgame.  Many people in the industry are hurting now.  Not just writers--editors and agents too!

Oh yeah, that reminds me, another thing I accepted as gospel:

You have to get an agent.  Can't get anywhere without one.

Now I'm really quite leery of them.

But the more I think about it, the more I like that I can be my own publisher.  It's fun.  I can do whatever I want.  Release a book of old short stories.  Publish that long novella about the amphibious serpent who didn't understand why humans wanted to base a religion around him--some people liked that one, but everybody said the subject matter and the length  (40,000 words) counted against it.  It's be silly to send it anywhere, they said.

I myself felt it was a little offbeat, and kind of preachy in spots--but if I took that stuff out, I removed the story's heart. So I never wrote the ending.

Well, I'm sure gonna write it now.  Because these days, heck, if I released it for 99 cents I'd get something  for it--and something's a lot better than nothing.

Besides, I always kind of liked those characters.  Now at least a few folks will meet them, and I'll at least get some pocket change.

Maybe a whole lot more.

A bit of backpedaling

Yesterday's rant against the publishing industry was maybe a little over the top.

It doesn't really do to demonize anyone.  Or any institution, for that matter.  So I hereby apologize for any bad vibes I may have broadcast.

I've socialized with editors at Science Fiction conventions.  They're generally nice people.  I certainly didn't mean to cast any aspersions their way.

That doesn't mean I've changed my opinion!  The editors aren't in control of their companies these days.  The bean counters are.

When I read on her blog about the contract shenanigans they tried with Kristine Kathryn Rusch, I was stunned.  The woman used to be editor of Fantasy and Science Fiction, for crying out loud! If they'll pull that sort of crap with her, I can't help but think they'd chew me up and spit me out without a second thought. Or pretty much any of us.  It's dismaying.

And that business about the e-book royalties? That's just horrible.

But I gather SFWA are looking into the situation. So thank goodness for that much. Maybe sanity will eventually prevail.

But all things considered, I'm glad to be an indie writer right now.

Still, I'm wishing everybody in the business well. Peace and love, people, peace and love.

Just wanted to get all that off my chest.

A turning point

At this point in time I have very little faith in the New York publishing industry.

Some of you, I know, will spring to their defense.  There's a segment of American society that always sticks up for the powerful in knee-jerk fashion whether it's in their best interests to do so or not.  (Case in point: the number of people who got indignant and upset when it looked like there might be a public option for health care--because the poor downtrodden insurance companies would have had to compete with the government!!)

Now, I personally have about as much confidence in the moral integrity of Big Publishing these days as I do in that of stockbrokers, oil companies, bankers--and insurance companies.

Which is to say, very little at all.

I formed this opinion largely after reading the blogs of industry insiders like Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Dean Wesley Smith,  Michael Stackpole, and J. A. Konrath.

Check it out. Things look pretty grim in the world of Big Publishing these days.

It hasn't always been that way. Maybe someday it will change back to the way it used to be (a few lawsuits down the road, I'm thinking). Maybe it won't.

But for now, at least, I'm steering clear.

Who am I, you may ask, to sit in judgment on an entire industry? Some little pipsqueak unpublished writer?

I'm somebody who has become leery of doing any business with them, that's who.

Now, pardon me for pointing out the obvious, but every successful writer was an unpublished aspirant at first. Without exception!

Writers provide the content that publishers are in the business of selling. Without them there would be no publishing industry.

I mean, duh!

Whether or not I'm any good at my craft has no bearing at all on the validity of the point I'm making here. Which is:

For too many years the tail has been wagging the dog. We've acted like they were doing us a favor to publish us when in fact they couldn't have stayed in business without us.

And now, suddenly, we can compete with them on surprisingly equal terms.

Why shouldn't we do that?

What obligation do we have to help them preserve their outmoded business practices?

None that I can see.

I've been writing for years, and I've been steadily improving all the while, I think.   I'm finishing up a science fiction novel that I feel is the best thing I've ever done. Up until a week ago, the game plan was to send it off to one of the few publishers who will still look at unagented manuscripts.

No more.

So you see, it's not like I don't have any options. I could continue down the traditional path (and I really think the new book would have stood a good chance in New York) if I wanted to.

I don't want to.

It's a turning point.

A beginning

Okay, hello out there, all you people reading this!  Welcome.

My name is Michael Edward Walston, and I'm a science fiction writer who is about to embark on a voyage into the realm of indie publishing.

I've been writing for years, and I've seen the number of markets where new writers without agents can submit their work shrink steadily.  Like many others, I have found this to be discouraging.

Then I discovered http://www.smashwords.com/.  This is a website that allows you to publish a book in electronic form--for free--and then charge people for downloading it.  You can set the price yourself, or even give it away for nothing.  If you do charge for it, Smashwords keeps 15% of the take--and they also provide a free distribution channel that allows you to get into other online stores. The ones available change from time to time but they currently include the Apple iBookstore, Sony, Kobo, Borders, Diesel and others--and word is that Amazon will soon be included too.

Offhand, I can't remember the last time my thinking about something changed so drastically in such a short time.  It took maybe five minutes to decide I wanted to go this route instead of continuing to bash my head against the brick wall of "Big Publishing".

I'll have much more to say on this topic in future posts.

Stay tuned.