Do you feel writers are being taken advantage of?

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Terraaus

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I look at the low wages paid to writers, how long it takes to get a check from a publisher, how advances are broken into several payments, and how publishing contracts tie writers into giving them their next book at similar terms, and this makes me feel like we're being taken advantage of. Not to mention, publishers who won't take a look at your next book until 6 months after your current book is released. If it takes one or two years to publish a book, how are we to make a living?
 

mccardey

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In my life I've been a barmaid, a nanny and a writer. Barmaids and nannies are taken advantage of. Writing is a privilege.
 

Usher

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It's not like I'm going down a mine. I've had a variety of rubbish jobs where I have been taken advantage of but actually my rate of pay as a writer has (when I have been paid) always been quite reasonable. At least one project worked out at £70 an hour which is well above minimum wage.

I love writing and if I get paid that to me is an optional extra. When I was doing my archaeology degree I did a lot of museum work and excavation work for "free" but actually I gained more from it than they did from me.
 

oceansoul

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Writing is my hobby. Someday, I might be able to turn it into a career, but for now, it's something I enjoy a lot, and I feel really lucky that a publisher bought my first book.

I would have written the manuscript whether I was paid or not.
 

Once!

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Most of us live in free markets. We choose what jobs to do. The customer chooses what products to buy. The market decides how much we get paid. If we don't like it we can do something else.

The good news about the free market is that the market will pay those who are successful. The bad news is ... well, you can work that bit out, can't you?
 

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IMO, If anyone is being taken advantage of, it's trade publishers. Think about it. Until they see a DIME of income, they have to:

Pay the salaries of editors, the artists, the production staff, the accounting team, the IT people, and the sales staff.
Pay leases on equipment.
Pay the contract labor like proofreaders and copyeditors
Pay the printer.
Pay the author advances.
Pay the shippers

It's not until at least six months and possibly a freaking YEAR after each book hits the shelves that they'll hear back from the bookstores how many books will be paid for or they'll get a box of covers stripped from the front. There's no guarantee to them at all how much a book will make until after they pay out a boatload of cash to people. It's all a guessing game. Now, it might be better on ebook sales. They might get quarterly payments for that. And I'm not sure how Amazon, B&N, Fictionwise and the like report online print sales. But mostly, they're as fair as they can be with authors. I really wouldn't want to work in accounting at a major publishing house during April or October. Headache city!

I'll stick with writing and waiting for money. Royalties are like waiting for Christmas (or Hanukkah, etc.) You hope for the biggest gift on the block--the diamond ring or new car or shiny new bike, but you might get a big box of socks. :ROFL:
 

EMaree

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As others have said, it beats retail or service work.

There are a myriad number of situations where authors can get taken advantage of -- exclusive submissions, bad agents, bad publisher contracts, the list goes on... -- but a lot of it comes down to treading carefully. Take harder routes instead of easy paths to publication, focus on writing instead of on money, find yourself a good agent, and remember that it's a business.

I look at the low wages paid to writers, how long it takes to get a check from a publisher, how advances are broken into several payments,

This is all fairly ordinary, but...

and how publishing contracts tie writers into giving them their next book at similar terms, and this makes me feel like we're being taken advantage of. Not to mention, publishers who won't take a look at your next book until 6 months after your current book is released. If it takes one or two years to publish a book, how are we to make a living?

...This is the sort of boilerplate nastiness an agent would usually get removed from a contract. Looking at your post history, it sounds like you need to post in (or create) a thread for your publisher in the Bewares & Background Check section, or contact Victoria Strauss at WRITER BEWARE.

Also, if you don't have an agent, you really really need one.
 
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RightHoJeeves

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I think it's pretty hard to argue that, because in reality, the world would not change one bit if your (or my) writing never saw the light of day. Yes, it would be a different world if all writing disappeared, but we're not actually doing anything strictly necessary. It's really a blessing that there is even a slight chance to make a living off it.
 

Chase

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Nope. I'm the one taking advantage.

Writing's a lifelong hobby I've parlayed into paid schooling, a career teaching it, journalism jobs, and editing to keep me in fishhooks in retirement. Through it all, writing is a passion I enjoy.
 

flapperphilosopher

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I think it's pretty hard to argue that, because in reality, the world would not change one bit if your (or my) writing never saw the light of day. Yes, it would be a different world if all writing disappeared, but we're not actually doing anything strictly necessary. It's really a blessing that there is even a slight chance to make a living off it.

I have to agree with this. There are so many jobs out there vital to the effective working of modern-day society, that are underpaid. While art is important, it simply is not important in the same way as medicine, or farming, or the proper disposal of garbage. We're extremely lucky to live in a society where members can take the time to create art and get any reward at all for it. It's unfair to be scammed, of course, but simply not getting much compensation is hard to complain about when you consider the bigger picture.
 

Filigree

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Trust me, there are far more horrible jobs out there. The publishers who do succeed, do so under enormous burdens that many other businesses would find intolerable.

Given the specific complaints you've made, Terraaus, I second the idea that you need an agent. And find a safe way to out this publisher.
 

Terraaus

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I have to agree with this. There are so many jobs out there vital to the effective working of modern-day society, that are underpaid. While art is important, it simply is not important in the same way as medicine, or farming, or the proper disposal of garbage. We're extremely lucky to live in a society where members can take the time to create art and get any reward at all for it. It's unfair to be scammed, of course, but simply not getting much compensation is hard to complain about when you consider the bigger picture.

I don't write art. I write self help books.
 

Filigree

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I'm not going to ask your agent's or publisher's identity. But (especially in the self-help field) you need a good agent. Sounds like there may be a fundamental disconnect between your publisher's contract policies, your agent's skill, and your expectations. Non-fiction writers can make a good living, but a lot of factors need to line up just right. A capable agent can help make that happen.
 

EMaree

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Filigree said it neater, but Terraus, your agent sounds a bit pants. Are they giving you guidance on how to move forward? Have they explained why some of these clauses were left in your contract? Is there a plan to submit to bigger and better publishers next time?

Last question from me: have you checked out your agent in the Bewares & Background Check section?

(I'm just going by what you're telling us in this thread. Your agent might NOT actually be pants. Maybe. But in your situation, I'd be asking some pointed questions.)
 
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Jamesaritchie

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I look at the low wages paid to writers, how long it takes to get a check from a publisher, how advances are broken into several payments, and how publishing contracts tie writers into giving them their next book at similar terms, and this makes me feel like we're being taken advantage of. Not to mention, publishers who won't take a look at your next book until 6 months after your current book is released. If it takes one or two years to publish a book, how are we to make a living?

No, not at all. And no publisher has ever said I have to sell them my next book at the same terms. If the first book sells very well, my advance foes up along with the sales numbers.

And I get my advance before publishers earn a dime from my novel. The publisher is the one taking a chance, not me. I've also never had a publisher ask me to wait for six months before they would look at my next. If they did, I'd find a new publishers, and I'd write a different kind of book for a different publisher in the meantime.

As for how long it takes to publish a book from the time you actually sell it, eighteen months is about average. This is why good publishers offer an advance. The advance, paid before publishers know whether your book will be a hit, or a complete flop, is to help you live until royalties, if any, start coming in. Breaking the advance into several pieces, though because of the way I write, mine usually comes in two chunks, makes it last longer.

Chances are, if you're in a situation where you can write a book, you're probably already in a survivable situation. You're probably already eating, already have a place to live, etc.

Very few startup businesses, and this is exactly what writing is, make you a fortune overnight. You have to earn your way to a fortune, whether you're selling cars, furniture, insurance, or novels.

Writers are taken advantage of by those who expect writers to work for free, or content sites that pay pennies and make a fortune from the writer's work, but being taken advantage of requires the writer's consent.

But I don't think we're taken advantage of at all in the way you're asking. How many other businesses pay you before a single customer has bought whatever it is you're trying to sell?

As for low wages, we're paid what we earn. If we want more pay, we either have to write more, or write better. Pay is not up to the publisher, it's up to us.
 

Terraaus

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I just recently signed with a new agent. I had one for my first book, but not my second. He is handling my third, we're in negotiations right now. I just delivered a proposal for my fourth, and I'm working on a new genre for my fifth. I'm disheartened because in 5 years I've only been paid $10,000 for my first book, and the first payment on my second. How do I make a sustainable living this way?
 

EMaree

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I just recently signed with a new agent. I had one for my first book, but not my second. He is handling my third, we're in negotiations right now. I just delivered a proposal for my fourth, and I'm working on a new genre for my fifth. I'm disheartened because in 5 years I've only been paid $10,000 for my first book, and the first payment on my second. How do I make a sustainable living this way?

Honestly dude, $10,000 is pretty great for a not-yet-established author. It's not easy to make a sustainable living through writing alone, most have a second job or do writing other than novels to pay the bills (commercial copywriting, blog writing, newspapers, ghostwriting, work-for-hire....).

Take a look at all these links about advances, and particularly at Janet Reid's recent post explaining how an average $10k advance gets paid out.
 
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lizmonster

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How do I make a sustainable living this way?

You don't. Not for a long time. Writing (unless you do a LOT of freelance work, and/or get a corporate gig as a business writer) is not a full-time job for the vast majority of people doing it. A stat I found a few years ago (sorry I can't lay my hands on the link) was that about 5% of writers are making a living wage by writing.

It's a grand goal. It's my goal. But it almost never happens in a flash of lightning, and for most of us - even if we publish books that sell well and are well-reviewed - will never get there at all.

$10K is damn good. You obviously know your stuff. Just keep doing it. :)
 

jjdebenedictis

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Being taken advantage of means someone is not paying you fairly for what you provided.

If what you provided didn't sell very well, that's not being taken advantage of. It's just the failure of a commercial product.

If you are locked into a contract that keeps your services cheap even after your career becomes lucrative, you're not being taken advantage of unless the contract lasts too long (and it's the same quandary professional athletes and actors in franchise movies face.)

If you're only paid slowly, as the profits come in, that's not being taken advantage of. Your business partner is trying to smooth out the bumps and dips in their own cash flow situation, and if it helps keep them in business longer, then it's not a bad thing for you.

You're right that writers are the most powerless element in publishing (although having an agent helps, because they can use the leverage of controlling access to a larger stable of clients to pressure the publisher more effectively), but of all the points you mentioned, only the one about your agent not being willing to read your next book struck me as a problem. I hope your new agent is more respectful of you as a client.
 
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Jamesaritchie

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I just recently signed with a new agent. I had one for my first book, but not my second. He is handling my third, we're in negotiations right now. I just delivered a proposal for my fourth, and I'm working on a new genre for my fifth. I'm disheartened because in 5 years I've only been paid $10,000 for my first book, and the first payment on my second. How do I make a sustainable living this way?

If you want to earn a living you have to write a book that a LOT of people are willing to part with beer money to buy. It's this simple.

And most have to learn how to write fairly fast. There's a correlation not only between writhing faster and earning more money, but also in writing more and getting better. But, look, that's how much you've made because that's how much you've written, and how much what you've written has earned.

Most who try writing never earn anything. That's just how it is. Others write a first novel quickly, and it earns millions. Others have to write a dozen or more novels before the write one that grabs readers enough to grant the writer a decent, or extremely good, living. Take away either, and I'd stop writing tomorrow, though it's getting to late in life to worry about that. After almost thirty-six years, I'm still making money, and I still enoy the writing process, so I guess I'll keep writing until I die, or retire because I can't keep working.

But I write my ass off to earn a good living, if you can call five hours per day, five days per week, writing my ass off. I do write a lot more when deadlines creep up on me, or when I foolishly agree to take on more projects that I can easily handle, but the five/five is my norm.

I write novels in more than one genre, for adults, and for children. I've even written a category romance. I also write short stories, screenplays, articles, essays, poems, and I once made a dollar per word for writing a one hundred word story to go with a chili recipe.

It's been a very good way to live, and I've managed to raise three kids on my pay.

I've had lean times, up to my neck in money times, and mostly between the two times, but lean times, doing pretty good times, or loaded times, it's always because of what I write, never because anyone is taking advantage of me. They aren't.

I might make more if I concentrated on only one or two areas. I almost certainly would. But the joy factor means I write what I want to write, and I love writing in all these areas.

One thing I will say is that I've always done better when I think about how much I make per hour, rather than by hoping a given project might make me a lot of money somewhere down the line. If your hourly wage isn't acceptable. write more things, and in more areas. Very, very few writers can earn a living by writing slowly.

I understand being disheartened. I write for money, and I write because I really enjoy the writing process. But I think writing may be the fairest business out there. How much I earn is always determined by my own work ethic, and my own talent.
 

Jamesaritchie

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A stat I found a few years ago (sorry I can't lay my hands on the link) was that about 5% of writers are making a living wage by writing.

:)

Such numbers have no meaning at all. Writing, like every other business, is all about the individual. Five percent of which group or writers earn a living? Are unpublished writers counted? Those who only write every great now and then? Those who have had only one or two small sales in Momma Loves Papa Magazine?

Not that it matters. What matters is only than any individual writer can earn a very good living, or become filthy rich, if he or she has the work ethic and the talent. What the rest do has no bearing at all on any individual.
 

lizmonster

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Such numbers have no meaning at all.

Fair point.

I just spent fifteen minutes rummaging through my Facebook feed to find a recent article I'd read, and I failed miserably. What I remember of it, though: Numbers were self-reported, which makes them of dubious use anyway; but the upshot from the sample was that if you made $50K a year writing, you were in the 85th percentile. (A living wage in some places, but not "filthy rich.")

What matters is only than any individual writer can earn a very good living, or become filthy rich, if he or she has the work ethic and the talent. What the rest do has no bearing at all on any individual.

I'll grant you I'm a newbie at this, but this strikes me as a gross oversimplification. You're assuming a static market, in terms of how much both publishers and readers are buying. You're also assuming popular genres stay popular, and nothing new ever shows up.

"Filthy rich" - also a useless term, without an accepted definition - can happen with the right genre at the right time and the right set of movie/merchandise deals. But I've read a lot of bloody marvelous books by writers that I know (thanks to social media) are still working day jobs and/or depending on their spouses to make ends meet.

If I could churn out two books a year and sell them for what I sold my first novel for, I'd make a living. I wouldn't be "filthy rich" by anybody's definition, but I could quit the day job. Unfortunately, I can't write that fast.

I stand by my assertion that it takes a long time for most writers to get to the point of making a living wage, regardless of how you define it.
 

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I'm a bit disturbed by the "there's worse elsewhere" argument. Yes there is worse elsewhere, always, no matter how bad you think you have it. That doesn't mean you're not entitled to complain about your own situation if you think there's a problem (whether there's actually a problem is another question).

I do think there's a problem when authors invest 90% of the time and efforts it takes to create a book and yet do not get back even a fifth of the retail price of the finished products.

Yes of course, publishers have it hard (super-rich CEOs also have it hard: surprisingly it takes a lot of work to keep earning this much money!), but even though, they manage to make a living, when their authors, at an equal level of sells, don't (and I'm perfectly aware that some (many?) publishers don't make a living; the keyword is "at an equal level of sells").
 
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