July 22, 2013
Tea Time
British author Guy Walters recently had what (for me) would be an incredibly successful signing, in which he spoke to 800 people and sold no less than sixty hardback books! And then he added up his expenses (driving 250 miles and spending two nights away from home), considered his compensation (a few gift bottles of wine, some royalties which, if paid at all, would be delayed for years) and realized the whole business had cost him money.
Over the past five years, every writer I know has been told by their agent to ‘monetise the activity around their writing’. Give talks. Go to conventions. Judge prizes. Write reviews. Write articles. Go on telly. Go on radio. Go on Twitter. Build your brand.
The problem with all these activities is that nobody actually wants to pay you to do them. Instead, you are given vague assertions that it will be good for sales, good for your profile, and if you do all these things, then my son, there will be jam for tea.
Well, I’m now 41, have written 10 books over 12 years, and for me it’s tea time. The kettle has come to the boil, the Crown Derby is laid out, the bread is sliced and I need the jam right now. In short, I want to be paid for what I do.
Yeah well, good luck with that. Alone of all the respectable professions on the planet, authors are expected to do what they do for free . . . or, at best, for good will.
In any other profession or trade, asking for money is not such a strange thing, is it? Next time you get a lawyer to drive 250 miles and then speak to you for an hour, try paying him with a few bottles of Spanish dry white and see what he says.
Perhaps lawyers are a bad comparison. How about comedians? After all, they drive around giving talks, some of which are amusing. I asked Al Murray, the legendary Pub Landlord, what he charges. The answer made me feel a bit funny myself. It’s 70 per cent of the door. Had I charged that at Hay, I would have made £3,920. No wonder comedians are so rich.
Of course, people are willing to pay to see a comedian. How many will pay good currency to see an author?
Now as it happens, I have been paid some nice money to give talks, but they weren’t literary talks, they had to do with a little consulting thing I do on the side. I’ve been paid a few hundred bucks to appear here and there as an author, and rather more than that to teach, but I’m not sure if I wouldn’t have made more staying home and attending to my main job, which is writing.
I know well ahead of time that my public appearances will lose me money. I do signings more as a favor to my readers and to friends than out of any expectation of eventual reward. If I attend a science fiction convention, it’s because I enjoy attending conventions, seeing my friends, and bloviating on panels, not because I’m unaware that I’m losing hundreds if not thousands of dollars every time I fly somewhere.
(Authors at conventions, by the way, are generally compensated by way of free memberships. Unless you’re the guest of honor, in which case you get more freebies.)
I am entertained by conventions, and I’m willing to pay for my entertainment.
How many people are willing to pay to be entertained by a personal appearance from me is a depressing subject I’d rather not contemplate.
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