Monetary Report: Week 17
Another good week. I was paid for a fiction contest I judged (which I'm going to count as writing profit), and I sold a few books. My profits for this week were $112.21. That, officially, is my second best week, and it brings my year total to date to: $688.92.
I guessed that each year I make about $1000.00 off my writing. Looks like I might actually do a little better than that.
We'll see, though. I have a feeling things are going to slow down.
I had a thought, and I wanted to include it because it feels like my whole blog has become about these monetary reports. For someone just tuning in, the reports might look a little odd. What I determined at the start of the new year was that I wanted to find out exactly how much I make in a year from my writing. I am counting only profits -- not things that are costs. So, if I sell a book for $12.00, but I buy saleable copies from the publisher for $9.00, then my profits are $3.00. I figured that my weekly reports might be of interest to someone.
Feel free to comment on the value of the reports.
Okay, here's the thought I had earlier . . .
Serious writers should think of themselves as unordained holy people or as seers or as philosophers. They should write because they have something to say about the world . . . they have a truth to share. Writers who put craft, style, and experimentation above everything else are charlatans masquerading as serious writers. They lack a message, but they wrap their empty box with the prettiest paper they can find.
I challenge anyone to write a down-to-earth story with real people in real situations and to make it good. Help readers see the extraordinary in the ordinary. Make the mundane mudluscious. If you can do that, you might have the chops to be a writer. If you can't, maybe you're just playing. Maybe, like so many Pollock knock-off artists, you're just dripping paint, and yet you can't even draw a decent piece of fruit. If you draw that apple well enough and with enough truth, you might just make someone hungry.
Sorry, I'm just rambling.
I guessed that each year I make about $1000.00 off my writing. Looks like I might actually do a little better than that.
We'll see, though. I have a feeling things are going to slow down.
I had a thought, and I wanted to include it because it feels like my whole blog has become about these monetary reports. For someone just tuning in, the reports might look a little odd. What I determined at the start of the new year was that I wanted to find out exactly how much I make in a year from my writing. I am counting only profits -- not things that are costs. So, if I sell a book for $12.00, but I buy saleable copies from the publisher for $9.00, then my profits are $3.00. I figured that my weekly reports might be of interest to someone.
Feel free to comment on the value of the reports.
Okay, here's the thought I had earlier . . .
Serious writers should think of themselves as unordained holy people or as seers or as philosophers. They should write because they have something to say about the world . . . they have a truth to share. Writers who put craft, style, and experimentation above everything else are charlatans masquerading as serious writers. They lack a message, but they wrap their empty box with the prettiest paper they can find.
I challenge anyone to write a down-to-earth story with real people in real situations and to make it good. Help readers see the extraordinary in the ordinary. Make the mundane mudluscious. If you can do that, you might have the chops to be a writer. If you can't, maybe you're just playing. Maybe, like so many Pollock knock-off artists, you're just dripping paint, and yet you can't even draw a decent piece of fruit. If you draw that apple well enough and with enough truth, you might just make someone hungry.
Sorry, I'm just rambling.
posted by Jeff Vande Zande at 8:29 PM
2 Comments:
Jeff, just a thought, but why not use your Blog for actual writing, rather than writing about writing? Hey, it's your blog, and you do what you want, but I wonder if you're still old school and look to have everything you write "published." Hell, more people read your blog than little lit mags. So, why not just post your stories to your blog and cut out the middle step?
Bret
Bret,
I think I hear you. I guess, in the end, I still like the idea of my best writing being juried by someone else. I want someone to say, "hey, this is good enough that I'm willing to put myself out there to publish it."
If I publish my own stories on my blog . . . well, that just feels a little tacky.
I don't look to have everything I write "published," but if I do put some real time and effort into it, I guess I do look for my work to be published somewhere beyond my blog.
Does that make me "old school" . . . I don't know.
What I am hearing, though, is that maybe there could be more of me and less of these monetary reports in my blogging.
Well, I'll do my best.
Anyone invented the 27-hour day, yet?
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