How It Works–Being An Author-Lyn Cote
The main reason I’m taking this opportunity to write about my life and daily work as an author is to make it clear why owning the copyright to my fiction is important to me and other authors.
I’ve been watching and reading news about how digital books, such as the Kindle, Nook, Sony Reader etc are (read are already) going to change the way readers purchase and read books. This change from the printed page has brought an interesting shift in how people view the end product, my stories, my life’s work.
There are some readers who think that books should be free or cost very little. The ease of obtaining books in the form of a digital electronic file makes easy to get, makes it seem like air, free, I guess.
This mindset is hard for me to understand since I spend 6-12 hours a day writing and dealing with the business of writing. I think that most readers don’t understand this, the writing life. And don’t realize that just eliminating the paper, ink and postage from the product, my book, doesn’t mean that the product is worth nothing. Or be given away free.
Few except those of us in the “bizness” understand the commitment and the mental strength and emotional determination it takes to write not just one story, but many. And in addition, to stay viable or salable in the public and very competitive market of books. I’m hoping that this frank discussion of what it takes to be a writer and stay a writer may help others understand what I do everyday. And why it’s important that authors are allowed to benefit from their labor.
First of all, I’d like to give you some idea of what I receive in $$ for my work. It takes me 6-12 months to write a book from the first ideas about it till the final manuscript is written and in the hands of my editor and finally accepted by the editor. That’s a long time and there are many stages in that process which I will be writing about on the Tuesdays through March and April on my blog.
So talking about $$, have you ever wondered what a writer earns from a book? Drop by my personal blog http://strongwomenbravestories.blogspot.com next Tuesday and I’ll give you the real deal. GRIN
Lyn,
Interesting topic. I think the problem is that digital content on the internet is often free, and so they think that everything delivered digitally should be free.
I deal with this from people who think that digital books cost nothing to store (unlike their paper versions), so they should be heavily discounted because the transportation and storage costs are no longer there. I counter that with the fact that it takes servers and air conditioners and backup systems and electricity and security systems to now protect that digital content, plus the method by which it is delivered from the “store” to the “customer”. All of that infrastructure, plus the people that run it, costs money. Now, I can’t say how much, as compared to paper books, but I do know that a database system administrator is probably paid more than a truck driver.
So, I understand your pain from both the author’s side and the publisher’s side. We all want to make a profit from that book. And the customer wants it cheap.
Pam, I agree with you 100%!