Valerie Aurora
Making a living as a writer in 2023 is so weird. Your choices are:
* nepo baby staff writer for legacy media fawning over billionaires and peddling fascism
* writing 3 email newsletters a week and making the most obscure one subscriber only
* organizing a community of your fans and charging for access to it
* starting your own publishing business and asking fans to pay you up front to write the next book
Valerie Aurora
All of these ways of making a living writing are morally fine except for the first.
My complaint as a reader is that they all involve major skill sets in addition to writing book-length materials, severely limiting the people who can make a living writing and therefore the things available for me to read.
Valerie Aurora
In the before times, the skills you needed to write were: writing the thing people want to read, pitching the thing to publishers, chasing invoices if you're not on staff, and optionally networking/schmoozing.
This still eliminated a number of good writers from making a living writing, but when you compare it to today, when you need social media expertise, community management, event planning, marketing, and speaking skills, and/or the skills to hire and manage people to do them...
Valerie Aurora
And on top of that writers making a living at writing have to deal with massive exposure to unhealthy parasocial relationships at the level usually only sought out by live performers like actors and musicians.
When you add all that together... not only are there very few people who can write, run a business, perform, manage a community, and tolerate parasocial relationships, but most of those people have the option to get paid six figures as a manager or executive.
Valerie Aurora
We are also losing the writers with the non-writing day job. It's still a select few who can write in addition to working a full time job and any care duties they have, but compared to people who can do that AND run a second business? Ugh.
Valerie Aurora
In conclusion, I hope some new kind of publisher evolves that understands the new landscape of writing and manages all the communities and events and parasocial relationships for writers so they can focus on what they love doing. So I have more books to read.
Valerie Aurora
@billseitz as a reader, how do I find a writer's work if they don't market or advertise? As a writer, how do I get readers?
Bill Seitz
@vaurora if you can live off your non-writing job, then you can self-publish online to your heart's content. Without adding the "business" or "parasocial" burdens.
Valerie Aurora
@stylinstainless you shouldn't have to! It is a huge bummer
F.H.
@vaurora No wonder I failed as a writer. I know how to do none of these things.
Valerie Aurora
@gatesvp I'm with you on paying writers more money! We need businesses that are better at enabling that than Patreon and Substack
Gaëtan Perrault
@vaurora we definitely need to give artists a new breed of publisher. But new publishers won't fix a "lack of money" problem.
We're going to need to start paying more money for our favorite authors to keep writing.
Hopefully, our new publishers can fill in that funding gap. But we've probably been getting too many books for too little money. We've definitely seen this in the music industry for the last decade. //
Gaëtan Perrault
@vaurora I agree that we need a new breed of publishers, but we probably also need a new breed of publisher funding.
People still want to pay big publisher prices for little publisher creations and it's really squeezing little pubs. Very few people are offering higher prices for books, which means the publishers are squeezed and those support teams are the first to go.
I back a lot of artists on kickstarter and patreon. A lot. This funding is a recurring theme... /1
Valerie Aurora
In reality, the way I support writers who *don't* have an option for subscription-based support is by pre-ordering the book they already wrote so that the publisher will pay them to write the book after the one I am pre-ordering. And the author is doing all the marketing: arranging book tours, booking speaking gigs, organizing social media campaigns, etc.
Valerie Aurora
@billseitz whatever kind of writing people can find without marketing or advertising
Bill Seitz
@vaurora to focus, should we talk about books or shorter? Fiction or non-fiction?
Valerie Aurora
@gatesvp my Patreon bill is substantial because I feel the same way. But they genuinely are just a platform - I'm hoping for something more like publisher
Gaëtan Perrault
@vaurora "Paying writers more" basically means "spending more money on the books we already buy".
I give credit to Patreon for being a vehicle to basically do this. For the people I back, this monthly source of income basically gets them to the next book, the next album, the next thing
Patreon isn't perfect, but it's having a very real effect. And I haven't figured out a better way to get money directly to artists
Rob Landley
Valerie Aurora
@landley right??
Rob Landley
@vaurora If you want books https://www.amazon.com/Give-People-Money-Universal-Revolutionize/dp/1524758760 from https://youtu.be/Uu23HOoyFHw or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia_for_Realists from https://youtu.be/ydKcaIE6O1k come to mind (and of course David Graeber...)
Valerie Aurora
@landley er, I am quite aware of UBI and have been advocating for it for more than a decade. Is there a reason you thought I wanted recommendations for explanations of UBI?
Valerie Aurora
@billseitz what you just described is marketing and advertising
Bill Seitz
@vaurora For a little more work....
I'd buy a domain from wordpress, and create a 2-3-page website - home, bio, book.
I'd post on my social network of choice.
I'd email people who had reviewed books "similar" to mine (whether on paid sites or blogs) to let them know about the book.
Bill Seitz
@vaurora I'll focus on the book-author.
I'd self-publish on Amazon/KDP. I'd start by charging $3.99 or $4.99 for the book, something appropriate for the print-on-demand.
I'd email all my friends to tell them about it, including the link. (I'd ask them to post a review if they buy.)
Valerie Aurora
@billseitz Okay. I am not going to explain how you are missing the point of my thread.
Bill Seitz
@vaurora There's no process of getting more then 3 readers that takes 0 non-writing time. There's a vast spectrum between 0 time and "running a 2nd business".
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