I was recently invited to write some blog posts for literaturenetwork.org. Over the next 12 months I'm going to be writing about the limitations and opportunities of creative writing. The first post, How Many Readers Do You Need? is now up:
"Every creative writing course hints: it could be you. They
promise access to agents and the chance to break into the world of
publishing. After years of perseverance, of writing in coffee shops and
cold flats, your novel might be published and become huge. You too
could be as big as JK Rowling."
Please do visit the original post and leave a comment if you like it. Ian Hocking posted an interesting response, raising the questions "What would motivate a person to contribute financially? How would the writer get in touch with these people to start with?"
Since writing the original post I've discussed the issues involved with a few people and the main question I'm left with is how many people am I a true fan of? Is there anyone I've given 1/2000th of a living wage to in the last year? How many people are ever likely to be supported by true fans?
Some of those questions might be answered in some later posts. Meanwhile I'm drafting a post for May on why the novel is almost dead, and why that doesn't matter.
I don’t know how many writers I am a true fan of in the way you describe. Maybe a dozen? But I buy on average a book a week, which I’d estmate at £400 a year, nearly all on novels. Currently about 10% or £40 of that goes to authors. I would much prefer to give £400 a year directly to authors!
You bought my book for £3… £1.60 of which goes to me, which means 1.6 x 2000 = 3200… not impossible to live on, and I’m sure I could claim housing benefit. Now all I have to do is sell another 1950 books, and I’m home and dry…
Chris – There is the issue of distribution for your book. It took me weeks of nagging to get hold of it!
What’s needed is a small-press version of Rough Trade distribution along with a network of venues able to sell booklets at £3-or-so each.
Now, if only there were a network of shops that were used to selling £3 booklets that needed to diversify:
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=20531