Klarinet Archive - Posting 000966.txt from 1999/03

From: LeliaLoban@-----.com
Subj: [kl] Copyright
Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1999 11:59:24 -0500

James P Reed wrote, <BTW, when I posted the pitch list, it was fully
attributed. Whether the original writer has a reaction or not I don't know. >

As a matter of fact, we don't know the original writer, because the person you
cited who posted the pitch list on the sax group didn't say where *he* got it,
a fact that someone (not me) mentioned on the sax group at the time. Someone
asked him where he got it but he didn't reply. I thought about bringing that
up with you, but your private e-mail to me was so hostile that I decided not
to aggravate you further by nagging you about an issue on which you already
knew my opinion. Cross-posting seemed pointless. Similarly, I've said
nothing about the general issue on the sax group (yet) because I've been
mulling over whether or not to keep sticking my head in the fire after you and
others already pretty well singed my hair off after the first time.

In my previous messages here, I refrained from quoting your private e-mail,
which was considerably more civil than your latest rather astonishing blast on
the list, but thank you so much for going on the public record so that people
can see for themselves without having to believe anything I might have said
about you. I wrote all that follows several days ago, as a personal reply to
you, then dithered over whether to send it or just drop the subject. But now
that you've gone public with even wilder accusations, I'll let everyone see my
answer as well:

You speculated that I must be plotting to make money on lawsuits against
Internet pirates, because you couldn't accept "naivete or idealism as an
excuse" for what I'd said. (Interjection on the 17th: The quotation is from
his private e-mail. Much of what I wrote here yesterday was based on the
theory that the truth requires no excuse.) I'll have to be sure to tell my
friends this story at the Balticon science fiction convention next month,
where we'll get a good laugh out of it, although you obviously meant it as a
serious accusation. Have you been published primarily in professional or
academic journals? Let me explain a few realities of life as a freelance
writer for the popular press.

I made my first sale of sorts (an essay that won a contest sponsored by a
daily newspaper, which then "bought" the article and published it) at age
thirteen, in 1961. The pay was a gift certificate for an ice cream cone at
Foster's Freeze. Since then, my income from writing has never affected my tax
bracket.

A "professional" market in this so-called business is one that pays anything,
or pays more than three cents per word, or pays more than six cents per word,
depending on which sorry excuse for a writers' union you join. When writers
get together and discuss new markets, the first question someone asks is, "Do
they pay?" When writers brag about finding new work, the first question other
writers ask is, "How much do they pay you?" In any other line of work, that's
considered a rude question. Among writers, it's considered humor, and the
appropriate answer is a loud guffaw, followed by raucous merriment from anyone
who happens to be listening. Then an undertone of grumbling beings as rumors
spread that "they" pay someone else a lot more.

A friend of mine, single with no dependents, is the only writer I know who
supports himself with his words. We've been friends since junior high. He
wrote a steady-selling "how-to" type of book that's remained continuously in
print from a major publisher since 1978. He's sold several books since then,
including a collection of poetry, along with hundreds of articles and poems.
His readers might be surprised to know that this apparently successful writer
earns barely enough in royalties to "avoid having to get an honest job," as he
puts it. He lives right at the poverty line in a shack with almost more leaks
than roof.

Every other freelance writer I know (and I know several dozen) lives with
parents or a working spouse, and/or works at least half-time in another job.
I read a survey statistic somewhere recently (in _Publisher's Weekly_, I
think) that only 1200-odd writers in the U.S.A. (I just re-read that and yes,
some of us are very odd) currently earn enough by writing to support
themselves with no other source of income. Writers' fees have decreased, in
actual dollar amounts, never mind inflation, since the Depression.

A lot of writers, including the ones who deserve to succeed, quit in despair.
That almost happened to Stephen King, who (as he reports with great good humor
in _Danse Macabre_) wrote _Carrie_ "in the furnace room of a trailer" on his
time off from working as a sheet-runner in a laundry. It was far from the
first thing he'd written; it was just the first thing that sold for real
money. A lot of people jealously scorn Stephen King for his success. I wish
he'd write fewer books and write them more carefully, but bravo for him
anyway: He thoroughly enjoys what he does and he works hard at it.

According to an article by Joel Achenbach in _The Washington Post_ (Friday,
March 12, p. 1), about 50,000 books get published annually in the U. S. A.
According to _Writer's Market_, the average advance on a first novel is
$5,000. Dirty little secret: The average advance for subsequent novels is
also $5,000. Most books don't earn back the advance. Think about how long it
takes to write a novel and do the math. Most novelists earn less than the
minimum wage. (The situation is considerably worse for songwriters and
composers, because their market is even smaller.) Meanwhile, conglomerates
have now bought out most of the publishing houses here and are busy trimming
the midlist. That means they're getting rid of writers who don't sell mass
quantities.

A friend of mine succumbed to the romantic fiction that you can make big bucks
by writing quickie romance novels, just like Barbara Cartland. So she wrote
one, _Capitol Kisses_ (under her pen name, Kathryn Lewis). For what it is,
it's not bad. She shopped it for awhile and finally settled for the best she
could get: Avalon Books gave her a flat fee of $500 *for a hardback*. That
was a one-shot fee: no royalties. Avalon published 'em one month and pulped
'em the next. She figures she earned about a dollar an hour, if that. She
went back to mainstream writing, which is even less profitable because you
can't earn the dollar an hour if you don't sell the book. She's been sending
out a good novel for about four years now, without being able to sell it.
(For the record, no, I'm not Kathryn Lewis.)

Most of those who support themselves by writing in the U. S. A. do work-for-
hire (that means their employers own all rights) for daily newspapers, in-
house corporate trade journals, publishing companies or fewer than a dozen
major magazines. For every Stephen King or Anne Rice who gets a seven-figure
advance, thousands of writers "can't quit the day job." As a freelancer, I
usually get between half a US cent per word and three cents per word; and I
frequently give away first serial rights to fiction fanzines that pay only in
copies. AFAIK, only two magazines in the Unites States, _Playboy_ and _The
New Yorker_, pay freelancers higher than ten cents per word. Many magazines
will negotiate for higher rates with someone who's a celebrity, or who has a
huge scoop, or who's a major writer such as Stephen King, but I'm a total
nobody and I'm thrilled when someone gives me more than three cents per word.

Do you really think I'm dumb enough to sue anyone over those amounts?

So that's the background for the fact that I've never sued anybody for a
copyright violation (never sued anybody for anything -- I think a lawsuit is
the last resort, the worst way to settle a conflict), nor am I likely to sue,
because no matter how just the cause, my legal costs would run far higher than
the market value of my writing. Even if I won a judgment against the
defendant to pay my legal costs, I'd probably never see a dime, because (a)
the lawyer would get it all, and/or (b) the defendant would probably be some
other writer in the same situation I'm in, who couldn't afford to pay up
anyway, so the lawyer -- if I could find one who would take such a loser of a
case! -- wouldn't get a dime, either.

At a science fiction convention a couple of years ago, I joined other writers
in a rousing three cheers for Harlan Ellison after he won his lawsuit against
a film company that ripped off a script he'd written, but such lawsuits are
newsworthy precisely because they're so rare. Ellison's suit is even rarer in
that he actually ended up with some money. Thanks to his popularity with
readers, he also may have escaped the usual fate, that writers who sue can
never sell another word. That's a whole other issue: Getting a reputation
for litigiousness makes a writer unmarketable. That's one reason we get so
frustrated about copyright infringement. Unless we're Harlan Ellison, we
can't really do anything about it except appeal to people's better natures, if
any.

Nor do I go around threatening and making life miserable for people who
clearly aren't pirating me. For instance, when someone said she'd printed out
one of my facetious messages on the alt.music.saxophone newsgroupand posted it
on the wall of her band room, of course I didn't complain about that. That's
no different than cutting out a magazine article and showing it to her friends
or thumbtacking it to a wall. That's not distribution. She made one copy,
for her personal use, instead of copying it to a public site. I was surprised
and delighted that she enjoyed the article that much. I told her so and
thanked her.

So I'm typical of small press writers in general, in that the most I ever do
is protect my claim to legal ownership of my work, to keep my affairs in
order, so that I can sell reprint rights and my family can try to use them
after I'm dead. A writer who knows about piracy and fails to object to it is
in the same situation as a property owner who allows the public to use a
private road for many years, then attempts to close the road. The public may
claim, and win, an easement in such cases. A work can fall into the public
domain through the author's negligence. When I can obtain an apology, with an
acknowledgement of my ownership of the copyright and, better yet, withdrawal
of the material from the site, then I can keep the piece marketable so editors
won't be scared off and I can get my lousy penny a word for the reprint. I
earned it and it pays for the postage, at least.

Since, as you point out, you don't know me personally, I don't see much point
in proclaiming the purity of my moral standards or the innocuousness of my
personality. Since I don't know you, either, I'm glad you said "naivete or
idealism" instead of actually equating the two, because if you did seriously
consider idealism naive, I would have had nothing to say to you except to wish
you good luck. Someone would need quite a lot of luck if he had to blaze
through life burdened by such a cynical attitude.

Back to March 17...let me add, to Stephen Goldman, that I've re-read my
previous messages and I can't find whatever you think is so uncivil. I said
what I believe to be the truth, in straightforward English. Sometimes the
truth is unpleasant. What would you have me do, load it up with little
smiley-faces? No doubt my failure to understand what on earth you're talking
about reflects my general moral turpitude, self-righteousnesss, mean-
spiritedness, etc. etc.. Oh, and by the way, last week you said I should
"lighten up." I guess that means you'll take it lightly if someone tapes you
playing your clarinet at a friend's house, makes copies of the tapes and
distributes them far and wide, with the clarinetist listed as "Anonymous."

If I decline to react to any further flames, nobody should mistake my silence
for anything other than an acknowlegment that this sort of discussion reaches
the point of diminishing returns rather quickly. Just figure I'm spending my
time either squeaking away on the clarinet or sax or earning my penny a word
by writing the _Scarlet Street_ article that's due on April Fool's Day.

Lelia
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Madness takes its toll. Please have exact change."
--bumper sticker
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe from Klarinet, e-mail: klarinet-unsubscribe@-----.org
Subscribe to the Digest: klarinet-digest-subscribe@-----.org
Additional commands: klarinet-help@-----.org
Other problems: klarinet-owner@-----.org

   
     Copyright © Woodwind.Org, Inc. All Rights Reserved    Privacy Policy    Contact charette@woodwind.org