Seressia November 13th, 2006
“Let’s face it, writing is hell.”
– William Styron (b. 1925), U.S. novelist.
There are definitely days when this is true. You try to coerce both sides of your brain to live in peaceful harmony as you plot and create. You hope your muse will get along with your deadline looming like the Sword of Damocles. You pray that the revision letter and edit time is manageable. You promise that the dishes, laundry, and trash will all be taken care of as soon as the chapter/revision/outline/research/blog entry is done, which will be any moment. Honest.
And that’s just the writing. Shall we talk about the publishing part of this, the actual business of writing? If you think crafting an entertianing 400-page opus is heck on roller skates, consider the after the sale stuff. Did I go with the right agent? Did I go with the right publishing house? We’re all getting along so well right now, surely nothing will go wrong, right?
Ri-ight.
All sort of things can happen to test the lining of your stomach. Perhaps the last book didn’t earn out the advance. Perhaps you and your muse want to take you in one direction and your agent wants you to go in another. Your editor leaves. Your publisher loses your contract, and you have to fax them a copy of your copy. Or you decide to move on, and instead of parting on good or indifferent terms, your publisher decides to sue you.
Yep, I said sue. I direct your attention to Publisher’s Weekly article here. The title is
which is a follow-up to a September article called:
You can read my take on the original article here. But the new article is…interesting, to say the least.
I think the most facinating thing mentioned in the article is this line: He said it was “not unusual” for a publisher to sue his own authors for complaining about royalty statements.
Excuse me while I go: WTF???
Wow, there must be hundreds of authors quaking in their sheets at the thought. Publishers suing authors for complaining. It’s a good thing publishers and editors aren’t allowed in the published author rooms at various writing conferences around the coutnry. It’s also a good thing that hearsay isn’t admissible in a court of law. Scads of authors would be getting sued. That would be hell, wouldn’t it?
I did learn someting else from the article: that Mr. Colom is the one the Genesis Press authors should be directing their royalty statement and advance paymnet questions to, and not the editor, the accounting department, the sales staff, or whomever is answering the phone in the GP office. I suppose people could call his law office to reach him.
But getting back to the William Styron quote. Writing is hell, but that’s actually the best part of this I-wish-I-could-make-a-living-from-this career I’ve chosen. It’s actually the business part, and stories like this one, that suck the life out of you. It’s the business that’s hell.