Don't quit your day job

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America guild is considering allowing membership to people who create comics. They did a survey on how much comic creators get paid, and it's depressing:

https://www.sfwa.org/2021/08/17/surveys-comics-graphic-novelists-pay/

I'm looking really hard at that $9,400 median advance for a graphic novel. So basically, to earn full-time minimum wage (which is comically low), you'd have to sell two graphic novels every year. Neat.

Meanwhile, I was looking at the publisher's webpage for my book, and it apparently has more than 3.5k downloads. Directly from the publisher's page. At $45 for the ebook. I'm not sure if that's a lot for an academic monograph, but... I mean, I don't get royalties. I don't get anything. I got an $800 direct deposit, but only after delivery of the final manuscript. To put this in perspective, in order to deliver the final manuscript, I was responsible for paying $1200 for the cover image rights, $750 for copy editing, and $100 for indexing. Palgrave isn't a vanity publisher by any means, as the peer review to get this book published was a nightmare, but it is predatory.

In most Humanities disciplines at most R1 universities in America, you have to publish a monograph through an academic press in order to get tenure. I didn't get tenure on the technicality that my monograph publication date was "suspiciously" pushed back by supply chain issues resulting from the pandemic. Which is shit, and I think it's acceptable for me to be bitter about it.

Still, even if I had known that this book wouldn't get me tenure, I'm not sure how else I would have gotten it published, or whether it would be possible for me to have earned money from its publication.

I just don't think people make money from writing (or drawing) books. I guess it's cool that unions like the SFWA exist to fight the good fight, but I suspect that won't really change anything for the vast majority of writers and artists.

Re: Don't quit your day job

To be really super honest about money, the most I've ever gotten for my writing is from the Memorabilia BotW fandom zine, which paid all contributors an even €200 after the shipping for leftover sales finished up. At the then-current exchange rate, this was about $220.

(If you're curious, I put that money directly back into the fandom by immediately using it to commission fandom artists for fandom projects. Such is the circle of life.)

To put this into perspective, both The Atlantic and Kotaku pay about $150 for a freelance contribution of similar length.

To put this into even broader perspective, most "for profit" zines and anthologies only compensate contributors with complimentary copies. To give an example, I have access to a detailed finance document for the Carpe Noctem: Vampires Through the Ages zine, which has currently raised more than $11,000 on Kickstarter. It's a decently successful campaign that's already passed four stretch goals; but, once you take platform fees, production, and shipping costs into account, it's barely enough to send out contributor copies (as each unlocked stretch goal makes shipping and production more expensive). If - and only if - there isn't a problem with production or shipping, then the contingency funds will be divided among the contributors, who will get about $100-$150 each maybe a year from now.

There's been a lot of recent social media conversation about how fandom zines are bad because (a) zines are supposed to be indie and subversive and (b) zines don't adequately compensate artists. As someone who wrote an actual literal academic monograph about zines, I think the first point is not only incorrect but almost aggressively ignorant. As for the second point, I really don't know what to say, besides that nobody's making money either way.

Re: Don't quit your day job, Part 2

Anyway I have an essay in an anthology that was just published a week ago and is already on the center displays at Foyles and Waterstones...

https://twitter.com/MuswellPress/status/1461372608209895427

...and will probably be at a Barnes and Noble near you come February.

And friends, not only did I not get paid, but I had to order my own copy of the book from Amazon UK.

I mean, it's worth it. It's definitely worth it. I'm just saying that very few people are going to be able to pay the rent with their writing.

Sorry I'm not done talking about zines yet

Speaking of the "zines should be indie and subversive" conversation, this tweet just blew up...

https://twitter.com/rogvaettr/status/1465335292035010566

Since there's no reason to have something like this in your algorithm, I'm going to quote the tweet here:

Just saw someone talk about a zine with a 'do not apply if you've ever created NSFW art' rule, and I want you to know that you people have completely appropriated and pissed on what zines are supposed to be, which is 1000% subversive, transformative, makes-society-flinch shit.

I know from inside information (that came to me in a very roundabout way via the con programming server of an anime convention) that what actually happened was this: An artist applied with a portfolio comprised entirely of explicit cp. I saw some of the images, which are beyond debate and extremely disturbing. When it became clear that some of the artist's friends were planning on sending similar portfolios, the mods made an announcement that they wouldn't be considering portfolios that included nsfw material. Which is fair, I think.

Anyway, I think people are forgetting that oldschool punk zines were and continue to be extremely exclusive. In fact, a lot of famous punk and ska songs from the 1990s are complaints about people being excluded from the scene because they're "not punk enough." Speaking from personal experience, just last year the South Street Art Mart in Philadelphia declined to stock my "transformative, makes-society-flinch" queer horror zines for basically the same reason. (Heaven forbid your zine covers are printed with full bleed lol.)

My own view of the matter is that, if you run a zine, you can include or exclude anyone you want. Like, it's your zine. If someone doesn't like it they can make their own zine. Anyone can make a zine. That's what's so nice about the medium honestly.