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Post by RickW on Mar 10, 2020 21:11:34 GMT -5
To those of you in creative endeavors, there’s a most interesting trend, which I’m sure is not news to many of you, the removal of gatekeepers.
What really brought this home is that as I go through writing fiction again, and did research on current publishing, some things came out that showed a revolution has happened, and continues to happen. Before, you wrote a book, you sent it out, perhaps to agents first, but directly to publishers as well. If a publisher bought it, they did the heavy lifting to sell it. They provided editors, telling you what you needed to do to make your book sellable. They did the marketing, buying advertising, bought cover art, getting your books to reviewers, getting blurbs from other authors to put on the cover. They took care of printing and distribution.
However, there were problems. Publishers were notorious for promising the universe, then not performing. Books languished, didn’t get promoted. Authors were dropped, series cut.
So, along came Amazon. They turned the book retail world on its head by selling online, and making ebooks and audio books easily available to anyone. Then, they made it possible for anyone, any writer, to upload their work and sell it without going through a publisher. You can create an ebook, you can create an audiobook and upload them to sell. You can also do print on demand for those folks who want paper copies.
This means of course that you have to all your own marketing, your own covers, your own editing, or pay someone to do it. In return, you get complete artistic freedom. You get to adhere to your own deadlines. No one lies to you except yourself, because you have to do all the marketing yourself. Most important, instead of getting 15 percent of the cover price, you get 75 percent. There are a lot of people making a living self publishing all kinds of books now, but particularly genre fiction, such as fantasy, SF, romance, thrillers. Some people are making a very large amount of money. There’s a lot of garbage gets published. But there is an enormous amount of content out there now. So much so that the traditional publishing industry is under dire threat. It will be interesting to see how it goes, but already, the news seems to be that they continue to pump big bucks into a few books a year, and let the small folks languish, having to do their own marketing despite having a contract.
And of course there is an entire industry around the fringes of self pub now. Podcasts, youtube channels, books of advice. Editors of course, cover artists. People who will put together your marketing campaign for you, and run it.
What’s interesting, is that this has happened to music as well. Anyone can record in their basement now, with some knowhow, some good mics and decent software. It’s not hard. But with music, there isn’t as delineated a way to make money, a way forward to market, as there is with self published books. But so many people are out there, writing, recording. Patreon seems to be a vehicle for income, and touring of course.
It’s a very interesting world for creatives now, at least in some areas. I guess what’s most interesting is that the possibilities lie there, accessible. You don’t have to convince some executive team that your vision is worthwhile. You just have to convince enough regular folks.
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Post by sidheguitarmichael on Mar 10, 2020 21:20:17 GMT -5
The gatekeeper isn’t people now; it’s a fat bank balance. You can buy your way to fame, you just need the funding.
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Post by RickW on Mar 10, 2020 21:25:55 GMT -5
Fame is one thing. With writing, provided you can actually write and are willing to do the work, you can make a living. Much more so than was possible 30 years ago, when I quit.
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Post by Russell Letson on Mar 10, 2020 22:40:33 GMT -5
I've been close to the writing and publishing world for more than thirty years (and have hung out with people who add another thirty to the view), and it's still not easy to make a living writing. In fact, it's barely possible. The rise of self-publishing hasn't done much to change that. For every The Martian or Fifty Shades of Grey or Wool there are thousands of writers not getting national attention or movie deals. And as far as I can tell, the trait that matters most is the willingness and ability to hustle your product.
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Post by Marshall on Mar 10, 2020 22:52:50 GMT -5
The gatekeepers are gone because the market is gone.
Everything is free.
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Post by RickW on Mar 10, 2020 23:10:19 GMT -5
The gatekeepers are gone because the market is gone. Everything is free. In music. not so much in books.
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Post by RickW on Mar 10, 2020 23:18:55 GMT -5
I've been close to the writing and publishing world for more than thirty years (and have hung out with people who add another thirty to the view), and it's still not easy to make a living writing. In fact, it's barely possible. The rise of self-publishing hasn't done much to change that. For every The Martian or Fifty Shades of Grey or Wool there are thousands of writers not getting national attention or movie deals. And as far as I can tell, the trait that matters most is the willingness and ability to hustle your product. National attention or movie deals, not so much. People making money at it, yes. Lots of testimonials on marketing podcasts, people making enough to survive on, often more than enough. Do they show up in the bestseller lists? No, they don’t get counted. The writer who runs my local writing group started an urban fantasy series a few years ago, got up to $1500 a month, when a messy divorce derailed what he was doing. Just relaunching now. It’ll be interesting to see how he does. You’re absolutely right on the ability and knowledge to hustle. There’s a ton of info out there on what to do.
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Post by millring on Mar 11, 2020 3:45:48 GMT -5
It's a bifurcated world. As hard as it is for those who recognize the gatekeeperless world to believe, there are still those who are institutionally successful enough that they don't believe survival is possible without the gatekeepers that provided them with survival.
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Post by dradtke on Mar 11, 2020 7:24:26 GMT -5
Those are two entirely different skill sets. I spent years working with sales and marketing people in the trade show business, and years working with creative people in theatre. Someone who could do both? Well? Ha!
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Post by epaul on Mar 11, 2020 9:49:05 GMT -5
The Hobo Haus tried a "Gatekeeper" once. That plan didn't last long.
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Post by millring on Mar 11, 2020 9:51:18 GMT -5
The Hobo Haus strikes me as the kind of establishment that might hire a bouncer to bring patrons in rather than throw any out.
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Post by Marshall on Mar 11, 2020 10:10:12 GMT -5
I wonder how many would-be-Hemingways are making a living this way. And if so, would they have risen through the old system as well. And also, isn't Amazon a gate-keeper now? They are going to take their cut off of ever ebook sold. And they will dictate the price an author will get. Plus under the old system, the publishing houses would help the author edit and critique a book. Who does that now? Most creative works, of any type, can benefit from some critical review and edit.
And who does promotion? Amazon? I doubt it.
And under the old system an author could get an advance. I assume nobody at Amazon is doling out $$$ on the hope a first-time writer will make it big.
I'm not knocking the new eworld. I'm saying there are a new set of obstacles in the path of a new writer to making a living at their craft. The obstacles may be as daunting as the old way of doing things.
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Post by millring on Mar 11, 2020 10:36:14 GMT -5
To some degree there have always been both avenues toward success/survival for all artists/craftsmen who have tried to survive by their creativity.
I remember when I met David Mosher. I was doing an art fair in Toledo and, though I couldn't see them behind my booth, I could hear some really good musicians -- a hammered dulcimer and a guitarist -- who were hired by the art fair to provide ambiance. When they stopped playing and I had no customers, I ventured around behind my booth and found the two musicians taking a break. I introduced myself and complimented the guitarist -- David. After some conversation, I asked him what he did for a living. "Music", he said.
I felt kind of silly. I mean, for 15-20 years to that point, I had been making a living as a potter in a sub-culture of the "Wild West" of art fairs that had developed as a work-around to the twin gatekeepers of academia and gallery. Why it hadn't occurred to me that there were parallel means of making a living from other creative pursuits and their gatekeepers, I don't know. Probably because I worshipped the world of music and musicians that the gatekeepers of record labels and radio had presented me. At that point in time I was only a decade or so into collecting more homemade music and meeting more musicians of the decidedly NOT pop kind. At that point, though, even those musicians I loved were still the "product" of record labels and contracts and distribution infrastructure. It was just smaller labels.
But David was completely independent. He played in (at that point) four different bands, had his own recording studio, and would accompany just about any musician in need at a gig or recording studio.
Now we're all Davids. We're all finding our own way. Many of our favorite musicians are those we find on youtube. The Universities told some of our favorite authors that they weren't any good, but thankfully some of them were simply obligate writers who couldn't not write. And in this digital age the braver among them took a chance that, even if those educated in our Universities to have contempt for the simple and the beautiful had rejected them, perhaps they could cast their bread on the water of the internet and see if there were any souls among the 4 billion with computers and kindles and phones who they might touch and be touched by out there. And they found us. And we found them.
There will always be gatekeepers. And there will always be a majority who will look to them to tell us what we are supposed to like and dislike.
And there will always be obligate artists who do what we do. The shift is that there is now a much broader path around the gatekeepers.
Sometimes the gatekeepers want a piece of some of those self-made artists, and agreeable deals can be made.
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Post by Russell Letson on Mar 11, 2020 10:37:20 GMT -5
It's not impossible to be competent enough at the creative and promoting ends of the art biz--there are plenty of examples and anecdotal accounts of successful freelancers. But it remains a relatively rare skill-set combination, especially in areas where economic success depends on a production-distribution-promotion chain.
A term like "gatekeeping" flattens that complex machinery by naming only one element of the system: the agent/acquisition editor/editorial committee front end. Economic success is the result of all the rest of the components plus whatever mysterious processes govern audience acceptance. (Whoda thunk that Fifty Shades of Grey was going to be a breakout book?)
My wife has been paying attention to this environment for nearly forty years--the whole time she has been publishing--and has yet to see any reason to advise anyone to expect economic success from writing, and certainly not from self-publishing. Some economic return maybe, but not enough to support a household or probably even a starving artist in a garret. Anecdotal evidence to the contrary notwithstanding (insert favorite indie success story here), every examination of the evidence has been saying the same thing for the decades we've been observing. And for the earlier decades, we have the accounts of working professional writers from the magazine era, going back to the 1950s (Philip Klass, Philip Jose Farmer, and Jack Vance were among our personal friends).
Self-publishing is a nice option for many writers--it has long been a way for non-fiction to get out into the world--but the economic success stories remain outliers.
(Full disclosure--I may wind up taking that route for my slack key book, to which I'm finally returning. I have a mainstream-publisher contract, but it's so old I suspect that the publisher has written it off. But before I resort to self-publishing, I'll make sure there's not a professional press to do the editorial and production work. And I never expected to even recoup my expenses for that project anyway.)
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Post by Russell Letson on Mar 11, 2020 11:12:42 GMT -5
Sometimes the gatekeepers want a piece of some of those self-made artists, and agreeable deals can be made. This makes "gatekeepers" sound parasitic--and some certainly are. But they are part of a system that manages parts of a promotion/distribution system. Publishers, literary agents, bookers, venue operators, gallery owners, bookstore or art-show proprietors, reviewers, PR outfits--they all provide services or logistical support. And many of them do it for pretty marginal economic return. (The Granite City Folk Society, as a booking entity, is not only a gatekeeper but a non-profit. And we have the ledgers to prove it.) People gonna do art. Some people gonna do it while doing other stuff to keep body and soul together, and a few gonna want to do nothing else. I know a decent portion of our local musical population, and most of them are not full-time, self-supporting players. And the ones who do only music almost invariably have working wives, so they can have health insurance. (The ones who don't--those are the guys we eventually see benefit concerts for.) Monday nights, I get to sit in with four highly accomplished players, all of whom regularly get paying gigs, and all of whom have day jobs. The compensation for Monday Night Jazz (which has been going for a decade or so) is the tip jar, which on a decent night might have $50-60. (I don't expect or want a share--I'm that pro's nightmare, the guy who plays for free. And I'm worth every penny.) Commercial art is, for the vast majority of practitioners, an economically marginal activity. So, I would point out, is the restaurant business. In both cases, there's money to be made by figuring out how to provide a product with high acceptability and low cost of production. Small-scale success is possible--Bo Diddley's, where I still play, was founded and operated by one guy (and later his wife): at its peak, three locations in two towns. John and Maureen did everything: designed and built the rooms, devised the menu items, wrangled the supply chain, trained the staff, did the books, took the shifts when staff didn't show up. And retired last year after 37 years, having finally sold the two remaining stores to a young couple willing to take on the operation with minimal changes. (It's optimal--when they change anything important, the customers will let them know.)
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Post by millring on Mar 11, 2020 11:28:17 GMT -5
Sometimes the gatekeepers want a piece of some of those self-made artists, and agreeable deals can be made. This makes "gatekeepers" sound parasitic I don't think so. I think I make them sound symbiotic and I'm only describing a difference of a shift in power and a sense of who really needs whom to survive.
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Post by aquaduct on Mar 11, 2020 11:37:05 GMT -5
My wife and I have been semi-professionally involved in music for a long time and I've personally witnessed the "collapse" of the gatekeepers along with the severe reductions in cost of entry into art fields like music. Experience has taught me the key to commercial success in the arts, both now and in the past.
And that would be marry someone with a good job.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 11, 2020 13:49:22 GMT -5
As technology has "democratized" the ability to produce and distribute music or the written word, has it not also "democratized" gatekeeping? Aren't we all gatekeepers now?
I'm not saying we are. Just posing the question.
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Post by aquaduct on Mar 11, 2020 14:06:26 GMT -5
As technology has "democratized" the ability to produce and distribute music or the written word, has it not also "democratized" gatekeeping? Aren't we all gatekeepers now? I'm not saying we are. Just posing the question. Sure. In the sense that there's a whole lot more garbage to sort through in order to get to something worthwhile.
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Post by RickW on Mar 11, 2020 14:19:39 GMT -5
I wonder how many would-be-Hemingways are making a living this way. And if so, would they have risen through the old system as well. And also, isn't Amazon a gate-keeper now? They are going to take their cut off of ever ebook sold. And they will dictate the price an author will get. Plus under the old system, the publishing houses would help the author edit and critique a book. Who does that now? Most creative works, of any type, can benefit from some critical review and edit. And who does promotion? Amazon? I doubt it. And under the old system an author could get an advance. I assume nobody at Amazon is doling out $$$ on the hope a first-time writer will make it big. I'm not knocking the new eworld. I'm saying there are a new set of obstacles in the path of a new writer to making a living at their craft. The obstacles may be as daunting as the old way of doing things. Amazon is only a gatekeeper in the sense that they have rules about how you promote your book. You can’t pay people to give you good reviews, for instance. If they figure that out, you’re banned. The only promotion they do is via their algorithms that make recommendations, “if you like this, you’ll like this,” based on categories and sales. When I say gatekeeper, I mean the people that decide whether our work gets out there, how it gets out there, how it’s promoted and to whom. The people who can say yes or not. There was no way around that in traditional publishing. Now there is, but you have to do everything yourself, except the part where the money is accepted and the product shipped out. They’re just a store. A really big one.
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