Hey, write for free!

 Why do publishers think it's okay for writers to not be paid for their work? I mean, really? And writer's aren't the only ones...my other daughter is an artist and has the same problem. Pardon me while I get on my soapbox.

Let's put some numbers out here. Let's say it takes 120 hours to write a complete novel. That's just an average, some take longer and some not so much. Now, if writing was a "paid" job, at just $10 an hour, the writer would earn $1,200.  But since no one is paying authors to write, it's actually costing the author that $1,200. 

For self-published authors who rely on their income to make a living, this is a big chunk. Now, let's add in cover cost, editing, and promotion. I pay on average $200 for a cover. And while I do most of my own editing, for the book I'm working on now, I paid about $1,500.(Totally worth it, by the way.) Promotion can range in the hundreds but for this post, let's just say another $250. It even costs to upload the novel document to the publishing platform, it's right at $50, at this time. So, the author has about $3,200 of sweat hours and other money invested in their novel. 

Now, let's sell those books. To make the math easy, let's say $10 each. Meaning, the author would need to sell 320 copies to break even. Except it doesn't happen that  way. Amazon takes their cut, IngramSparks takes a cut, and other distributors also take a cut. Again, to make math easy, let's just say that cut is $3.00 leaving $7.00 for the author.  Now the author has to sell 457 copies to just break even with time and money spent.

And, statistically, self-published books only sell about 250 copies over a lifetime.

Some do sell more, of course. The author gets out there, goes to book events or festivals and get some sales that way. But again, money is involved. Booth fees, travel, food, and of course the hours spent at the festival. I'm not even going to math that. But, booth fees range from $25 to $100, and those days are generally 12 hour days...so add another $120 in time invested.

Being a published writer is just plain expensive.

Short story writers are a different story. Let's say it takes 10 hours to write and edit that story. So, the writer has $100 bucks invested. Not a big deal, right? 

Author does some searching and finds a place to submit his story. His story is published and he gets nothing. Whoever published it says they pay in exposure. Well, you know what? Exposure won't buy gas for the car or food for the table.

And this is where this rant comes from. There is a themed anthology soliciting short stories. They don't pay anything and the author will get a "discount" for any books they purchase.

Let's play math, again.  Say 20 authors have stories accepted. 

The publisher provides cover, editing, and publishing. Since all this is done inhouse, there is no cost other than time. Yeah, there is a bit for the ISBN number and publishing platform but I've added things up and cost would be less than $100. If those 20 authors buy just 2 copies each, that's 40 copies. And at a discount, say, $10 each, that's a publisher income of $400, minus the costs, so about $300 profit for the publisher.

I don't have a problem with the publisher getting paid for the work they do. They should get paid. But so should the author. 

Now, I have written for free. It was for an anthology but all the profits went to Toys for Tots. It was for a good cause. I have also turned down being published because they weren't willing to pay. Like I said, exposure won't pay my bills. 

We don't expect lawn services to mow our yards without being paid. We don't expect lawyers or plumbers to work for free. Or we shouldn't. So, again, why should authors and artists be expected to not get paid? Why should we be expected to be happy to be taken advantage of? It's not right.

So, what about you? Have you been expected to work for free?