What to Do When Asked to Give Away Your Work

What to Do When Asked to Give Away Your Work Received a little bit of feedback from last weeks post on the flip side of free, but not as much as I wouldve thought. Which tells me something . . . more people are giving it away than I thought. Twice this past weekend, I heard authors rant about how little they were making, and how their incomes had plummeted in the last few years. They were red-hot about their publishers being the culprits. While many publishers are known for inserting questionable, strangling, taking-advantage clauses in a contract, I do not hold them totally to blame. Thats too easy, and its not completely true. It is true that publishers will take advantage. Their job is to make money publishing, not be friends with authors. I dont care how much you might love your publisher, sooner or later, youll feel slighted. And theyll just keep on keeping on, not ruffled in the least. While its nice to have a great working relationship, dont make the mistake of seeing it as anything but that. The problem is that writers are accepting less and less for their work. So publishers and editors become more than happy to pay less. They lower the rates, and authors kneel and accept without negotiation. And new writers are coming in thinking thats the norm. Can you see the shifting paradigm? That goes for ebook sales, literary journals, writing for magazines, and royalties. Anyone who has started trying to publish in the last three years thinks today is the norm. And because they make nickels and dimes from sales, they treat it like the income it provides: a hob I want to go back to what FFW stands for: writers making money not writers accepting what they can get. Come on, people. Ask for more. These days you can indie publish, for goodness sake, if they dont pay you what you deserve. Readers do not understand any of this and dont care. They dont have to care, and they dont have to understand. I dont care about how much a worker makes who builds my car or stocks my grocery store. But still, readers think writers who publish are making gobs of money. We are not going to change that thought, so dont try. Our payment issue  is an internal issue, not the reading publics. I spoke to one author whose husband is a musician, where its as bad as or worse than writing. She suggests declining the offers to give away work. When someone asks for free books from you, thinking you get tons of them for free, decline and suggest a library or a bookstore that offers a loyalty discount. When an editor of a publication asks for your work for free or an embarrassing figure like 1/2 cents per word, remind them you must be compensated for your work because you practice a profession, not a hob Now . . . to the hob Writing for a hob I use this additional example when I speak to writers about earning a living: Ill be a whore to whoever will pay me for my work. I will not give it away for free. However, Id rather be a call girl than a street walker, and get paid more of what Im worth.