Storytellersunplugged

by Brian Keene

(Note: This month, by popular request from you, the readers, I’d intended to write an essay about how to write full-time. However, since I write full-time, deadlines got in the way. So look for that next month. Meanwhile, the following reprint was originally published earlier this year at Hail Saten and also appears in Running With The Devil. If you haven’t read it before, I hope that you enjoy it.)

The publisher is the pimp.

The bookstore is the corner.

The reader is the john.

And the writer is the ho.

There are different kinds of hoes. You’ve got the top-dollar, Las Vegas style hoes—–except you don’t call them hoes. You call them escorts. In the wonderful world of publishing, escorts are your best selling authors.

Then you’ve got the crack hoes, those who dole out blowjobs for five bucks a pop. In the wonderful world of publishing, crack hoes are your self-published authors.

You’ve also got your regular hoes, those who are out there working the corner, but don’t command $10,000 a night from the Vegas high rollers, and aren’t giving their wares away just to score some crack. No, these regular, working class, mid-list hoes are price pointed at $6.99, and once they leave the corner, their cover is stripped off and returned for credit.

This week, a regional marketing director for a major chain bookstore told me that they don’t sell books, they sell product. And the key to moving that product, was price pointing. What this means, in non-corporate speak, is that your mass-market paperback is only as good as the cover price. Apparently, consumers don’t care about trivial things like plot and story and characters. They only care about the price on the cover. And your novel, the project that you worked on for a year, the thing that you spilled blood and sweat and tears for, put your life on hold for, is not a book at all. It’s a product. Just like a microwave or a television or a roll of toilet paper.

I recently suggested that the reason many mid-list horror writers were signing with both mainstream and small press publishers, was just to make ends meet. I also suggested, based on my own personal experience and those of friends, that a newer horror author—–especially a mid-list author—–could make just as much from a good small press publisher as they could from a mass-market deal, and that by combining the two, you could make a decent living and keep your head above water.

Of course, Robert W. Weinberg had to comment on what a fool I was, and as an example, offered up the fact that his book, The Louis L’Amour Companion, had earned him $120,000 and that no small press publisher would give him that for a signed, limited edition. Well good for you, Bob. Of course, The Louis L’Amour Companion isn’t exactly mid-list, nor a horror novel, nor did Louis L’Amour write horror (unless you count The Haunted Mesa). So you really don’t have an argument—-or a point.

But I digress.

If I’m lucky enough to be around as long as Bob Whineberg, then I damn sure hope that my books are pulling in $120,000. That would be nice. Lovely, in fact. But I’m not, and they aren’t. And I don’t know anybody currently breaking through in this genre that is pulling down that kind of scratch, genre or not. Fact: the typical mid-list, mass-market advance for a first horror, fantasy or science fiction novel is between $2,500 and $5,000, regardless of the publisher. If you sell enough copies to earn some royalties, you’ll get more money a year later. But you can’t count on that, so we’ll say you made $2,500 to $5,000. Guess what? I fall into that range, and what’s more, I average about the same thing from my small press publishers. So let’s pretend I write just four books a year (which I’m capable of)–two small press and two mass-market, with advances of $5,000 each—I pull in $20,000. Add in a movie option and some short story sales, and my tax return for last year says I made $35,000.

$35,000—about the same thing a mid-level hoe makes.

($120,000? That’s Vegas call girl money…)

I like to think about the future. I like to imagine that, twenty years from now, me and Scott Nicholson and Nick Mamatas and Joe Nassise and Tim Lebbon and Michael Laimo and everybody else that is currently breaking through will be pulling down $120,000 per novel. That would be nice.

But I don’t know it will happen, because we are mid-list hoes, displaying our price pointed product on the street corner, while our pimps collect from the johns.

This is not the fault of the pimps. They are businessmen, looking to make a profit from the product. So you can’t fault them.

This is not the fault of the corners. They simply provide a place for the product to be sold. If the product ceased to exist, the corners would find another product to sell. So you can’t fault them.

This is not the fault of the johns. They’re just looking for a good time. They require the product, like it or not, and they’re willing to pay for it, as long as it’s price pointed. So you can’t fault them.

And it’s not the fault of the hoes, because they’re just working the corner, satisfying their johns and keeping their pimps happy, striving towards the lofty goal of becoming a high-priced Vegas escort.

In the end, that’s all any of us can achieve.

And those Vegas call girls seem pretty happy with their lot in life.

Except for those who burn out, get used up, and are eventually spit out the bottom of the porn industry, usually by appearing in a snuff film.