"Everything gets forgotten. I look up when I hear the Hubs digging around in the kitchen cupboards for food. Oops, did it again!
Susie"
Introducing The Writer-Entrepreneur Column!
Have you heard? Creative types don’t mess with business plans and finance. Women writers are supported by their husbands. Real writers don’t waste time on numbers. Oh, and real artists are poor.
I don’t buy any of it. And that’s why penning the Writer-Entrepreneur column is going to be so much fun.
Throughout history, women have been excluded from money matters. It’s only been a few generations that more than a few of us have been doing it differently. And writers, well, aren’t we part of the romantic artist myth, you know, the one where we die penniless in the garret? You know, because we right-brainy dreamers can’t deal with left-brain numbers and planning.
None of that works, though, if you’re a solid woman writer trying to make a decent living at her craft; a woman on her own; a woman who didn’t marry just to have someone support her; a woman without inherited wealth. It doesn’t work because any writer who can merge words into meaning does the same thing with sentences that an accountant does with a spreadsheet full of numbers. This column is where right brain and left brain meet.
We write in a world where women still earn less than men, where success is still stacked against us. I don’t like that one bit. The contribution of The Writer-Entrepreneur column is to gather real-life information that helps. I'll listen to stories of women writers who have learned to sustain their creative work, and share what they know. We'll meet the people in the virtual neighborhood who can help us figure out the elements of sustaining our craft and careers and creative lives.
A little but about me. I’ve been several kinds of writer. I published a pair of academic books, back when I was a professor and had a steady salary. I published a mid-list book, The Truth Behind the Mommy Wars. It was supported by a small advance—and lots of hours devoted to adjunct teaching, blogging, and making deadline on some freelance gigs. Trying to figure out how to keep a writing life going between books, I started a small business called MotherTalk.com, with two partners. We worked with authors, bloggers, publishers and publicists. I got to know something about why some books sell and others don’t. In 2007, my book The Daring Book for Girls hit the best-seller lists. Nothing could have predicted that turn of events, but when it happened, my learning curve about writing and business shot through the roof.
I’ve learned a ton, I’m learning more, and I believe in sharing.
That’s where you, the SheWrites community, comes in. Leave comments here and tell me what you’ve learned about the business side of writing. It could be how to deal with taxes, accounting, and incorporation. It might be sorting out the possibility of different income streams. Perhaps it's insight on imagining publishing plans and partnerships that take writing to the next level.
Together, we'll figure out what we need to know.
So, leave comments here at SheWrites. Send me your stories at miriam@daringworldproductions.com. Bring your friends. Share what you know.
Let's get the conversation started about how we women writers deal with real-world issues, about how we’re going about the business of being creative and independent both, and even, how we might have fun doing it.
Miriam Peskowitz
miriampeskowitz.com
I don’t buy any of it. And that’s why penning the Writer-Entrepreneur column is going to be so much fun.
Throughout history, women have been excluded from money matters. It’s only been a few generations that more than a few of us have been doing it differently. And writers, well, aren’t we part of the romantic artist myth, you know, the one where we die penniless in the garret? You know, because we right-brainy dreamers can’t deal with left-brain numbers and planning.
None of that works, though, if you’re a solid woman writer trying to make a decent living at her craft; a woman on her own; a woman who didn’t marry just to have someone support her; a woman without inherited wealth. It doesn’t work because any writer who can merge words into meaning does the same thing with sentences that an accountant does with a spreadsheet full of numbers. This column is where right brain and left brain meet.
We write in a world where women still earn less than men, where success is still stacked against us. I don’t like that one bit. The contribution of The Writer-Entrepreneur column is to gather real-life information that helps. I'll listen to stories of women writers who have learned to sustain their creative work, and share what they know. We'll meet the people in the virtual neighborhood who can help us figure out the elements of sustaining our craft and careers and creative lives.
A little but about me. I’ve been several kinds of writer. I published a pair of academic books, back when I was a professor and had a steady salary. I published a mid-list book, The Truth Behind the Mommy Wars. It was supported by a small advance—and lots of hours devoted to adjunct teaching, blogging, and making deadline on some freelance gigs. Trying to figure out how to keep a writing life going between books, I started a small business called MotherTalk.com, with two partners. We worked with authors, bloggers, publishers and publicists. I got to know something about why some books sell and others don’t. In 2007, my book The Daring Book for Girls hit the best-seller lists. Nothing could have predicted that turn of events, but when it happened, my learning curve about writing and business shot through the roof.
I’ve learned a ton, I’m learning more, and I believe in sharing.
That’s where you, the SheWrites community, comes in. Leave comments here and tell me what you’ve learned about the business side of writing. It could be how to deal with taxes, accounting, and incorporation. It might be sorting out the possibility of different income streams. Perhaps it's insight on imagining publishing plans and partnerships that take writing to the next level.
Together, we'll figure out what we need to know.
So, leave comments here at SheWrites. Send me your stories at miriam@daringworldproductions.com. Bring your friends. Share what you know.
Let's get the conversation started about how we women writers deal with real-world issues, about how we’re going about the business of being creative and independent both, and even, how we might have fun doing it.
Miriam Peskowitz
miriampeskowitz.com
Comment
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Comment by Stacey Donovan on March 16, 2010 at 5:09pm -
Anyone catch Tina Brown on Charlie Rose the other night? Meaning journalists, she said that writers can barely make a living right now because they can't get paid (due to changing marketplaces such as online media) and that the same is true of songwriters and so many artists today. "The fact is, we're relegating so many great people to not being able to make a living. We're in a volatile moment of absolute realignment. There's a kind of volcanic shift that's happening in the landscape, it's all been shaken up. It's a painful transition for writers and artists, at the moment they feel absolutely beached and orphaned. I think we're going to emerge from that, and in fact there's a golden future, and we'll figure out these business models, and actually there's an efflorescence of content and a need for content and really good material to fill these multi-channels. We're talking about great TV shows, excellent writing, wonderful books - it can't be produced unless people are paid..." I held my breath as I listened to this. As writers, we've always been multi-channelers in part, haven't we? It seems that now we are being faced with new opportunities, new challenges, in how those channels find form, especially if we want to publish and make a living with our words. It's increasingly clear that the face of the earth itself is not the only thing changing these days, and I am grateful for this column, as well as all the wonders of She Writes.
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Comment by Miriam Peskowitz on March 16, 2010 at 9:23am -
Thanks everyone, for your enthusiasm, and insights. Kamy, I'd love to meet Adam, and maybe interview him for this column.
And Barbara--I'll email you, and perhaps you'd consent to an interview, too. I think the biggest question writers have when reaching out into more lucrative kinds of writing is this: How do I find my first client? How do I break in? I'm looking for all sorts of tips that we can share around, especially ones that go beyond luck and random connection.
The funny thing about the right brain/left brain metaphor: writing and numbers and logic are all on the same side!
I'll be back with more on Friday!
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Comment by Barbara Field on March 15, 2010 at 3:16pm -
Kamy,
I'd like to hear more about Adam Penenberg, author of the Viral Loop and the NYU professor who started their Entrepreneurial Journalism course. I met and did a mini interview with the head of Stanford's Journalism School about how journalists can thrive in this free-content era. Hope you & Miriam follow up with him. If not, I can in April probably. Okay?
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Comment by Barbara Field on March 15, 2010 at 3:10pm
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Hi, Miriam. Sounds like once you started your small biz, you understood more about this writer/entrepreneur thing. Hey, I'm teaching a two workshop course for UC San Diego extension on how to make money as a writer as I've done it for 30 years. Publishing and journalism by and large pay on the low side, as we know. Focus on financial, technical, health topics for the money here. And biggest tip of all: add corporate writing, copywriting, speeches, annual reports, online marketing to your freelance mix, ladies!! Yes, work for corporations and small businesses, maybe nonprofits and associations. I'm launching my writing coach business in April. Let me know if I can help!
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Comment by Geraldine Nesbitt on March 15, 2010 at 3:23am -
And don't they say that mathematics, understanding Latin, and the creative process go extremely well together. I am a writer, but I have always had an aptitude for numbers too, and have spent the last eight years doing a good job in the business world too. Right now, I am learning to combine my language skills, and my business abilities into a company of my own.
It took me a long time to realise that I could and should combine my skills instead of imagining i had to choose one against the other. Now, with a little bit more faith in myself I intend to rewrite my all too modest book query letters and proposals so that I can find an agent for my fiction. I think I, and a lot of women with me, need to realise our value, and not settle for less.
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Comment by Renee Belinda Cooper on March 14, 2010 at 7:28pm -
Hi Miriam,
I love that you got that connection. Money is like the right to vote, it gives us freedom and a voice that matters.
I too am trying to find and use my voice. I would love for you to check out my blog. I am starting to interviews and work on a platform. My great grandma took on one battle. I guess it is our turn.
Cheers,
Renee
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Comment by Elizabeth Hilts on March 13, 2010 at 7:40pm -
One part of my MFA research project concerns this very topic. Thanks so much.
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Comment by Miranda C. Spencer on March 13, 2010 at 1:22pm -
Oh, is this column needed! Especially by me...some of my best and what I consider my most important work received scant remuneration and I long lived the life of the starving writer in a garret.
One of the most important lessons I've learned in making a better living as a writer is to thoroughly read and understand contract language. Many provisions, if left unchallenged, can cut into our ability to make the maximum fair earnings off our work.
Most editors/clients are willing to tinker with the language if you point out what they're really asking for, why it's not fair, and how you would like to change it. That's because many editors/clients don't really know what the contract their company lawyers have drafted really mean.
A couple good places to get help in reading your contracts are the National Writers Union and the ASJA, both membership organizations but worth the price of admission.
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Comment by Kamy Wicoff on March 13, 2010 at 9:33am -
Miriam -- I am SO happy that you are on the team, and can't wait to read this column as it progresses. Debbie and I are having lunch next week with Adam Penenberg, author of the Viral Loop and the NYU professor who started their Entrepreneurial Journalism course. We should set up a time for you two to talk!!
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Comment by Debby Carroll on March 13, 2010 at 7:50am -
Stacey, you are so right about the clients who complain about the price. They don't understand "you get what you pay for." I know that newspaper syndicate authors who once commanded $600/article are now being offered $10. It's tough times. Don't lose faith, though. Times will turn, eventually. I've not turned any projects down for the low rates but, rather, if it's something I'm interested in, I'll do it, even for a low rate. If it's a topic I can't get into and it's low pay, I'll consider letting it go.
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