Labor in the Publishing Industry

Things like close-open shifts at bookstores, where booksellers got less than 10 hours off the clock between closing one night and opening the next day. Co-workers at the B&N I worked at faced it more than once or twice.

It’s commonly known in the industry that most editors have to do most of their reading and/or editing at home, *after* putting in full-time hours in the office doing project management/meetings/etc. On salary, so no OT. That’s a culture of habitual crunch.

Publicists given 12 or more titles per month to cover, requiring either shoddy support for some titles and/or substantial, *habitual* overtime. Again, likely uncompensated.

Sales reps asked to read up on the titles they’re selling, which almost always happens outside of office hours. Again, uncompensated. I’m told this happens with some indie booksellers, too.

Unpaid overtime is, from what I can see and what I’ve heard, the *norm*, not the exception. Especially in the entertainment industry, where “passion” is supposed to sustain you. Where there are a hundred people eager to replace you if you leave your under-paying position.

New York State has done a version of this just on the NY level, which is a step in the right direction. Assuming it is enforced and workers aren’t intimidated into working unpaid overtime and not reporting it. I don’t know how it’s working in practice.

Also, let’s talk about how many agents are paid *only* on a commission basis – where it frequently takes several years to build up a client base with sales at a level necessary to make up a living wage.

Oh, yeah, what about the people that write the dang books?

So that’s a lot. And that’s not even including authors. If there’s one type of actor in the publishing industry without whom it could not even begin to function, it’s authors.

How many hundreds of hours of labor goes into each book? What % of book deals actually cover that spread at a level that comes out to even minimum wage? The fastest I ever wrote a novel was 31 days. 71k words for the first draft. About 3 hours a day.

I took Sundays off. So that’s 26 days times three hours a day. I put in *at least* 50 hours of editing & extra writing, and that’s lowballing. But we also have to count outlining, brainstorming, copy editing, page proofs, and promotion. Say another 100 hours for all of that.

(26 x 3) + 50 + 100 = 228 hours. I’d wager that is far onto the low end for a full-length adult novel. Even written very quickly, my $4k advance divides to become $17.5 an hour. Also, it’s not W2 money, that’s 1099 money, so I paid more taxes on it. Plus 15% of the gross went to my agent (which I do not begrudge at all). So I maybe, maybe, hit $15 an hour on that one, pre-tax. So $10 an hour post-taxes.

And that was the *only* novel I’ve been able to write anywhere near that fast. Most I’d say took twice to three times as long. The fast novel was the fourth in a series, so I really knew the characters and had a big arc ending to push for. I was also in good health at the time.

If it takes 500-1000 hours to write a novel and you’re getting $5k to $10 in advances, many of which don’t earn out, you’re looking at maybe $10 an hour, minus agent commission and taxes. For the person *who wrote the damn book everyone else gets paid to help publish*.

Staff and booksellers and other publishing professionals work on a lot of books at once, so the jobs are not a direct comparison. And they for sure add value and deserve to be compensated. Ultimately, my point is that just about everyone is getting screwed until you get into (probably) upper management or the C-suite.

Authors, editors, publicists, sales staff, booksellers, all grist for the mill. And who profits? Who is doing *really well* in this equation? Executives, stockholders, and a *very* tiny percentage of authors. Most of the costs and risks are born by the folks at the bottom. The authors that get dropped when a series doesn’t take off. The publicist let go because they struck out despite working their ass off. The booksellers let go when a chain liquidates to pay out stockholders.

As I think about this, I try to remember that I’m not the only person in the hot seat. I’m in the grind with my agent and (probably) my editors, publicists, sales team, etc. But Passion. But Love of Books. But Literature.

The people at the top are counting on passion. They’re counting on the fact that there is no end to the # of people that want your job or your spot on the list. But we have to do better. We have to demand better.

We can create a world where work is fairly compensated. Where people aren’t pushed to their breaking points to stay on top of the schedule. Where the expectation of unpaid internships doesn’t keep excluding marginalized writers & staffers.

So, what’s the takeaway?

What can I do? What can any of us do?

1) If you’re in a position to set work culture in your office, be a leader in taking care of your staff. In pushing upper management for overtime pay and/or more sensible hours.

2) Remember that you are not alone, not if you’re an author, agent, junior publicist or bookseller. That passion that gets used against us also links us with other people in the field. We can fight for one another.

3) Vote for candidates that support living wages and stronger protections for workers.

4) Investigate unionization and labor advocacy in your workplace.

5) Take care of yourself. Especially if no one else is. And then, if you can, try to help someone else.

2014 in Review – the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Here it is, a big 2014 in review post. 2014 has been a hell of a year, in great and terrible ways, across most axes of my life. It is a year that will not soon be forgotten, that’s for damned sure.

 

The Good

Three New Books

I had three new book releases this year, all in ebook and audio, and one in trade paperback (my first print release). That’s pretty freaking amazing. If I’d accomplished nothing else in 2014, this would still be a win. I’d had one book out each of 2012 and 2013, so jumping up to three book releases was a huge step for me and my writing career.

Those three books, in case you’re new to the Mike-verse, are:

Attack the Geek: A Ree Reyes Side-Quest – a long novella in the Ree Reyes/Geekomancy series. It’s short, action-and-character-driven.

Shield and Crocus: A superhero epic fantasy set in a city built among the bones of a titan. It’s my attempt to combine my favorite parts of the New Weird and Superhero genres.

The Younger Gods: A supernatural thriller starring the one moral son in a family of sociopathic sorcerers who want to bring on the apocalypse.

Writing Breakthroughs

In addition to releasing new books, I was also writing new books. I wrote Hexomancy, the third Ree Reyes novel, as well as revising the releases for this year. I also wrote three novellas in a new series which I should be able to talk publicly about very soon *plotty fingers*. All of these were written very quickly (for me). I wrote the first draft of Hexomancy (72k words) in a month, which was a total process breakthrough for me. When I finished that draft, I was exhausted, depleted, but totally excited. The major question I had was this: Can I do it again? Or was this an aberration?

Then, in about six weeks from the very end of October through the first week in December, I wrote another 70k ish words for the rough drafts of the three novellas. That’s not nearly as fast as the Hexomancy draft, but this was a new series as opposed to a series I’ve been writing for multiple years. If I can consistently produce at the 70k in 6 weeks rate? That would be a total game changer for my writing career.

Outlining

One of the reasons why I was able to pull of these strong production schedules is that this is the year I made a major move along the Outliner/Pantser continuum. Thanks to books like 2K to 10K by Rachel Aaron, the videos/tutorials from the folks at the Self-Publishing Podcast, and Mary Robinette Kowal’s Writing on the Fast Track class, I changed my outlining and pre-production process, giving myself a much clearer outline to work from, as well as learning how to design more of the story ahead of time so that my first-drafting time was more focused on moving forward and less on having to stop and figure out what to do next. I’m still refining my pre-production process, trying to figure out what parts of the world and story I need to have at least penciled in before drafting begins. And considering the production schedule I’ve set for 2015, I’m going to need all of the help I can give myself.

Conventions

In addition to tons of writing, I went to a lot of conventions. Eleven of them, in fact. About half were for work, half were on my own as a writer. I met a bunch of cool people, connected with fans, plotted with fellow authors and with my Angry Robot peeps, sold a bunch of books at the consumer shows, and decided to expand my writing career into comics.

Also, I was nominated for a Hugo Award as part of the Skiffy and Fanty Show, which is amazing. We didn’t win, but getting to participate in the pomp of the Hugo Awards as a nominee was a total delight.

In those eleven conventions, learned a lot about what makes conventions work and not work, what I want out of conventions, and how to approach a convention in a focused way to pursue that agenda.

And More

I’m also planning a wedding, co-hosting a readings series, participating in a podcast, and geeking out as much as I can.

 

The Bad

I Was an Adventurer Like You, Then I Took An Arrow in the Knee

Well, not an arrow. My fiance and I moved across town to a new (awesome) row-home in February, but there was a price. As a result of a day spent tromping up and down stairs with heavy boxes and crawling over the center console of my car to drive back and forth (you see, the driver’s side door was broken because fun), I did something truly unkind to my knee. Walking more than a half-mile or so hurt, driving hurt, and the moderate-intensity exercise regimin I’d been doing was right out. Even using my treadmill desk as a standing desk hurt.

It sucked. I babied the knee for a while, and it got a fair bit better, but then I went and worked two conventions in two weeks, where I had to be on my feet and energetic for eight or so hours a day. And so when I came back, my mostly-better knee had gotten a lot worse. So I went to the doctor, I got an MRI, etc. And it turns out I’ve got a nice little bone spur on my knee that scrapes the tendons as I walk and move.

Sweet. No, wait, the other thing.

Anyway, I buckled down and went through a couple of months of physical therapy, which was incredibly helpful (I know know the terror and marvel of the foam roller. Oh, foam roller, my most hateful friend). I can drive more easily now, but it still hurts. I can use my treadmill desk again in a limited capacity, which is excellent. I’m hoping in 2015 I’ll be able to expand what I do for exercise and get back into some historical martial arts or tango, but it looks like the bone spur isn’t going anywhere unless I want to go get surgery, which I’d rather avoid if I can manage with PT and smart self-care.

 

The Ugly

The Summer of My Discontent

The knee thing was bad. What was worse is how summer went with my day job. Our owners decided to put the whole company up for sale, but we weren’t allowed to talk about it at all, under threat of losing our jobs. Which meant I spent most of the summer worrying about whether I was going to lose my job and having very little control over much of anything.

That was not fun. In fact, it was pretty miserable. For a lot of reasons.

Luckily, we found a buyer, we’re no longer beholden to the old owners, and the company is back, with grand plans for 2015, and my quality of life at the job is way better, and will be even better when our publishing program resumes in March.

 

Takeaways

So, that’s a lot. A lot of good, some not-so-good, and many lessons.

Here are my big takeaways from the year:

  • Discipline and planning have a direct relationship to my speed of production.
  • Some separation between work and my personal life is good, even in a job I love.
  • Conventions are fun, but they require a plan just like every other part of the business.
  • Surprisingly, I am mortal, and I need to take care of myself and listen to my body.

 

Looking Forward to 2015

Where 2014 was a big year in writing and life, 2015 is promising to be even bigger. I’ve got a lot of work planned to be completed in 2015, including some very exciting stuff. I’m going to get married in 2015 to the coolest, smartest, funniest woman I know, and we’re throwing (two?) parties to celebrate that marriage with friends and loved ones. And there’s a ton of books and movies and comics and TV I’m excited about enjoying over the next year.

2014, you’ve been instructive in a bunch of different ways.

Roll on 2015.