Teresa’s Book Review: The Business of Being a Writer by Jane Friedman

The Business of Being a Writer by Jane Friedman

Now that I’m slowly becoming a writer myself, I’m paying more attention to the business aspects of writing. Writing without getting paid is all very well, but really, if you aren’t getting paid, you might as well be writing in your journal.

Writing is important for self-expression to be sure, but so is getting paid. Self-expression does not cut any ice with the grocer or the landlady. They would like to get paid too and they do not provide their services if they are not paid. I’m reminded of Samuel Johnson: “No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.”

Or Ferenc Molnár: “(I regard writing) Like a whore. First, I did it for my own pleasure. Then I did it for the pleasure of my friends. And now — I do it for money.”

As you may guess, money is near and dear to my heart. I love being able to pay my bills and I love it even more when collection agencies do not call looking for money. It’s an unpleasant experience and I don’t recommend it. Most of all, I love having a savings account as a bulwark against uncertainties, certain to happen these days.

Sadly, writing (a home-based business if there ever was one) does not necessarily pay all that well. It can pay extremely well — look! Look! There’s Nora Roberts! EEEEEEE, look at the size of her bank account. Oh my God! But for every Nora Roberts who, by the way, does not get nearly the respect she should for her business acumen, there must be tens of thousands of lesser writers who barely earn utility bill money. Or even coffee money.

Why is this? It isn’t necessarily the caliber of the writing. A darn good story, loaded with grammatical errors and typos, can outsell better written fiction that is, to be charitable, dull. It isn’t necessarily the genre either. Writers have been able to quit their day jobs by writing in all sorts of genres, from westerns to medieval highlander romances to horror and yes, sometimes even literary.

Do not be deceived on that last point, no matter what you may have been told by some highfalutin English professor at the type of college that over four years costs almost as much as a house (the national median price for a home in 2020 is about $285,000 dollars or about $71,000 per year).

Those numbers make community college look even better, don’t they? You can get a college education and buy a house. But I digress.

Literary is a genre of fiction, higher-brow and more status-y than book-club fiction and considerably higher status than, say, werewolf bondage porn which outsells literary by thousands of copies to one on a daily basis. Why, literary is so high-status that people go to expensive colleges and lay out tens of thousands of dollars to learn how to write glittering, jewel-like prose that wins awards even if it doesn’t win sales.

But it is still a genre.

What so many of those people laying out big bucks on an MFA in writing do not learn, however, is that writing is a business in which the aim is not self-expression. It is to make money by telling stories that people want to read. Publishers like the cachet of presenting novels for the ages to the public, but just like grocers and landladies, they need to earn a profit to stay in business.

Yet so few writing programs discuss the business aspects of writing, something every writer should know if only to be able to read and understand their contract. Astute readers may recall a review I wrote some time back discussing Stephen Goldin and Kathleen Sky’s book The Business of Being a Writer. That title was published way, way, way back in 1982.

Very few books have been published since then that try to help writers keep abreast of all the aspects of their business. Goldin and Sky wrote their book nearly forty years ago, and here we are, having crossed the vast wastelands of time, in 2020 with Jane Friedman’s book with the identical title, The Business of Being a Writer.

To be more accurate, Ms. Friedman published The Business of Being a Writer in 2018. For various reasons, I’m only now getting around to reviewing it in 2020.

Ms. Friedman, however, is targeting a slightly different market than Stephen Goldin and Kathleen Sky wrote for all those years ago. She has her sights set on an even more underserved market than your typical writer who believes that getting paid to tell stories is a great gig and has no trouble with accepting money.

Ms. Friedman aims her book at all those literary writers emerging from MFA programs, ink still wet on their gaspingly expensive diplomas, only to discover that the literary genre earns coffee money at best. She actually spends several pages discussing an aspect of writing I had never once considered: is it vile and mercenary to earn money by one’s writing? To, quelle horreur, sell your work?

I was stunned. Stunned, I tell you.

Apparently, some people believe that getting paid is the equivalent of prostituting one’s art. Obviously, those people have someone else paying their bills. Otherwise, they would strenuously object to being paid with free copies of obscure literary journals rather than with a check. I, on the other hand, expect to be paid, but then I freely admit to being a peasant, descended from hundreds of generations of peasants. There’s no blue blood in my family nor are there glittering heaps of inherited wealth.

Yet despite their exorbitant cost, MFA programs rarely discuss getting paid or how contracts work or the ins and outs of intellectual property. Since Ms. Friedman has labored in the MFA trenches, she is well aware of the enormous gaps in what they teach. Thus, after she discusses the merits of asking for money, she spends over three hundred more pages addressing all aspects of getting published, managing the industrial-literary complex, dealing with editors, and hopefully earning money.

Yet she misses important topics like record-keeping, vital to any writer’s business. Or dealing with the IRS, who have stringent rules about what is acceptable and what is not. Here’s a hint: they tell you what to do and you do it. If you don’t want to decipher the tax code, hire a CPA and let her tell you what to do and then do it. If you do not follow the IRS’s rules, you may find yourself blazing new trails in tax law in court.

On the other hand, Ms. Friedman devotes pages to applying for grants and sinecures. I didn’t know those things existed but if you’re literary enough, they do. They are also highly, highly competitive since MFA programs graduate far more students than there are jobs awaiting them.

It’s an interesting book, chock-full of information that should be discussed in every MFA program in the country and yet doesn’t seem to be. This is why you so often meet MFA graduates who are shocked to learn that royalties will not be paid until after the advance has been paid off in full via sales. Advances are loans against royalties. No sellout, no further money. Getting an contract with a hefty advance does not guarantee you will ever receive another one.

She wrote her book to be used as a textbook in an MFA program and other than being engaging to read, it shows. (Textbooks are usually tedious but hers is not.) You’re constantly being told to refer to another section of the book ten chapters along or to turn back to an earlier chapter.

It’s also $66 for a trade paperback (NOTE: Somehow we missed this, but a trade paperback version is now available for much less). The University of Chicago Press published this gem and since they cater to a rarefied market, they expect to get paid more than $19.95 which is what a print book of this nature would normally cost. Textbook inflation, don’t you know. Students are a captive market so it behooves the publisher to extract every possible penny, simply because they can. Also, extracting every possible penny allows the publisher to subsidize those other literary titles that get printed for reasons of cachet and status but which will never earn any money.

Not having $66 to spare, I got my copy at the library and I suggest you do the same.

This is because of another monetary issue that Ms. Friedman doesn’t consider and that is cash-flow. When she discusses spending thousands of dollars on editing, she must be assuming the presence of plenty of money. I would never make such an assumption. Instead, my assumption would be that you, dear wanna-be writer, are working with an extremely limited budget and you, dear wanna-be writer, have to chose between spending $66 on Amazon Media Service ads and a generic pre-made cover.

You may not be able to afford both. You certainly can’t spend $66 on her book when it’s free at your library. You can find better uses for $66. Never forget: cash-flow means if you can’t afford to lose the money, you can’t afford to spend it.

Since you can’t afford to waste money, you also have to do as much of your own editing as is humanly possible. Fortunately, you can self-edit and every error you catch is one you do not have to pay an editor to catch. Or worse, you won’t leave errors for your readers to catch and point out in your one-star Amazon reviews, causing you embarrassment and wonder over why you didn’t pay for an editor.

Ms. Friedman does not waste pages on self-editing — that being the province of writers on a budget — but that’s not the aim of her book.

So is The Business of Being a Writer for you? If you’re a writer or supporting a writer, I’d say yes. It’s well worth reading. Ms. Friedman is an engaging writer and the book is loaded with useful information even if you don’t aspire to literary heights. I made numerous notes (on my own paper since I’ve got a library copy) of items I wanted to remember.

It’s extremely comprehensive, within the limits of literary aspirations. If you’re writing and self-publishing werewolf bondage porn, you may not find her book as useful since you won’t be seeking out agents or trying to gain exposure in New York literary circles. You’re already earning more money than Ms. Friedman’s targeted audience of MFA students ever will. Yet, while you relax on the lanai of your beach house in Kauai, you will learn things you should know about dealing with contracts.

Are you considering a career as a writer? Then get in the queue at your library to help you prepare for the future. You won’t be disappointed.

Then, if Ms. Friedman’s book is truly useful to you, you can decide if you need a copy of your very own to highlight and mark up.

If you’d prefer the very useful Stephen Goldin and Kathleen Sky book of the same title, despite being 40 years out of date, here’s a place to start.

If you’d like to follow Ms. Friedman in her adventures, here’s her website.

If you’d like to self-edit your writing so you don’t pay expensive editors to fix penny mistakes.