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Money From Nothing: The Economic Value of Writing Original Fiction
A Foray Even Your Mother Will Appreciate Into Why Writing
Isn't a Waste of Your Time
© by Holly Lisle
All Rights Reserved
From the perspective of feeding the soul, we writers already know we stand
upon solid ground. When we write, we do our own souls good (or at base minimum,
placate our raging ids.) By providing what we have written for others to
read, we entertain at least some of the people some of the time -- in some
cases we do much more, offering encouragement or support that helps a reader
figure out how to change the direction of his life, or pull back from pending
tragedy, or dare to take chances that will make not just his life but the
lives of those around him better.
None of which is particularly useful when you want to sell the idea of
you as writer to your folks, your significant other, or your friends. To
the casual observer, unless you're up in the JK Rowling/Stephen King/Norman
Mailer leagues, writing is a fairly worthless hobby.
But it just ain't so.
If you are a writer -- even if you are the worst, least successful writer
in the world and just doing this on your weekends because you like to --
you are a positive force in the economy. Don't believe me? Then watch.
Say you're horrible. Say that you're turning out the most gruesome dreck
the planet has ever seen, and say that you are never, ever, ever going to
get better. You're still doing good things for your corner of the world.
You bought notebook and pens or a typewriter or word processor or a computer,
you bought software, you bought paper, printer, printer toner, or ribbons
and Wite-Out. Somewhere out there, some small portion of the economy thanks
your for your steady support of the products above mentioned.
Now, if you go a step further and send out your atrocious manuscript to
a place that accepts over-the-transom submissions (and at this point, we're
looking almost exclusively at short story markets), you have just been involved
in helping to create and maintain a few jobs. Slush-readers and junior editors
will get paid in part because you and thousands of others like you wrote
dreadful manuscripts that someone had to evaluate.
So even the worst writers ever are doing something valuable for someone
besides themselves.
But keep going. Let's say you don't suck. Let's say that
you've written a passable midlist title that someone, somewhere, wants to
buy. Not only have you created money out of thin air for yourself (anything
above the investment you make in supplies and research materials is money
you just invented -- but can still spend). You didn't take anything from
anyone else to create this income. No one else had to lose so you could
win. You invented money for yourself by inventing a product someone wanted.
And your invention of brand-new money doesn't stop with you.
You have also just exponentially increased your contributions to the world.
First off, you are now one of fifteen to fifty writers just like you who
have created a paying job for one agent. As more writers need agents, more
agents will be able to find work agenting. But that isn't the only job your
work makes possible. You have been cause for the creation or continuation
of jobs from junior editor to senior editor to copyeditor to publisher to
bookbinder and typesetter to book marketer to bookseller to bookstore owner.
You have employed one artist for one cover painting and are responsible
for the existence of a piece of art that would not have existed had you
not sat down to write your story. Reviewers would not exist without you
and other writers like you. You've created a profit item for corporations,
and an ad revenue source for media (if somebody is paying to advertise your
book, somebody is being paid to advertise it.)
Say you're better than passable. Say your book was good. Say it does really
well for you. You get more of that magic money you made out of nothing but
thoughts inside your head. Plus, you start providing work for advertising
companies or in-house artists who develop your promo materials. Your sales
add a bit to the GNP. The fact that your book made profits for the publisher
will allow the publisher to publish other writers who wouldn't have been
able to find slots without your successful novel.
But there's more. Lots more. Say your good book sells in foreign countries.
Now you're creating jobs for translators, more editors and agents and typesetters
and bookbinders and bookseller and distributors. You are a benefit to the
international economy, you are a benefit to various national economies,
and in a way you have the potential to be an envoy for your own country.
Depends on what you wrote. Still, the possibility is there.
We're not done yet. Think big thoughts. Now you sell story rights to a
motion picture company. You're still a benefit to all the people you've
already helped, but now you're also providing work for
everyone from the people who scout filming locations (and money for the
areas that permit filming in those locations) to set designers and prop
creators and screenwriters, to camera grips to best boys to producers and
directors to movie distributors to your local theater. The actors and actresses
portraying your characters and speaking your words got paid because of you.
Watch the credit crawl at the end of any movie. All of those people have
jobs because a writer somewhere wrote a story. And without you and other
writers like you, those kids selling popcorn and tickets wouldn't have a
place to work, either. But even that isn't all. Artists must design movie
posters and cardboard standees for theaters, advertising agencies must create
promotional campaigns.
With some movies, your subsidiary rights will also come into play, creating
more jobs. Action figures and toy sets based on your characters require
artists to design them, companies to produce them, outlets to sell them.
Ditto branded T-shirts, coffee mugs, bumper stickers, and posters.
If you turn into another JK Rowling, you won't just be entertaining an
audience, giving folks a nice break from their workaday lives while they
read your book or watch the movie based on it or play with the toys created
to support it. You'll be a captain of industry, your very own publishing
empire. You'll be creating the wealth of nations from the products of your
mind and spreading this wealth out around the world.
But you don't have to be JK Rowling to make a difference. That's the magnificent
thing about writing.
Even if right now you're just some kid working on your first novel in your
bedroom, you're doing something good. You are creating something that didn't
exist before, and that's wonderful. Beyond what it does for you, though,
at barest minimum, you're supporting the economy as a consumer of pens and
notebooks.
But if you dare to learn enough about the business to get good at it, you'll
someday sleep well at night knowing that people all over the country, or
maybe all over the world, are feeding their families and paying their bills
in part because you had the guts to send your work out, and by doing so,
to create money and jobs that would not have existed without you.
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