Josh Kilmer-Purcell, Fishy Boobs, and Dollars
I find new reasons to luuurrve Josh Kilmer-Purcell each day.
He wrote this book:
In his blog, he wrote bluntly about money, something I don’t hear a lot of authors do. He’s also hysterically funny.
someone at work asked me how much money i made each time someone bought a book. and, in calculating the answer, it occured to me that selling books is almost exactly like the days in atlanta when i first started doing drag.
for each book one of you is kind enough to buy, i get about a dollar from the sale. (before agent and tax deduction.) this calculation made me remember those hot summer evenings, when aqua first started lip-synching at “the armory” in atlanta. i would be so happy and relieved when someone would come up and tuck a crumpled bill into my thong. i was always most grateful for the first person who rose up out of their seat to approach the rickety stage. once one person got off his ass, others would take his lead and join the procession. that collection of bills was all i made for the evening. no salary. some nights, if things were slow, i had no hesitation to interrupt my own number by pointing at my aqua tits and shouting “GIT UP HERE, MOTHAFUCKERS…BIRDS GOTTA FLY, AND FISH GOTTA EAT.”
…snip…
i live in new york. i have a mortgage that i can’t pay with singles. i have a day job that i won’t be able to leave any time in the near future.
what makes me very happy about the dollar bills that come today – even though they show up only twice a year in the form of a check minus fees – is that they mean that someone still likes the show.
Alright, I wanna know. You’re here clearly because you’re a reader, so tell me, what do you (as a reader, as a writer, as a publisher, or as a fish in Josh’s boob) think sucks most about the publishing industry?
You might wanna share your ideas or comments below!
Lack of good online content?
Meaning that they don’t share from their books enough online, offer online books (ebooks), or that the related advertising leaves a lot to be desired online? That publishers don’t create online communities that are in line with the publishers’ visions of culture, etc.?
That’s about it – all the above. Also, I’d like to imagine publishers offering something like online discussion groups centered around specific books. The book would be analogous to a great big blog post and everyone would comment, maybe even including the book’s author and/or editor.
And more $$ passed through to authors!
As a writer and reader, I couldn’t agree more! Merge Press started its forum on these issues and more here.
Josh’s royalties sound about right, from the research I did.
I’d like to riff a bit off Jami’s point and see publisher’s use the online communities they create as places to sell their books. Then take the savings they’ve made by _not_ advertising in every major newspaper in america and pass it on to the writers.
really, though, publishers have no idea what really works. If they did, there would exist only one publishing model – the successful one. Fundamentally, publishers – and most mainstream cultural workers – deny that the current cultural production model assumes a nexus of scarity, then they dress this denial with a smoke and mirrors campaign around “film rights!” and “a million dollar advance!”
but scarcity is still scarcity. abundance is generated from a heartset (like a mindset but from the heart) that sees enough all the time.