Writing for Love and Pennies and Pences...

We've written for both. Also Canadian Dollars....

Author Mark Lawrence has sage advise and important revelations on writing:

But I'll return to this business of franchise writing. Here you really are more like a regular worker. The publisher owns the IP, you will get zero or minimal royalties, and so there's no breaking big. The novella my friend could have written might have sold a million - he would still just have his $1,800. At what point is it just exploitation with the illusionary carrot of "exposure" dangled before the writer? At what point should they get paid a decent weekly or monthly salary for the agreed period?

I've no answers really. I wrote for fun chasing $10 and $50 a story in magazines (and not getting that many hits). And now I write for a living and make a decent amount of money. It's that middle ground - which thankfully I was lucky enough to vault over - where writers devote a serious amount of time and effort for very meagre returns, that prompted this blog post. If nothing else it lets readers know what's going on under the hood.

Which is why we don't do (much) magazine writing anymore. As for out Inforos gig, lets just say the effort and time is worth payment.

We're not big and we don't ever expect to hit it big. We are a midlister. Were we on the shelf at B&N, there's be one copy of our best selling book next to all the James Patterson and Tom Clancy.

You young writers should read the rest of Lawrence's bit.

Any writer reading this knows we got a side gig. What's ours? Well we just made sure the kids got home and did their homework and are now running out to the store to get the stuff we're making for dinner. And we've noticed we tend to get to the gym in late morning with all the rest of the gals. Ok, that's partly by design, but still...