Okay, so now the fallout from the Salon.com



article is beginning to trickle in...I've found several interesting blog entries and even more interesting comments on the blog entries. here they are:

John Scalzi's Whatever Blog there are comments from some notable writers...so make sure you read those too.

nihilistic kid

NOTE: some of the comments have some course language...so just be warned.

All that said, I have to admit that my opinion about the article hasn't changed...it still doesn't depress or scare me. It's one author's journey through the publishing process. Will that be my journey necessarily? No. Will I have more success? Perhaps..although I do have a hard time feeling sorry for a writer who nailed a 150k advance on a FIRST novel...but then again, who really didn't expect her career to go downhill from there? I would have taken the advance and put it in the bank (at least a good chunk of it), cuz, the biz being what it is, I would expect to get struck by lightening before seeing another advance like that. But that's just me.

One other issue I have: the author (Jane Austen Doe...clever) made almost $300,000 in advances...then there is the money she made ghostwriting the celebrity book. Add to that the income she received as a freelancer and the royalties she gets from her other books..I really can't see why she is complaining. I assume its because she is not living the Dream of Great American Novelist. Maybe so, but she has made more than most writers will ever see.

Oh and one more issue: many writers are taken aback that Ms. Austen Doe considers getting a "day job" a setback. That didn't bother me. I can see how it could be that way to her. Of course, we don't know what the day job is, and from what I can gather from the negative feedback, most of the writers that take offense to her feelings work day jobs in the writing industry. If she secured a writing-industry or teaching job, then I don't feel sorry for her. But if she's working as a CSR or Greet at Wal-mart, then she gets my sympathy.

Anyway, that's all I have to say on the subject. I feel bad for what the author has gone through, and yet, I can't say she has truly suffered. She has published books...she has an agent...she's ahead of the game.

PS...anyone have any idea who SHE is?
- posted by Kim @ 3:48 AM