mizkit

We’re looking for somewhere new to rent, and I mumbled about a lovely place that costs an impractical, um, *checks conversion rate*, $2350 a month. This caused someone (that I have known since childhood, so while it was cheeky, well, actually, total strangers ask these questions too, so) to ask the following question, and since I wrote out the answer anyway, I thought I might as well post it.

“I thought successful authors like yourself made a lot of money? Am I way off base?”

Yes. :)

Here. I’ll talk some real numbers.

For example: my most recent 3 year average income is about $47K gross, which sounds pretty good. However, that’s with my best *ever* year of writing income as part of the average. If I take that year away and factor in something more normal, my 3 year average is more like $34K, which still isn’t half bad, but it’s not stupendous amounts of money.

But that’s gross. Before I ever even see that, 15% goes to my agent’s commission, which brings a more normal average year down to about $29K. Then you convert it to euros, which on average takes about 30% away from the take-home, which puts it at about €20K. It’s a living, but it’s not what most people would call a lot of money.

Furthermore, I write fast. Less fast now that I’ve had a kid, but I still write fast, around 300,000 words/3 books a year. So if you pretend the money you’re getting paid is for the book you’re working on right now (which is really not how it works, but that’s a different long story) that’s about $10K (or €6.7K) per book. And again, I write fast, so a 100K book (an average Walker Papers novel, for example) takes me 100 hours.

That makes my hourly rate look really good, even if you add another 50 hours on top of that for revision and editing and everything. But I rarely get to write a book in a straight shot, so it’s usually more like 6-12 weeks of work. I mean, I can and have and no doubt will again do 10-12 hour writing days for several days on end, but a more normal (pre-child) writing schedule was about 4-5 hours a day. Which is not, I realize, something to cry in one’s beer about. :) But the point is a great hourly rate doesn’t necessarily mean a lot of cash, because of how the system works.

The people you hear about who make a lot of money? JK Rowling, Stephen King, Stephanie Meyer, Michael Connolly? They’re the outliers. Writers’ lives and incomes are not like they’re portrayed in the media or movies. They’re the rock stars compared to the garage bands.

(x-posted from The Essential Kit)

splinister

This evening, from 7pm – 9.30pm, in the Odessa Club in Dublin, will see the first meeting of Laydeez do Comics – Dublin.

Our guests speakers will be the multi-talented writers/artists Sarah McIntyre, Alan Nolan, and Maeve Clancy.

It’s the perfect event for anyone who loves comics or enjoys hearing creative professionals discuss their craft. All welcome!

Laydeez do Comics is an international network of meetings celebrating the diverse expressions of the comic book medium. Started in 2009 in London, it now has groups across the UK, America, and now Ireland.

It should be a fun and informative meeting tonight, so I hope many of you can make it along.

~ Originally published at Splinister. You can comment here or there. ~

bart_calendar

If Your 14 Year Old Daughter Was Fucking An 18 Year Old Girl

View Answers

I'd be fine with it if she was happy.
5 (55.6%)
Fuck no! I'd try to put a stop to it.
1 (11.1%)
I'd be uncomfortable but at least she won't get pregnant.
3 (33.3%)
Awesome! I'd lend them my lesbian porn collection and buy them matching vibrators for Christmas.
0 (0.0%)

http://xkcd.com/1215/

mizkit

(x-posted from The Essential Kit)

rfmcdpei

After the declaration of independence in 1991, various formations composed of former communists who were careful about words such as privatization and foreign investment took turns governing the country. Yugoslavia's socialist legacy had a lot to do with that, but so did the concerns of a small nation, which had, for the first time, its own country and feared that outsiders would again steamroll over its history, culture, and economy – this time not militarily, but economically. Sometime in 1998, for example, I first heard the story of how the Slovenians were preventing foreign speculation by requiring that money into and out of the country could legally be transferred through only one state-controlled account.

A right-wing government took power only in 2000, with its banner wielded mainly by former dissident Janez Jansa, who is known for seeing plots everywhere. He himself was accused of secret arms purchases during the dissolution of Yugoslavia. This year, his government fell not because of economic problems, although they played a role, but because of suspicions of corruption among ministers and the prime minister.

Slovenia's shining image shows up in rankings of countries’ living standards and development. When we dig deeper into these indices, however, we can see the residue of the state-directed approach to the economy and the socialist attitude to the state as the hand that distributes full handfuls. For example, the Prosperity Index, compiled by London's Legatum Institute, puts Slovenia at 24th of 142 countries. But the worst evaluated of the eight categories is the economy, while the best is the educational system.

It's similar with the Catch-up Index, compiled by the Open Society Institute in Sofia, which judges whether and how quickly the former Eastern bloc countries are catching up with Western Europe. Of the four categories assessed Slovenia fared a shade better in quality of life than in democracy, governance, or the economy. It looks as if the Slovenians live well but have relied too much on their economic model working forever and even being able to grumble about their government, which, however, still controls most of the economy through state-owned banks and companies.

Just as Slovenians have a problem with privatization and opening up their economy to foreign investors, so it is in other areas. For example, a history-related time bomb has been ticking in Slovenian society, considered taboo all the way up until Jansa's governments that ruled after 2000. During World War II, certainly not all Slovenes stood on the side of Tito's partisans. Slovenia was divided during the war among the three occupying powers, and only much later Jansa and others began to talk about the massacres of tens of thousands of people from the so-called Slovene Home Guard – namely the units on the side of the Italians, Germans, and Hungarians, whom the allies in 1945 handed over to Tito's units along with the remnants of the Croatian Ustasha and Serb forces loyal to the exiled Western governments.