I'm glad you aren't going the socialism route. Especially after putting up a piece on how capitalism works better.

But I think you have your analysis wrong. What has happened is the internet has reduced the cost of entry for publication in both the writing market and the song market (among others). In your case, there are a bunch of new amateurs out there competing with you who are happy to offer their product for next to nothing. People aren't consuming less (falling demand). If anything people are consuming more. The price has dropped because there is so much more supply out there.

My advice for you is what you are already doing. Find ways to reduce your competition. Make your market more niche. Your speaking engagements are a perfect example. There are probably some acceptable alternatives to Amy Alkon (tm), but there aren't many. I'm afraid I don't know enough about book publishing to advise you there. As for news paper columns, you might want to phase out or drop that market. News papers are suffering from both a supply glut and falling demand as people look elsewhere for their news. The only papers that have seen success went more local (niche market), but that doesn't help you. So the news paper market doesn't look too promising for you.

If I can help you let me know. But there probably is little I'm good for.

Thanks, Ben -- so much.

What I do that nobody else does is applied science in an extremely rigorous and creative way. I solve problems using evidence (bring together research from across areas of social science and neuroscience), and I'm funny while doing it.

Publishing I've got covered. Love my agent and publisher.

I'm in local newspaper markets across the country with my science-based syndicated column.

You're also looking at why TV and movie studios have divisions which are concentrating on remaking known hits. If you recycled some of your work for the outlets who want it, it reduces production time. I bet some of your two books appears in your advice and in special articles for magazine or newspaper.

Gene Simmons was just on The Big Interview pointing out the difficulty with establishing legends in the music business. Studios used to be the only ones capable of wide distribution, and they knew something kids today apparently don't: you can only get so much on the air at a radio station.

A peeve of mine appears in the initial post: "one of fourteen people..." Any bar band will tell you - if you have a lot of people in the band, you're not getting paid a lot. There's no way songwriting will disappear as a profession, either. The competition is just tougher. Ms LaPolt is complaining about the buggy whip industry, even as Crüxshadows and Ayria and The Last Dance (and a million other outfits you haven't heard of) are self-producing. You really should hear how well Vilifi is produced. (Put the earbuds in - it's pretty hard, and there's a lot going on.)

I get a lot of puzzled looks when I comment that when you watch the Stones or Zeppelin, you're looking at everybody responsible for writing the song. Now there's a crew of dozens behind the "star". Britney, Katy, Beyoncé, Justin can't do anything without them. And everything has to be "explicit". Apparently no story is complete without filthy language. It's all a rush to appeal to a common denominator, and the shotgun approach often hits hard enough to live on the income.

I don't have a lot of sympathy for the songwriter. If she is one of 14 people who "wrote" the song, then she isn't actually a songwriter. Dunno what she is, but WTF? Does Amy have 13 people who write her columns with her?

The payment also sounds about right. The song is licensed to a band - the performers get a bigger share than the songwriters. The band is signed with a label - so the label takes the lion's share. Let's do a little math:

3 million plays, at half-a-penny per play gives $15,000. Expect the label and general bureaucracy to eat 90% of that, passing 10% on to the band and songwriters = that's $1500. The band keeps most of that - licensing the song shouldn't cost them more than 20% of their revenue. So the songwriters might get $300. Split fourteen ways (again, WTF?) is right in the ballpark.

I write for love and for cause. I wrote How to Make and Sell Your Own Rcording for cause—I felt musician's should learn to profit from their work and put out genres of music that major labels did not want. Over 25 years the book sold 250,000 copies, no fortune, but it did start a revolution. I wrote Home Sweet Jerome: Death and Rebirth of Arizona's Richest Copper Mining City for pure love of a town I spent 30 years in. Sold 3000 copies. No fortune there either, but I was proud of the work.
Even without the internet writing was not prfitable. Like you I've written dozens of articles for pittance (but always for love or cause) I remember talking to my friend Chuck Bowdoin, one of our really great writers, and he would tell me that every now and then, one of the bigger magazines would pay some thousands. He wrote for cause. I love it that High Country News,one of my favorites, has a research fund that enables it to pay writers to research and write
My company is publishing a book called Adulterers Wife: How to Thrive Whether You Stay or Not because it's a great book. The author wrote it for cause. We'll both be surprised if it makes money.
I hope your newest book makes you some money; sounds like you had a great time writing it. Kudos.

The world's changing faster and faster. Of course most peoples' instinct is to try to get govt force on their side to protect their business/livelihood from competition. All that does is stifle progress and wealth creation; on top of the immorality of it, of course.

Kudos to you, Amy, for recognizing the shift and adapting, vs. the aforementioned approach (or just whining about it, which is also a common reaction).

Of course if we didn't have govt meddling in the markets and we didn't have a central bank determined to rob us of the productivity gains of the new economy (via the fight against the boogeyman of deflation), then the little guys' standard of living would be rising more and they'd be able to innovate and create new businesses of their own.

But alas, almost nobody understands that and instead they run toward the Bernie "solution", which just makes it all worse.

I once had a friend contact me, saying he was looking for freelancers for his start-up. At the time, I was managing freelancers for a financial news outlet (which paid its writers well).

My friend wanted to pay $100 per 1,000-word pieces that involved a lot of reporting and research. He specified he wanted seasoned writers with years of experience so he wouldn't have to do much editing.

I told him none of the writers I worked with would consider his rate. And recommended he try to find j school students who were building their portfolios. I explained that the type of article he wanted required lots of work finding sources, interviewing them, and then probably a solid day or two of writing.

He got mad at me and insisted I was lying -- and that he needed writers with "name recognition." Weeks later, he still couldn't find anyone. I still refused to even give him the names of writers (because it would damage my reputation to pass along under-paying assignments), so he announced that he would be finding writers on Fivver.com -- a site that lets you find a "creative professional" for $5. He bragged that he had found dozens of people willing to take the job, and I said, "Yeah, OK you tell me how that works out."

His Fivver hires sent him plagiarized work.

The free market takes no prisoners, that's for sure.

@sofar: I once sourced written work using one of those platforms, because my customer had a really limited budget. We were a bit pickier about who we took, and found a couple of people who were writing more for fun, and were happy to earn a bit of beer money. Their texts required editing, but because they were writing about things they cared about, the content was good (and not plagiarized).

I think that's indicative of the general situation in the creative professions. People do this stuff for fun, so you're competing against the hobbiest. I sing, I've sung in public (as part of a choir), and I've even sung on semi-commercial CDs. I did it for fun, and never expected any pay.

How many people play an instrument? How many people are in a garage band? How many people are in amateur theater, or dance, or paint, or write short stories?

What that means for would-be professionals: they have to be immensely better than the amateurs, to justify asking for a living wage. Most of them aren't, and yet, they cannot understand why no one wants to pay for their art.

Art is cheap, because it's something that everybody does.

What has happened is the internet has reduced the cost of entry for publication in both the writing market and the song market (among others). In your case, there are a bunch of new amateurs out there competing with you who are happy to offer their product for next to nothing. ~ Posted by: Ben at February 22, 2016 6:19 AM

Not only that, but the low storage costs mean that what were formerly niche products can now be offered alongside mainstream fare.

Where an alternative band was once consigned to indie record shops or college radio stations, it can now be carried by Amazon or iTunes at little to no cost to the distributor.

Where once niche television programming was consigned to late night, it can now be made available for download along with Downton Abbey.

Where finding niche authors once required multiple trips to used or indie book stores, their books can now be purchased on Amazon or Google alongside James Patterson and Stephen King.

So, each consumer is free to follow his or her tastes or to discover new tastes. That means someone looking for an advice columnist is not stuck reading "Dear Abby" in the local paper or scrounging the local alt weekly, but can find a columnist on the Internet that that suits his or her taste - so the audience for each columnist is now smaller.

"you can only get so much on the air at a radio station."

A bit of a nit Rad. The radio is not the end consumer. And it shows. What do you hear on the radio? Music from the 80s, 90s, and more . . . This is all aimed at baby boomers. People have other outlets to get the product they want. Add revenues from radio are flat or shrinking because there just aren't the radio listeners there used to be.

The internet has eliminated a number of bottle necks that created natural niche markets. Radio with it's limited capacity was one. Publishers with their control of record production and distribution was another. But today for a few thousand dollars you can create a professional recording and distribute it. That is well within the hobbyist's ability to afford. Those natural bottle necks have been bypassed. So as random points out the former pros are now competing with the amateurs and finding people don't value them as highly as they used to.

"What do you hear on the radio?"

I hear what the indie promoters grease the skids to be played - that and right-wing ranting.

Ah, to have a regulated broadcasting industry again. Well, them's the breaks, eh?

"If she is one of 14 people who "wrote" the song, then she isn't actually a songwriter. "

If I understood what I read, and the author's statement was accurate, there were only two songwriters. What happens is that because of the generally very high level of corruption in the media industry (and music is one of the worst), for every creative person you have half a dozen other people with their hands in the pot. They're mandarins, and although they don't do anything, you have to pay them off to get anything done.

Ah, to have a regulated broadcasting industry again. Well, them's the breaks, eh? ~ Posted by: Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at February 22, 2016 10:05 AM

Yes, because people should only hear what the government wants them to hear.

By the way, I hear plenty of left-wing ranting on the radio, too. I used to be an intermittent, but fairly regular listener of Stephanie Miller until I got tired of her schtick which was nothing more than "Republicans are mean. They cause poverty. They have cooties."

That's the beauty of an open radio market. All voices get to be heard, if they can get and maintain the ratings.

"Yes, because people should only hear what the government wants them to hear."

Then you should be thanking Bill Clinton.

Homework, people, homework!

...for every creative person you have half a dozen other people with their hands in the pot. They're mandarins, and although they don't do anything, you have to pay them off to get anything done. ~ Posted by: Cousin Dave at February 22, 2016 10:11 AM

Case in point: Gene Roddenberry wrote lyrics to the "Star Trek" theme song even though he never intended that the lyrics be used. He wrote them so he could get a songwriter credit and split the royalties to the theme song. He did't believe the show would go into syndication (where the real money was in television back then).

http://mentalfloss.com/article/28895/star-trek-theme-song-has-lyrics

Ben - by the time the college town radio station puts four Gaga, KP or DeRulo songs on in the hour, they're full. You know they do "heavy rotation", where the same song will be played 10 times a day. In one 50-mile radius, you can have less than a hundred FM stations, limited by the radio spectrum; stereo AM was invented for large markets in which saturation was already achieved. That only allows for a thousand artists to be heavily rotated if new work was the station's only focus. That's what I'm claiming.

There's a reason you haven't heard of the four groups I mentioned above, and lack of talent isn't it.

Back in the '80s, I heard a record store manager complain that he had a thousand albums that weren't going to sell because nobody hears anything on them. I pointed out he was playing the Top-40 show on his own store PA, and if he wanted to move anything he should surprise people when they came in.

You mentioned the "boomer" stations - they do the same thing. They're not going to play stuff from that era that's rare any more than the more modern stations. They have to sell the sure thing.

By the way, this should make you cheer.

Yeah, "oldies".

We were a bit pickier about who we took, and found a couple of people who were writing more for fun, and were happy to earn a bit of beer money.

I can definitely see that for certain things on Fivver/similar platforms. But my friend was trying to find people to write on a niche (boring to most people) B2B topic requiring either expertise or intensive research. Nobody is writing about that for "fun." Nobody is writing about this topic as a passion project, and if they are, they've got their own blogs promoting their own companies. The only kind of people who would take his assignments are people who are copying/pasting other stuff and collecting $5 at a time.

Spotify doesn't use a standard royalty arrangement - the fact that 14 people received disbursements, doesn't mean there were 14 songwriters. Their algorithm for paying royalties is opaque. They may disclose the calculation to parties large enough to cause them trouble, but don't reveal much to the public.

Also this situation isn't necessarily the result of excess supply. Music revenues began to drop due to piracy while the industry was still pretty consolidated. Most music services online rely on piracy, either directly or as leverage to dramatically reduce royalty costs. The fact is, consumers still listen to a limited range of music, but now they expect free music regardless of the quality.

This result is that there is little if any artist development - it's why even major acts sound like amateurs and why mainstream music is so primitive. You see the same in publishing - no editing, poor writing, amateurish analysis.

"And not just some piece I can "bang out." (I've never "banged" a piece out in my life.)"

Ohh, this so annoys me when folks ask me to "bang something out." Seriously, I do care about the quality of my work because it is my reputation on the line.

And, no I am not going to do it cheaply just because someone cannot afford it. Or really, they're just too cheap to pay what things are worth - it isn't just Bernie Sanders supporters who expect free stuff, I find a lot of business do as well.

And non-profits are the worst as they claim it is for a good cause. Their "good cause" doesn't pay my bills!

Best of luck to you Amy. I would find it very interesting if you do manage to get on more TV spots. Heck, I might even watch The View if you make it that far! (God knows you could run intellectual circles around that Behar character)

As the Lady of the Evening said; "It ain't the professionals that are the problem, it's all the amateurs"

The problem is that the market is changing drastically and it is collapsing the market that existed before. I have published 2 novels on Amazon, neither of which would likely have gotten published with traditional publishers (too long, too much sex, not professionally edited as I cannot afford that, although those who have read them have liked them very much). Amazon's marginal cost for "Publishing" my book is as close to zero as it is possible to get so anything I sell is pure profit for them. I make 70% of the $4.99 price, so my 'Profit' is much higher that it would be with the traditional publishers.

The problem is that I have no budget for advertising. Word of mouth is slow and in the world of social media the competition for the limited attention span of the public is fierce. People in general read much less. The cost of print on demand is very high (like $18 dollars a copy until I reach a minimum level of sales, well neigh impossible to obtain with the other issues) plus I would have to invest more labor in re-editing and changing the format again to comply with Amazon's POD system requirements, so my audience is limited further to those who read via electronic device.

Without the tools for increasing my sales and exposing potentially parties to my work I cannot increase sales, but without increased sales I have little ability to expand my reach to a wider audience, catch-22. Given that I have invested probably 1000+ hours into creating these books for total sales of 23 copies, the economics of the problem tell me to stop writing (or at least stop publishing). The investment of my time and effort is not being rewarded even on an emotional level, so why continue?

The internet and associated technology have vastly expanded access to the market for all writers, while simultaneously increasing the available alternatives to reading as a leisure activity. The net result is a shrinking market coupled with a vastly increased supply of product, so prices collapse. The 'Bad' money (information) drives out the 'Good' when both have equal access to the market simply because there is so much 'Bad' and no way to reduce it or differentiate between the two except by shoveling through the manure to find the nuggets of good.

Wish I had the answer, I would guess that the person who figures it out will make so much money they could hire Bill Gates as a pool-boy.

I would add a link to my authors page here, but I won't pimp Ms. Alkon's page for that. It seems that manners limit markets as well.

There's a new book called "Culture Crash: The Killing of the Creative Class" by Scott Timberg.
Heard of it? (Haven't read it myself.)

Description:

"Change is no stranger to us in the twenty-first century. We must constantly adjust to an evolving world, to transformation and innovation. But for many thousands of creative artists, a torrent of recent changes has made it all but impossible to earn a living. A persistent economic recession, social shifts, and technological change have combined to put our artists—from graphic designers to indie-rock musicians, from architects to booksellers—out of work. This important book looks deeply and broadly into the roots of the crisis of the creative class in America and tells us why it matters.

"Scott Timberg considers the human cost as well as the unintended consequences of shuttered record stores, decimated newspapers, music piracy, and a general attitude of indifference. He identifies social tensions and contradictions—most concerning the artist’s place in society—that have plunged the creative class into a fight for survival. Timberg shows how America’s now-collapsing middlebrow culture—a culture once derided by intellectuals like Dwight Macdonald—appears, from today’s vantage point, to have been at least a Silver Age. Timberg’s reporting is essential reading for anyone who works in the world of culture, knows someone who does, or cares about the work creative artists produce."

Don't forget that only a few years ago, acting, music, art, et al were not fields in which one expected to make the kind of money today's stars expect to make. Fame, yes, money, no. Several famous artists died broke, actors worked under studio contracts, musicians worked for record companies only on approved projects, writers had to be prolific to make serious money.

The millionaire musician or actor is a recent phenomenon and, apparently, destined to be a brief one.

The business class has *never* respected the creative class. Never, never, never.

That's why if you're creative, you especially need to learn the language-- and cultivate the toughness-- to make it in business, if you ever want to be able to make a living at your art.

Hi Amy,

With all due respect, the music business is a little different. Traditionally, performers are not paid at all for radio play, played a little bit for satellite, and paid the most for streaming. Composers are paid no matter what the distribution method is. Additionally, the artist's deal it's with the record label, not the streaming service (there are a few exceptions). Finally, let me add that most artist's have traditionally made almost nothing from their album sales, usually less than $1 per record. Yes, the record company keeps that much.

The unfortunate fact is that cd sales are down, the labels still keep most of the money, and as always, only a few artists make anything, in fact about 1% of the performers make 99% of the money and that's no different than it was before the internet.

"Ohh, this so annoys me when folks ask me to "bang something out." Seriously, I do care about the quality of my work because it is my reputation on the line."

Well, if you can't do it quickly...

Elton John is said to have taken all of 30 minutes to write the music for each of half the hits he and Bernie Taupin penned. Some folk set the bar pretty high.

> The free market takes no
> prisoners, that's for sure.

☑ The Gog-O-Saures, the Gogmeister, The Mighty Gogifier.

Write better books; sing prettier songs. That's what you were going to do anyway, right? Does it matter what others were going to do, or how much they were going to charge?

...Or were you hoping your field of competition could be constrained by professionalism?

> What that means for would-be
> professionals: they have to be
> immensely better than the amateurs,
> to justify asking for a living wage.
> Most of them aren't, and yet, they
> cannot understand why no one wants
> to pay for their art.
>
> Art is cheap, because it's something
> that everybody does.

☑ Rockin' Randy, the Rand Corporation, the Radical Ran ----Okay, enough.

Gog & Rand are totally right about this.





> Timberg considers the human cost

--is there one?--

> as well as the unintended consequences
> of shuttered record stores, decimated
> newspapers

Who says this was unintended? This is what some of us have dreamt of for years! It's precisely what we wanted from the computer revolution... A path around the small-minded, tasteless, cowardly gatekeepers in American music and ideas.

> music piracy

We've covered this in earlier blog posts. Music is now priced much closer to what it means to people... Especially the bubblegum stuff.

> and a general attitude of
> indifference

This is poodle-fuzz foolishness, frog-water sillytalk. Who's indifferent? Not me... I love music more than ever before. I have access to a greater variety at a lower cost than ever before. The one who've been brought to a condition of "indifference" were the ones who were dreaming of a superstar payday, not the ones who wanted to make interesting music or do thoughtful writing.

> He identifies social tensions and
> contradictions-

[1.] Why are Americans so pussified about "social tensions" nowadays?

(I don't think they are. People who write articles like this enjoy pretending their topics are dramatic, and their readers often sign on to the pretense without thinking about it too much.)

[2.] What has been "contradicted"?

> most concerning the artist’s place
> in society—that have plunged the
> creative class into a fight for
> survival.

Why should the "creative class" be excused from the fight for survival? "Plunged"? The "class"?

Yeah, I think I agree with the thought process that they're saying there's a huge change from how it's been for a long time, but really it's been a tiny amount of time in history (just a few decades) where mostly music and actors made a lot more money than before. There was the, as mentioned, small group of gatekeepers that really got to decide what was a hit or not as well.

Look farther into history and you'd have a handful of artists that found a patron, usually in royalty, that set them up. Most people, though, barely got by.

Heck, even when movies first really got started, those stars, as mentioned as well, got fame, but not necessarily that much money. Many of them were practically prisoners of the studios or at least they were locked into contracts with little to no wiggle room. Hail Caesar coming out now is (from what I've seen) making fun of some of that period of time.. with the usual Coen Bros flair.

> Gene Simmons was just on The Big
> Interview pointing out the difficulty
> with establishing legends

...Which should be none too troubling to you and I. The "establishment" of "legends" has nothing to do with me enjoying music, or with the making of it by those I'd like to hear. It's a businessman's daydream, not one from an artistic (or even craft-tempered) mind.

But that's where people's heads are at, right? Folks don't imagine building a body of work (or an audience) after years of effort and practice and experimentation. They dream of riskless, effortless super-success--- In music, in health care, in business and in politics. And if you interfere with their fantasy of how that might happen, they get all pissy. Especially if you introduce all kinds of pesky human interactions, those unpleasant encounters wherein customers (and voters) figure out how much of their own money they want to give for something.

Simmons is a remarkable guy, and a handsomely blustering figure with a PT Barnum sensibility. From him, the rhetoric is forgivable.

But from the typical American consumer, from whom such thoughts are so often expressed, it's obnoxious. Getting good at something, a venture for which others will gratefully pay money, is aspiration enough. The "establishment of legends" is so far beyond a typical lifetime of work as to be not worth worrying about.

I am amazed at the skills of some unknown musicians.
Of course the consumer boggles at the idea of a "modern legend"; why, that reeks of hype-man ranting.

But they know one when they see one.

I recall your effusive praise for Mr. Zappa. Clearly not a Top-40 favorite, and even more clearly the promoter of ridiculously skilled musicians, the least of which could walk into any venue and light it up. Also an indie producer!

Somehow, I think you are proud, by proxy, of his reputation; legends do, after all, hail from different cultures.

Kanye, pox be upon him, calls himself a creative genius, in public, yet. Jimi Hendrix hated the distraction of such praise. In my experience (possibly you are the exception, of course), the more modest the person, the better they are at the skill I accuse them of having.

Welcome back, BTW. Waiting for some device to finish processing, I suppose?

I am utterly shocked at how many people I know who have books "published" - that is the digital version with print on demand. It does seem like there is so much out there.

And my time has gotten scarcer ... I cannot remember the last time I read book all the way through.

The trouble with writing as a profession is the same as musician, teacher, actor, architect, lawyer, chef and lots of others. Everybody *knows* about them, and to a greater or lesser extent, thinks what they do is fun, exotic, interesting, or "important." And, for most of them, as others have noted, the barriers to entry are low. Even if the educational barriers are high, well-known professions are over subscribed.

For example, I was talking many years ago to the head of a large, prestigious architecture firm in Minnesota. He told me that there are more graduates of the U of MN architecture school *each year* than there are practicing architects in the state.

So, supply and demand drives the salaries, even for the lucky few who succeed in working in that field.

Hey Crid!

An exec I know wrote a business book and he was thrilled at how it was all so easy for him.

Apparently the proper way to write a book is to hire two ghostwriters and give them your notes and then give their finished text to a self-publishing service, pick out your cover art, write them a check, and voila! You're not just a writer, you're a published author.

And there I was using my keyboard like a shmuck. D'oh!

> Waiting for some device to finish
> processing, I suppose?

Yes, but the devices are human nowadays. One's best insights count for nothing... Enjoy the sundial.

Goggers--- This was my favorite book of that kind (rich guy says 'there oughta be a book about that,' then signs his name to the one that got written)... Though I ought to admit that I can't remember a single word of its report.

'there oughta be a book about that,'

Publishers Weekly reviews it as "replete with piquant and titillating incidents not to be construed as a guide to parenting"

Ha!

About "banging something out":

"This is poodle-fuzz foolishness, frog-water sillytalk. Who's indifferent? Not me... I love music more than ever before."

There you go. More colorful, yet clearer, than most professionals and all of those drones who write promotional copy of how their new alliance will usher in a new era...

Write a book, Crid. I'll buy it!

An exec I know wrote a business book and he was thrilled at how it was all so easy for him.

Apparently the proper way to write a book is to hire two ghostwriters and give them your notes and then give their finished text to a self-publishing service, pick out your cover art, write them a check, and voila! You're not just a writer, you're a published author.

Posted by: Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at February 23, 2016 8:10 PM

I used to work for a management consulting firm and each of the senior partners was a published author of several management books in his or her specialty - which was a lot less impressive when you saw the sausage being made.

Junior associates fresh out of college wrote articles and chapters of the book for the partner - starting when he/she was being groomed for partnership. For the employees, fresh out of college, it was like being in college and doing term papers. The books read that way, too.

For their assistance, the peons didn't even get thanked in the acknowledgements. They did get a free copy, but then so did the rest of the employees. To ensure that the book was a decent seller, the company bought a few thousand copies to give to clients and employees. We'd get about 4-5 a year. I still have a couple of them; the trade-in bookstores won't take them.

From then on, I've looked at "I'm published" claims by business executives and even professors with a fair amount of skepticism.