Sunday 13 November 2016

How much is a picture worth?

Like a distant planet with a very weak field of gravity, I seem to be accreting followers singley, as if they just happened to accidentally drift a little too close, like small lumps of matter in the vastness of space - spin-offs from heavier bodies. Welcome Anne Gramme, you little lump of matter, you.

On a book-club radio programme yesterday, I heard an author who used to live in Bath who has made millions from self-publishing. He said that it really doesn't matter if the publishers and critics think that your writing is shit, just so long as you sell the books. I know it is pretty obvious, but he has a very demonstrable point. Jack Vettriano said the same about his paintings.

There was a ruthless junk-shop dealer in Bath some years ago, who only paid pennies when he bought things from desperate people, and sold them on quite cheaply, but for many more times than he paid.

One day, someone went into his shop and snapped up a small set of chairs. They turned out - as the buyer knew - to be from the Chippendale workshop and sold for thousands at auction. I mentioned this to him one day, and he said something like, "Good luck to them. I like it when I can give people a bargain." He was lying through gritted teeth, obviously, and he reminded me of all the publishers who turned down best-sellers when they had the chance.

The successful self-publisher gave advice to would-be authors, and it was very cold, impersonal advice which seemed to have nothing to do with the content, but he had already covered that issue.

He said that most people steam through the first 18,000 words, then hit a brick wall. A few days before he was on, a writer had broadcast a whole half-hour program about his prolonged bout of 'writer's block'. He ended up - rather incestuously - writing about writing, or not writing. So he did have something he could write about after all.

I don't believe in 'writer's block'. I think that if you stop writing under pressure from agents or publishers, it is because you have nothing to write about - or worse, nothing worth writing about - and you find that you are in the same sort of boat as the rest of us, but uniquely on your own. Like an unwise choice of partner, you chose the wrong muse.

That's the difference between professionals and people like me (I would say 'us', but I know there are a few real ones in here) - if we have nothing to write about, we write about it anyway.

If you really want to be able to hold a block of bound paper with your name on the cover in your hands, I think it costs around £6 to self-publish one book, but that doesn't include getting the shops to take it. That bit must be harder work than writing it.


18 comments:

  1. The need to produce can suck the joy from any endeavor begun for the love and joy of it. Not all, but some certain any. It takes stamina and will of purpose to push on past the artistic to the commercial--that old need to "make a living."

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    1. Even more so in my line of work. Hitting stone can get very boring indeed.

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    2. A Sculptor's Block weighs more than a Writer's.

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    3. A pint's a pound the world around. A tub of handwoven clothing weighed maybe thirty ponds. My display was heavy. My van weighed 6,000 pounds. Loaded, 8,000 pounds. Forty weekends a year I shifted those 2,000 pounds.

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    4. I'm talking about £s. It's our currency. I cannot remember when beer was £1 a pint, but I'm sure it must have been.

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  2. " ... just as long as you sell your books". Yes, and no. Obviously writers need to eat too. However, it's pretty hard to be associated with crap. Matter of pride. Which is, no doubt, why so many write under a pseudonym. Not even their mother knows what her kid is doing for a living. Though in the case of one of my sisters (and she doesn't write) my mother, I hope, will be spared. It's the best kept secret in a rather large family ever.

    "A sculptor's block weighs more than a writer's". I like that, Tom. Which is why I recently compared you to Sisyphus - as usual my intention back firing. On an upbeat note: At least a sculptor has a block to sit on. Which is more than blocked writers can show for their efforts.

    You touch on the blogging world and their own blocks. Is there ever anything more boring, nay embarrassing, than when a blogger whines that they have nothing to say and then elaborates on it at tedium? To paraphrase a rather stupid saying: If you have nothing to say then say nothing at all.

    U

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    1. I thought that quote came from Thumper's mother in Bambi.

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    2. I thought that I had already referenced this paraphrase, but it seems that some people weren't paying enough attention to references. Oh well, if the message gets through to even one person, it's still a waste of time.

      Like they say - pick up a penny and you will have a penny all day.

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    3. Oh and if being associated with crap meant that I could eat, then I would be happy to put my name to it. Same if I was a rent-boy, but I've left it a bit late for that.

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  3. I've just lost two trump supporters

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  4. Write or paint what you like who cares what the so called experts of the world think.
    Merle.......

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    1. Yes, but I do like to be paid for alot of work, or at least be able to eat when I do it.

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  5. I have two well known painter friends who would do ANYTHING to sell their work. They write books about themselves, make films, give talks, one has even produced a self-congratulatory Calendar. I find it all rather tasteless, but they make a lot more money than I do.

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    1. That's the trouble with Fine Art - too much networking needed to get anywhere. Pushy people are so repulsive.

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    2. But that's the second rule of art. You are selling a little piece of yourself with every sale. Accept it. Or not.

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    3. And every time your photo is taken, a little piece of your soul goes with it.

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