Tuesday, February 21, 2006

The economics of it all

Apparently Mary Jo Putney, one of the demigods of the Historical Romance Universe, works a day job. This is like hearing that Michelangelo sold insurance on the side to make ends meet.

Something's screwy with the world.

How hard would it be for publishers to raise the price of every book 20 cents and send that to writers? How many first rate writers give up and go work in a bakery, cause they want to eat? Is that what happened to Alexi Panshin and the Curtises?

I swear ---
one of these days I'm going to found a website where readers can make direct Paypal payments to their favorite authors. With every $5 gift they get to send an email that gets forwarded to the author through PayPal or the publisher or agent or something.

I get a domain --

Ilovedyourbook.com.

I could fund it with Amazon links and Google ads.
I swear I'm going to do this.

2 comments:

  1. Jo -

    Okay - I'm being sucked into Blog world. It's a slippery slope, and I resisted because I knew once I started I'd never get out again.

    Anyway, this is an awesome idea! The kids loved The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia Wrede, so I bought some of her other books used (they're out-of-print). The kids liked those too. I tried to find a website or something for her so I could at least ask her for a favorite charity I could donate to, since she obviously didn't get payment from the used books. She doesn't even have a web presence (that I could find). Your idea would have worked fine!

    Jenny Meyer

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  2. No. No. No. Do not get sucked into blogs. No.

    Go write.

    I swear it would be a great idea though.

    Midlist authors are traded for years on the used book market. And loved. And enjoyed. I bet the authors would love to get the recognition and money those readers would love to send them.

    It's just a matter of getting reader and author together.

    Maybe Amazon could do it.

    JoB
    who doesn't have time to do any of this, though it would be a great idea.

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