Art books: In the eye of the beholder

I consider myself a street writer. With the modern technology of self-publishing, all I ask is that you to put about $4 in my guitar case – that is, you pay for the printing costs and a few incidentals so that I neither make money nor lose money while I get to do what I want to do – which is write. My time and creativity I’m happy to give away to anyone who will listen.

If I really wanted to get wider exposure and a paycheck to begin to cover my time, I would need an established publisher. But even talented musicians who go on tour and have their albums widely distributed often need real jobs or they finally go back to the real world when they ‘grow up.’ And for many published writers, they usually require day jobs in academia or something. The J. K. Rowlings and the Rolling Stones are the rare exceptions, although there are ways that some writers do make an ordinary living just writing. Think volume.

Doing the math, if I could sell my books at a reasonable market value, I might net about $10 each. That would mean I’d have to sell a book an hour for than 40 hours a week for 50 weeks a year just to make about half the median income in the United States. And I’d better be married to get health insurance. As a writer moves into the publishing world, publishers and booksellers need to make their living, too, and the writer’s royalty per book drops drastically. Of course, I could sell a million books a year. Some do.

So as it goes financially, street writers basically work for nothing – tips. And even the bulk of writers work primarily for supplemental income – pin money.

So it is with great satisfaction that I spend my time and creativity writing and not selling books. Writing is a primary way that I express appreciation for what matters to me in life. It is work that I do with pleasure for no pay and, yes, it helps when readers pay most of the dollar costs. But since I can print one at a time, there’s no real financial risk. And it is also important to mention that self-publishing makes it possible for some few people to be able read my writing  –  for me to be read - at all. And the only real hitch is that my reach as a street writer is so limited. I would indeed love to have lots of people a year reading what I have to say. It would indicate to some degree that what I express is worth something to someone else.

But for now I’m a street writer. I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t already think that it was worth doing for myself.

And I still keep looking for ways to make my writing available to people who might be interested.  I’m pretty sure some people will enjoy reading some of the stories in my next book titled, ‘Little Bird: Small tales and poetry.’ So if you don’t want to stand in a long line outside my house waiting for midnight to roll around when that book will be released to the public with unimagined fanfare, I suggest you pre-order. I’m considering asking $7 bucks. I’ve added some extra costs, especially with the cover, and I’ve been drinking more egg crèmes lately – expenses, you know.

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If you really want to add you your ‘Haverkate-Ens’ collection, there’s:

            Sidney Core’s Secret $4 (in stock)

            The Sky is Reflected in the River $4

            Cairns $4 (in stock)

            Bowersock $7

            Kaw River Bridge $15

            Little Bird $7

If you just want to borrow them and read them and look at the pictures, just ask. And remember, there’s a post on my blog every Thursday. But the reality is that however good my writing is, not that many people I know are as interested in reading what I want to write about as they are in reading the work of other writers. I have books on my shelf that I would recommend to you before recommending my own. But on any given day, something I wrote might mean something to you.

Sidney Core’s Secret is the one book at this point that I would like to see legitimately published, but no nibbles. You should see the so-so stuff in kid’s lit that has gotten published. Still, I haven’t tried very hard.

One of my biggest real difficulties as a writer is a lack of criticism. Because you know me, it’s hard for you to talk objectively about my writing without feeling like you are directing criticism at me. And, being human, it’s also tricky for me to separate out those things. That’s one reason published writers have gone through places like the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. It takes a village to raise a writer (apart from a few solitary geniuses). If you read something of mine and have a useful word to give, I would like to try to go from ‘pretty good’ to ‘better’ in my writing. So far I’m mostly guessing about how good my writing is.

But I’m having a pretty good time working at it.