Writing, Politics and the Loss of Alternative Income

In recent months, I have been watching the slow but steady decline of income from my online writing efforts.

Amazon pays less than it ever has, Google Adsense pays less than it ever has, my "revenue sharing" venues are paying less than they ever have. For the first month in many years, I might actually make less than $10. I used think that as long as I "made enough for a dinner out" I could justify spending some time writing every day.

The decline not because readership is down. In fact, readership is fairly broadly up, across my writing venues. The decline is the result of any given page view having less value than ever.

Meanwhile, the "Political Circus" is ramping up as the US Presidential elections of next year draw closer. Various candidates are trying to "establish position" and lots of viewpoints are being tossed around. Conspiracy theorists (at least some of them) would have us all believe that we are powerless anyway... and "nothing short of anarchy" can change our system.

To me, there is little doubt that most politicians are-- to some degree-- little more than sock puppets for business interests. It's one of the great weaknesses of the US political system: Government is ultimately run by those who stand to profit from government.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist, by any stretch of the imagination.

What I do see, however-- purely as a keen observer of the human condition-- is that the ever-growing chasm between the "haves" and "have-nots" seems partially fueled by the fact that our ability to create "alternative" income streams is closing... that is, it gets harder and harder to be "outside the system."

Well.

Not harder to BE outside the system, but to LIVE outside the system. You can BE outside the system to your heart's content, you just can't make a living there, anymore. Or it's a lot more work than it used to be.

Again, not being a conspiracy theorist here... just postulating that just like the income earned by minimum wage (and most hourly) workers hasn't increased at the same rare as the life expenses of those people, similarly the income increases of the self-employed (most of us) haven't kept up with increasing costs to do business, and simply to live.

It's 2015, and I make about the same as I did in 2006. "Product X" or "Service Y" from a small contributor like me sells for about the same then and now. And if I have "the nerve" to up my prices, I will just lose overall business. When it comes to writing and getting paid... the "per word" rates are largely unchanged.

The math behind that simply doesn't work, from a functional perspective. And this, many feel increasing pressure to "comply" and just go get a mainstream job that fits "in the establishment" somewhere, and serves the "machine" we have been trying to operate independently of.

I feel sad for those writers who actually depend on this gig for paying their electric bills...

The Lazy Writer's Journal

Maybe this blog is really going to end up being a sort of "Lazy Writer's Journal."

The thing is, I'm really a very lazy person.

Don't get me wrong, I love to write! But once I get a few words (basically "an idea") down "on paper," I just kinda lose interest. I guess I live under the delusion that somehow the words should now just "get legs" and start doing something, on their own... with little to no effort on my behalf.

One of the things that always felt so appealing about writing was the concept of "royalties" and "residuals." Not because I harbored any illusions that I would ever become rich from my words, but because I love the idea of "passive" income. More specifically, because I don't really have that much personal discipline... I love the idea of "not working tomorrow..." if I don't feel like it.

As I said, I am really a very lazy person.

To wit, I started this blog a couple of years ago, and I really haven't "done" anything with it. But the more I keep thinking about it, the more I keep thinking I should turn it into a chronicle of sorts... for those of us who like writing and would love to make a little money for our efforts... yet are not "driven," like some people are.

And so, I will make this the "starting marker" of this plan... and we'll just see what happens.

I am going to start using photos, too. Because photos rock. And make things prettier... or at least more "visually interesting."

Writers and their Egos

For almost as long as I have been writing, I have been somewhat stunned by the size of the egos of writers.

Let me rephrase that.

Some writers.

Usually the not-so-good ones.

It's a bit like those people who get up and try out for American Idol. The louder they are about being "all that, and a bag of chips," typically the less actual talent they have. In fact, most of their talent seems to be in the realm of convincing people how GREAT they are, while the actual greatness is sadly lacking.

A friend of mine-- who's an editor at a literary 'zine-- has often shared that the peskiest and most annoying submitters are the ones who can't write their way out of a paper bag.

Similarly, some of the greatest writing I have read came from people who barely considered themselves "writers," and would dismiss accolades with words like "I dabble a bit, on occasion."

Makes me ponder whether we-- as human beings in all aspects of-- tend to substitute bluster and bravado for actual talent and ability.

Writing on the Internet

It was not long after I got my first Internet connection that I first thought to myself "Wouldn't it be cool if I could get paid for all this?" At the time, I was very absorbed in the process of writing lots of emails, and I had recently discovered forums, message boards and other sites with "user-generated content."

At the time-- around 1996-- there really wasn't much action in the writing online industry. The whole idea of "micropayments" was brand-new, and most of the pundits of the day were scoffing at the idea of users being PAID for their contributions. In fact, many people were still offended by the whole idea that the Internet was a commercial venue. I never could quite wrap myself around that idea... after all, the servers, and the people who put information online, the software driving it all... those things didn't just appear out of the goodness of someone's heart. SOMEthing had to buy them, drive them, and pay for their maintenance.

The Changing Landscape of Writing

When I was in the process of changing my work life-- from being a business owner, to more of a focus of art, writing and creativity-- the landscape of the writing market was changing.

My initial exposure to seriously trying to "write for money" came in the late 90's, and my focus was more "technical" than "creative." Somehow, I didn't really believe that I had what it took to write fiction and get paid for it. So I took a "half-step" and wrote for (predominantly) Internet-based businesses, and the high tech industry.

One of the primary ways the business of writing was changing could be linked directly to growing Internet usage. Getting work-- and getting fairly compensated for it-- was becoming harder and harder. Where the market for contract technical writers had previously been the domain of "professionals," we now found ourselves competing increasingly with a demographic I can best describe as "Stay at home moms with an English degree."

Ultimately, I don't begrudge anyone the desire to write-- however, this particular set of players in the market helped perpetuate the old reality that writers tend to be "starving" and barely make a living. After all, they weren't dependent on making a living, they were just there to make a little "pocket money." For them, bidding a contract job at $6.00 an hour meant they'd win the bid, and get the pocket money, as desired. For me, it meant "no work," because I couldn't make a full-time living on that kind of income.

The writers market continues to change. More people than ever-- regardless of whether or not they can actually write-- call themselves "writers." The size of the "pot" is fairly steady to growing slightly, but it is spread among a huge number of folks. Where once (and granted, the process was far more laborious and protracted) a published article might earn a writer $500, now many people think it is "great" that they were paid $10 by some web site. With the exception of a few who write "mainstream blockbusters," getting a book published is harder than ever... and more and more writers turn to self-publishing and print-on-demand houses.

The landscape of writing is constantly changing, and keeping up with trends takes almost as much time and effort as the writing, itself.

Beginnings, Part I

When I was six years old, my mother bought some blank exercise books for me. It was her hope that I would turn out to be artistic, and the purpose of the books was to teach me how to "draw outsde the lines."

Within about two weeks, I had filled all three exercise books. However, it was not with the drawings my mother hoped for-- it was with words.

To this day, I believe she was a little disappointed.

My Life As A Writer has been a mixed bag. In a sense, you could argue that I have been in denial about the writing life. Although I wrote from a very early age, it wasn't ever a childhood dream to "become a writer." I had the usual childhood aspirations-- and even some of my more esoteric "what I'm gonna be when I grow up's" (like being a stamp dealer) did not include writing.

And yet I "knew" that I was a writer.

When I was in my teens, I briefly muttered some words to the effect that I enjoyed writing, but my intent was weak and the idea was easily tossed aside by my mother's insistence that writers were "flakes and people who had no direction in their lives, and besides, you can't make a proper living that way-- and people in our family do not live in poverty."

So I restricted my writing activities to journals, and to writing lengthy letters to friends and family. Friends who often told my mother what a good writer I was. She beamed at her "coolness by association," and then would say "don't give him any ideas."