Hello all! This post will likely be graphics-free, since I’m composing it at my coffee shop gig on this chilly winter morning.
First: who tried out NaNoWriMo this year? How did it go? Did you learn anything about yourself and your writing process during the course of it? I’d love to include messages from readers about their writing in the next issue, so if you would like to tell us how you did, just leave it in the comments or reply to the email!
As you probably know, I did it, and as you might also be able to guess, I didn’t hit fifty k. And that’s all right! I added about 25,000 words to my WIP, and worked out a major plotting issue that was keeping me really bogged down. I even added about six thousand words to an older manuscript once I’d fixed that plotting problem.
One of the glorious things about such a ridiculous project is that it is so low-stakes. Don’t meet your NaNo goals? Who cares! Even if you only added 100 words to your manuscript that’s still 100 more than existed before. You should be proud of yourself. I think that NaNo has appeal as a project because you can try something ridiculous in a group and cut some of the heavy implications out from a big writing project. Say you’re writing a novel in March and it feels like a big admission. “Oh, I’m doing this ridiculous project where you try and write a novel in a month” sounds like a bet—something frivolous or weightless.
Betting on yourself, on your own art, is always a frightening thing. As this NaNo season comes to a close, I hope that you find fulfillment in your writing—even if you didn’t hit the word count you wanted, even if the book doesn’t find an agent or sell, even if no one else ever reads it. You did a thing. Good for you.
I promised I’d talk about the Harper Collins strike and the death of ZLib, but I probably only have time/space to do one, so I’ll tackle the strike and leave copyright infringement and BookTok entitlement for another week whenI’m not stood up at a counter, keeping an eye out for customers coming in and wanting overpriced lattes. I don’t think my political outlook is a secret in this newslettter, but I’ll be a little more strident than usual, so if that’s not your thing, This Week in Hockey is back—feel free to skip ahead.
Harper Collins is the only one of the Big Five publishing houses with a union. Their union is on strike and has been for a few weeks. Harper Collins has posted record profits for two years, yet the striking workers have an average salary of $55,000—which, in New York City, doesn’t go that far. They’re striking for better pay so that they can take care of their authors better. It’s hard to be a good steward of someone’s artistic dream if you’re having to work two or three jobs to make ends meet. (These numbers are in striking contrast to a recent Publisher’s Weekly article that put the average publishing salary at $119,000. How much are execs making if the average at HC for these lower-level folks to be making $55K?)
You might look at that number and think “What the fuck are they complaining about? It’s my dream to work in publishing! I’d work for free! I’d work for thirty thousand dollars a year and free books!” This is the mindset that publishing corporations want you to have, so that you will work longer hours and feel like you’re the chosen one, to get to work on something you’re so passionate about. Most artistic industries cultivate this mentality: you should feel lucky to work here. You should feel privileged to have this job. Meanwhile, you can’t pay your student loans or your now-$4000 a month rent.
The problem is that luck and privilege are the only things that keep people in the industry. And at the end of the day, work is work, no matter how prestigious or artistic or fancy. If you can’t pay your bills with the job you spend sixty to eighty hours a week doing, what’s the point? As Sophie Vershbow points out in this article in New York Magazine, “Passion doesn’t pay the bills.” The way things are structured in publishing right now—and Harper Collins is far from the only company with these problems—the ones who can stick it out are largely from backgrounds where they have family money to fall back on. I’m no exception.
I’m not saying you should boycott Harper Collins titles; the union itself has asked that we don’t penalize authors for corporate decisions way out of their control. But as we’re gearing up for the holidays and you’re picking out books for your friends and family, consider donating to the Harper Collins union strike fund. This money goes directly to supporting striking workers in the grimmest time of year, who are not collecting salaries at the moment. (Management has also refused to come to the bargaining table as of the time of writing.)
Books are amazing. It is a privilege to get to work on them, to help authors bring their work to a wider audience. But people shouldn’t have to suffer to do it. People over profits, always.
HOUSEKEEPING
Next week I’m going to post my year-end reading list and quasi-gift guide, as well as musings on what’s to come in 2023 (holy crap how is it nearly 2023.) As always, if there’s something you’d like me to cover, or a question you’d like answered, please let me know! Also, feel free to join the little group gathering in the A Faster No discord.
THIS WEEK IN HOCKEY
Alexander Ovechkin has officially passed Wayne Gretzky for most goals… on the road. I love how hockeys are obsessed with stats. Soon we’ll find out that he’s passed Wane Gretzky for Most Goals Scored In Philadelphia Whilst Having a Cold. Elsewhere, I watched a World Cup game last week (US vs. England) and went from not caring about soccer to caring very deeply about soccer in about ninety minutes. It was great to watch, even if the World Cup is an ethical nightmare this year.
READING: A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century by Barbara Tuchman
WATCHING: Extraordinary Attorney Woo
LISTENING: Wild Flower (with youjeen) by RM (BTS)
This has been A Faster No, a dispatch on publishing, writing, books, and beyond. Is there something you’d like me to talk about? Leave it in the comments or reply to the email! You can support the newsletter here. If you purchase a book from any of the links to Bookshop.org I get a small commission at no cost to you. I am available for developmental editing and editorial assessment services via Reedsy.
Hi, Jennifer. Possible topic idea for a future newsletter: how to dispose (get rid of) used print books (hardcovers, paperbacks) books in an ethical, cost-free, and environmentally-not-damaging way.