I'm ashamed of people. Wide scathing statement I know. That's okay, that's why it's my blog. What's making me ashamed today? This new, well new-ish anyway, movement for people to expect entire books to be written for an insanely low amount of money. I'm not anti-epublishing, I'm really not, I think it has vastly changed the marketplace, but not completely for the worst. I have multiple projects in the works at the moment some of them written specifically to be self published, but what I am against is this asinine view by penny-pinching jobbernowls who think that 200 dollars is a reasonable rate for a full, if not overly long novel based around the frolicsome events of their oh so interesting lives.
Really? If it's so interesting why don't you write it yourself?
Oh, because it takes time, or you don't know how?
Well, I guess that's why you need someone who went to school, or spent countless hours studying to do the job for you, understandable. Wait. Doesn't that mean you need a professional? Someone who knows what they are doing? Yes? Oh, Okay. But you want to pay what? Fifty dollars for a full novel, with extremely stringent guidelines and PERFECT grammar. Oh. Well, I, Um.
It just makes me sad, and ashamed. Writers have to live and eat in this insanely expensive world too. Sure there are some that can churn out something that they'd accept in a short(for book writing) amount of time, but why should they for that amount of money. Then, half the time when they get the product it is so far below the standard they'd expected they don't bother to pay the writer who probably out of desperation to feed themselves or family took such a low amount to begin with, then they are out the time.
Obviously I have no intentions of taking that little of a sum for writing, well anything that would take even half as long as what they are asking. The problem then? Other writers are. It's allowing the market to become flooded with these types of requests, and that's bad for all of us. However, I don't really blame them, jobs are getting harder and harder to land, even for those with far more experience than I have.
Sigh, it would be nice, once in a while if the corporations, non-writers, marketing specialists, and so forth would remember that just because I usually enjoy my job, doesn't mean that I don't have to feed my family too, can you imagine if you asked them to provide you with their services for a tenth of a pennies worth what they normally would make?
To be fair, this was written after a long day of searching for open jobs and stumbling over some of the most idiotic requests I've seen so far.
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