Imma make a quick analysis of some of the guidelines for the s’stack website (this one you’re reading this on) for us writers. Spes… Spefif… All about gitt’n paid. ‘Parently, thats what life is alla bout.
First, dey say, you got to pick how much you wanna make from yer writin’. Beggin’ yer pardon but WHY? Soon as ya does that, ya make yerself beholden to the folks dat do pay for yer content. ‘ang on Imma put on me “pre-retirement” voice for a few paragraphs.
I write the things I want to entertain, amuse, and - hopefully - enthrall you with. Oh, you like my genteel suck-up-to-the-boss voice? After almost fifty years of using this voice to be employable and employed, you’ll pardon me if I say that using this voice was the one most regretted thing of my former life.
I *should* have told one boss that I’d see him in Court after he had a newly-married me climbing antenna masts and after a year of me risking my life in these high-risk jobs and doing so for below-basic income, he casually mentioned that he had absolutely no insurance. Because I didn’t su ehim right there and then, (and I was young and naive) I didn’t get to know the rest of the story until it was too late.
The business was CTD (Circling The Drain) when I joined, and the old bastard withheld my group certificates for so long that I ended up putting in three tax returns after working there for two years. By the time I got a notice from the tax department that I owed them two and a half years’ worth of tax, the business was bankrupt and he was long gone.
He’d paid my wages, showed the tax he deducted, but never paid it into the tax department. Broke the law, but apparently bankruptcy is a Golden Shield against everything. It’s one of the reason a AM a Grumpy Old Guy. Speaking of whom, here he is back again:
Gee thanks ole me for bringin’ all that crap up again, s’enough to make me wanna chuck all over Hooky. (The ole boss’s nickname.)
Did I get to specify (thanks Ole Me fer the spellin’) how much I wanted back den? ‘Course not. So I got no illush- no false hopes for writin’ here. If anyone wants ta send me dosh, Im all for it, but I ain’t gonna “set my price” and make a rod for me own bak.
Summa the questions they ask are like:
“Do people LIKE what you’re writing?” and I’m like WTF? And then I’m gettin’ it. Imma write the next sentence in bolddface cos it’s one of the tings wrong wit our society today: Oh and da ole me is gonna come back for a bit
I write the things I’d like to, and I hope in doing so that the writing finds people who enjoy it and find some value in it. If I wrote for the purpose of simple monetary gain I’d end up having to shoot for the lowest common denominator so as to ensure as large an audience as possible. That way lies the worst of writing.
So nah, I’m not gonna give meself hopes of making meself fabulously wealthy, instead Imma gonna hope you enjoy me writing and buy me a coffee at https://ko-fi.com/grumpsy sometimes.
I reck’n Ole Me missed one other important thing just there - writin’ to please a large population is journalism, and look what dat’s gotten us - left wing papers, right wing papers, Murdoch toilet rolls . . .
Writing for a specific audience is more like writin’ a magazine. (Or a blog. - hey! . . . )
And writin’ a blog ain’t like a magazine a’tall. Come ta think of it. Point is, if I was ta ask yas to subscribe ta me blog ‘ere (and yeah that’s definitely a HINT young whippersnapper) I’d be happy with that. If ya was to think ta yerself “well, Grumps is okay y’know?” and Subscribe (Y’know, with the capital letter and a monthly donation and all) then that’s be fantasticker than tha Fantastic Four, and I’d love it.
But I wouldn’t letchas onto me lawn, and nor would I want you to tell me what to write. It’s MY lawn and MY brain and MY thinkin’.
Now git.