This post appeared on March 1, 2013, on Author Expressions. I'm reposting it here because of some of the feedback I received on it.
The usual misery of February was ameliorated this year with
the riveting tale of Patricia Cornwell taking on her financial manager in a
case of financial mismanagement, and winning a $50 million settlement. I don't
know how this story played out in your home, but it became the undercurrent in
the swells of dinner conversation and the rogue wave that crashed during a
quiet evening of reading.
The first, and really the only, question was, How many books
do you have to sell to make $15 million a year? My answer? How would I know? I
can barely figure out how much money I need to get half a tank of gas in the
car. Fifteen million dollars for books? I look at that lowly plural
"books" and think it needs more oomph to match that amount of money.
The word looks so puny by comparison.
The story of a writer who makes huge sums of money will make
life much more difficult for the rest of us. Now, every time someone asks me
what I do and I admit that I'm a writer, their eyes light up, they stand a
little taller, and they ask about my books. I know (and you do too) that
they're thinking I'm so rich that I must shed gold dust. As I disabuse them of
this notion, their eyes fade to the usual dullness of strangers when I explain the
term "mid-list" writer.
The Cornwell saga of loss and triumph has brought a certain
glamour to writing once again--for writers. We know our work is mostly
drudgery, but now others think we are "almost" important. Anyone who
makes that kind of money certainly must be important. Even if other writers
don't come close to making what Cornwell makes, we can see the potential is
there. It's a heady moment.
Or it would be if I could relate to the court award. But I
can't. Cornwell is so far off in another universe that if someone told me she
had been awarded $50 billion I would have thought it bizarre but equally
irrelevant to me and my life. Furthermore, I don't wade in the mainstream, or
swim in the ocean of popular culture. I would never expect any book of mine to
sell millions of copies, and if it did, well, my thought processes don't
stretch into that realm.
My inability to connect with Patricia Cornwell's
circumstances, beyond wishing her a heart-felt congratulations, is perhaps one
of the best things that could happen to me or any other writer. Theodore
Roosevelt was right when he said, "Comparison is the thief of joy." I
love to write, I love hearing the stories that come to me, I love watching
human beings act out their dreams and fantasies. If I start watching other
writers develop their work and careers, I'm sure to start seeing flaws and
emptiness in my own. Even worse, I'll take time away from my own work and what
gives me satisfaction.
Writers are celebrating the success of one writer who triumphed
in court. But in the quiet of the early morning, or the end of the night,
during the time F. Scott Fitzgerald called "the dark night of the
soul," writers are also thinking about all those books people are buying.
$15 million, which is what Cornwell gave as her annual income, is a lot of
royalties for a lot of books. And she's not the only one selling in big
numbers. Somewhere out there millions of people are buying books--books, books,
books. That little one-syllable word, "books," still has the power to
fill a universe.
A few writers in this world will look at Cornwell's court
judgment and think they make almost as much, but all writers can look at the
news story and know in comparison they live in the same world with her. They
write books that go out into the world and someone, somewhere, buys them and
loves them. The real news in the Cornwell story, for writers, is how big the
world is for their work.
So, to Patricia Cornwell, a brief message, Hearty
congratulations, and Thank you.
