Why Writers Need to Strike

Want to live the opulent life of a paid writer? Unless you also self-publish you are subject to the whims and contracts dictated by the publisher–and that might mean you don’t make much green.

RJLight–a writer who looks really unhappy in this picture–tells us why in a new post titled: Jobs for Writers. It’s a funny, thoughtful piece you should read.

Writing is an up/down business with times of plenty and times of want. A good writer who runs his/her business well (you did send a new query today, right?) can make a good income. But most writers do not.

Case in point: Hollywood writers (who just happen to be on strike.)

This Newsweek article points out the problem well:

The residual has been established practice since 1960, when the Writers Guild first went on strike for it. Before that no one was given residuals. The writers of the imperishably entertaining “I Love Lucy,” a show that has run without stop, making hundreds of millions of dollars for its owners, have never received royalties for that work. Nor have the writers of that other masterpiece of ’50s home life, “The Honeymooners.” The networks argued then that there was no precedent for it, that the medium was too new. To the studios the idea of equitable payment for writers always seems new.

But peace was made, after the sacrifices of the dedicated people in that strike, and a formula was set that worked for a long time. When video came into being, a new accommodation was made, allowing a small residual for tapes and then DVDs. I am not being hyperbolic when I say “small.” For a DVD sold for $19.99, we are paid 4 cents. To put that in perspective, that means that to pay for one tank of gas, a writer needs to sell 1,500 DVDs. To put it another way, it’s a penny less than if we returned an empty can of Coke.