Journal Entry
Neil Gaiman is not your bitch
I see a bunch of people are giving Neil Gaiman a hard time about his speaking fee. Neil himself has a good, composed reply on his blog. John Scalzi weighs in as well.
Mostly I thought the above headline was too good not to use for a blog post considering Neil’s defense of George RR Martin a while back, when people asked him if he’d comment about how long it was taking to write his latest book.
But I’m also serious. It’s frustrating to see a newspaper, often the same medium that whines about the internet devaluing the value of its writing, turn around and utterly devalue a literary figure’s income. As if it were so horrible that an award-winning, multiple best seller would charge a high fee, and, gasp, someone actually paid it.
No one even blinks when hundreds of thousands are tossed after ridiculous talking heads in politics that offer no fundamental value to human discourse in any conceivable manner. And of course, the same newspaper wants this money, ultimately funneled into something they value much higher: a sports stadium.
Because in the midwest that’s always less of a waste of money than the poncy arts.
Fuck ‘em.
Filed under the topic Journal on May 12th 2010 at 2:47 pm. You can subscribe to the RSS feed for this entry to keep track of comments. You can also use to trackback.
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16 Responses so far
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1. Rhonda on May 12th, 2010 at 2:50 pm
Yes.
This.
2. Matt Osborne on May 12th, 2010 at 2:54 pm
Amen and will link.
3. Jim on May 12th, 2010 at 2:54 pm
Much agreed.
4. kyle cassidy on May 12th, 2010 at 3:01 pm
Does this mean I need to get a new t-shirt?
http://iloapp.philliplowles.co.uk/data/_gallery/public/7/1250440085_resized.jpg?width=1045&height=784
5. Tobias Buckell on May 12th, 2010 at 3:03 pm
Kyle: LOL. Dude, yeah, totally.
6. Clint Harris on May 12th, 2010 at 3:12 pm
That’s the beauty of a free-market economy. You can charge exactly as much for something as someone will pay.
7. Gray Rinehart on May 12th, 2010 at 3:17 pm
As a speechwriter, I just wish he was the kind of person who needed my services; instead, of course, he’s a master storyteller who probably thinks off the cuff more eloquently than I do with a week’s head start.
8. Mark Terry on May 12th, 2010 at 5:10 pm
There’s irony inherent in this. I believe it was Tom Brokaw who was getting paid something like $20,000 to speak and wanted to do less of it, so he directed agents to jack up the price. As a result, he got more gigs than ever.
There’s nothing like people getting money to piss off people without it. They might view it as Gaiman making $45,000 in 1 hour (actually 4, not counting travel), but I think if you said, well, he’s been writing for 20+ years professionally and it took him 15 years prior to that to hone his skills, and therefore you’re actually paying $45,000 for 35 years worth of work, they might view it differently. But they won’t, because people are dicks.
9. Gabriel Novo on May 12th, 2010 at 6:06 pm
Thanks for bringing this to my attention. Seems I had missed the whole debacle. I’ve now read your post, Scalzi’s, Neil’s and Boing-Boing.
The political angles are obvious, but I’m saddened by the ignorant remarks about Gaiman’s fees. It really feels like Tall Poppy Syndrome with those bitching about it only because they can’t make the same kind of money.
I still don’t understand the duality of rooting for an underdog and then tearing them down when they succeed. Sometimes I feel like the United States has its head up its own ass.
10. Steve Buchheit on May 12th, 2010 at 8:13 pm
A combination of people who don’t know how government budgeting actually works (much more complex and rigid than most people think) and the general, “who’s this fantasy writer.” Add in the politics of the stadium and it’s a recipe for disaster.
What I think is interesting is nobody seems to be thinking, “If it were all that horrible, the library could have just said, ‘no.’” I mean, it’s not like Neil was shaking them down in some twisted protection racket/speakers bureau booking.
11. Alan on May 12th, 2010 at 9:10 pm
Well said, sir!
12. Scott Marlowe on May 12th, 2010 at 10:16 pm
Doesn’t seem like an issue to me. The guy states his price, someone wants to pay it. What’s the big deal?
13. David Alastair Hayden on May 13th, 2010 at 12:35 am
Nothing pisses me off more than people who think that writers shouldn’t make money. Somehow fiction is so sacred that it shouldn’t involve money, which is dirty. You see this attitude from English departments all the way to politicians. Okay for doctors to make cash despite having a noble profession. Not okay for writers. Apparently the work is noble but not the creator.
14. Stephen Watkins on May 13th, 2010 at 9:38 am
Indeed. This is really a non-issue blown out of proportion by people who, it appears, inherrently have no respect for the arts.
15. Arachne Jericho on May 13th, 2010 at 12:26 pm
This. So much this.
16. Craig Ranapia on May 16th, 2010 at 5:34 pm
Steve Buchheit@10: Also show a rather amusing ignorance of how public libraries work — bless ‘em one and all. Perhaps they breed ‘em differently in the great state of Minnesota, but at the ones I’ve worked for you couldn’t change the brand of toilet paper in the staff loo without exhaustive debate. And when you’re given money ear-marked for author visits, you’re going to think very carefully about how to make the biggest impact with it.