December 16, 2004
blog book (cont.)
Currently in Cumbria, visitng Mum for Christmas. Sorry if I missed you while I was down in London, but I should be back down South early in the New Year, hopefully for a much longer spell.
And in other news…
Robert and Shel are still writing their book on blogging, and they’ve moved their “book blog” over to Typepad. Earlier Robert expressed interest in me drawing cartoons for it.
Hell yeah, of course I’m interested in contributing– what a fantastic project… so long as they don’t mind having to go through my agent.
I have an agent for a reason. I tend to get awfully enthused by projects really quickly, and it’s always been too easy for me to say, “Yeah, I’ll do it for free! I’m sure all the exposure will be reward enough!“
I do lots of work for zero money, in fact I prefer doing it that way. But a man’s gotta eat, too. I’ve never been able to find the right balance myself, so having an agent really helps keep me objective when new opportunities fall on my lap.
That makes sense, right?
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A wise man once noted that there is a Sex and Cash theory to life. Definitely, defer to your agent. Perhaps he/she can make sure that this gig covers both!
Makes perfect sense, Hugh. As a programmer, I love contributing to open source projects, but I have a tendency to want to jump in and contribute when I find something that’s got a lot of potential, or would be great “only if it could do X too”.
If you follow all of ‘em you end up entirely over-extended and not really enjoying what you’re doing which kind of defeats the purpose of doing something for free — you enjoy it and it might get you a little more work.
Hugh,
Currently Robert and I are doing thisproject on the sort of “awful enthusiasm” you describe. We also have a gaping void when it comes to money. We will want to have a more businesslike conversation after we have a financial package of our own.
Man, if the project is creating monetary return, then fjck, you want your share of it. Of course it makes sense.
Firas: there are far better ways to make money than working on books. I talked to an author tonight and he’s been working on his next book since January. All for, what, $30,000? And it isn’t finished yet.
I agree with Robert. I mentioned the agent thing not for money reasons, but for time-energy-management reasons.
As a writer, the advantage of going through an agent is it helps keeps one’s commitments from overlapping. It’s an easy SNAFU to make, especially in the blogosphere.
Authoring is not always an end, but rather a means to same.
Street cred.
Talk about how you got your agent, Hugh. Was there a process or was it “who you know”?
I got my agent via blogging. Somebody sent him a link to my “How To Be Creative” post. After reading it, he sent me an e-mail.
Since he already represents a writer I think very highly of, it was easy to start doing business with him.
Blogs work– take my word for it
Hugh, I’m similarly affected by boundless altruism. I too would like to hear a little bit more about how this agent thing works and how on earth you get one and how you are seeing the benefits accrue. Cheers and thanks for all the spiritual guidance this year Steve
What Steve G said … me too.
I’d love to find an agent … after nmany years of public speaking, and presentations, can’t seem to market myself well enough … and like others here, do lots of work for not much, just ‘cuz all this interesting change-going-on fascinates me.