Also Talking About Manuscript Fees (Real Issues in Macao Literature)

I'm most excited about this kind of thing.

In my writing career, there have been many attempts to submit articles to Hong Kong newspapers. A long time ago, the "Youth Weekly" was the best for me. Although the manuscript fee was not much, the editors were very encouraging and the frequency of publication was very high. It was the beauty of my youth. Memories. Later, I tried in "Asia Weekly", "Hong Kong Literature", "Function Words. "Invisible" published articles, all of which have good manuscript fees (higher than the standard I charged in Macau), and I feel very good.

But what I want to share today is the situation in Macau. It is said that many people want to prosper local literature recently. Maybe this kind of practical issues should really be more concerned and discussed.

In the past, I was relatively tight on the income of the manuscript fee, and I also felt that it was justified to get paid for writing hard. Those were the good old days of the 1990s. There was a period of time when I was in a state of writing frenzy. There were both newspaper and magazine columns, and daily serialized novels. At that time, the royalties were considerable income for me. In fact, I will also help advertising companies create copywriting (heartily thank the friends who introduced me to cross-border cooperation in those years), I have participated (secretly) in the TV promotional texts of many commercial organizations and government departments in those years. Of course, the remuneration for these work It will be much higher than literary creation, and it has opened up another horizon for me to make money with writing. At that time, my main job was a middle school teacher. I wrote diligently because there was space and opportunity at the time, and it was a good thing to write more and hone more. In addition to making money, I did absorb a lot of experience in dealing with various affairs, such as manuscript fees. 's persistence.

In the early years, I encountered some older editors who asked me to write articles, usually saying that I did a good job in a major newspaper, and then said that the subject matter of writing in the newspaper would be limited, and they might not be able to speak freely. I set up a column with any subject matter, but the fee for writing is half as low (even I have encountered someone who directly stated that they would not pay the fee). I have always felt that this type of invitation is a scam. In fact, my own desire to publish is not so strong, and I tend to regard writing as a job. A normal author should try to write as much as possible, and make the other party willing to pay a reasonable manuscript fee based on his strength. If you want to eat a free lunch, or think that giving an opportunity to publish is equal to rewarding the author, then naturally you shouldn't get a good person to join. I know that writing will not make people prosperous, but it will not be so stupid, so I refused a lot in those days. Similar invitations may also form a bad impression that some elders think that I am invincible.

Regarding the fee for the manuscript, a major newspaper I served was actually quite generous, and the editors also took great care of the author. However, the fundamental impact on the entire literary fee system was that the newspaper had a large-scale revision of its edition more than ten years ago, which eliminated the serialization of novels. This not only prevented several young and powerful novelists at the time from publishing long novels in local newspapers, but also made the past It is difficult for the later Macao authors to earn basic income from manuscript fees. In addition, few people will notice that columnists in Macau usually publish an article a week (there are only one or two exceptions, but it is really rare). From the author's point of view, no matter how hard you write, you can only publish four articles a month, which has great limitations on accumulating readers and earning income. In this way, the job responsibility is very light, and the money involved is not much. Who would have the nerve to bargain on the issue of royalties?

Also worth sharing is my personal experience of running patreon. At that time, my main goal was to write a novel every week, and finally get enough money to publish the book through Patreon (this should be better than reaching out to the government to apply for funding), in order to attract To subscribe, what I did at the time was three essays for every novel I wrote. In fact, there are many readers who support this matter, and I am also happy to apply new technologies and try first, but after a period of operation, the problem appeared. First, there are people who don’t want to pay and think I shouldn’t be charged, then one person subscribes and reposts it to others, and then some people criticize me for collecting money to write as a scam. In fact, the more terrifying question is that I wrote This is actually enough courage to collect money is beyond our own power. To put it simply, because I tried this thing, I heard all kinds of unpleasant words, and all kinds of right and wrong and rumors emerged one after another. Under such circumstances, I was actually disheartened for a while, and I often felt sorry for the friends who paid for the subscription, worrying that they were embarrassed and didn't cancel the subscription. But what is even more ironic is that, whether it is the newspaper fee or those short-term subscription income, it is actually a small amount for me. I did experience it myself to test the feasibility of the new model, but I was fortunate enough to meet some people in the small town. I don't understand and be suspicious of new things, gossip and ignorant, and it can be said to increase knowledge!

Later, I seriously thought about it, I should do something happy in my precious time, and I shouldn't worry about that little money. But the lesson of this incident is very profound. It is getting harder and harder to earn royalties in Macau. If there is one sentence to describe the local literary environment, I think the best choice is: "I want a horse, and I want a horse. Don't eat grass."

The next time you hear someone say that there are no good writers in Macau, you might as well try to ask: "How much is a thousand words worth publishing in this small city? How many people here really care about the livelihood and dignity of authors?"

When it comes to promoting Macau literature, I don't have many opinions. I just want to say that buying books directly is the best support.

From a guy who was crazy about earning manuscript fees and proud of high manuscript fees, he became a netizen who likes to write. I seem to have witnessed the rise and fall of an era. Later, many powerful writers served as civil servants, special applications were required to engage in writing, and the income they earned had to be declared and paid for taxes, so writing was not even a sideline, and became a purely amateur interest, and they generally did not care too much about the manuscript fee. , because that stage has already passed.

If we take a macro perspective and think about the issue of royalties from the perspective of media ecology, it is an indisputable fact that the influence of paper media is shrinking day by day. The number of people who buy newspapers will only decrease rather than increase. It is a general trend that commercial advertisements are transferred to the Internet. Writing fees, or moving up locally by writing columns, seems like a fantasy. In fact, it is not a bad thing to know the real situation clearly. In this small city, writing cannot make a lot of money, and it may not be very prestigious. Therefore, the most important thing is to write happily, express freely, and try to keep my handwriting and my heart. Fear or grovel, because it's not worth it at all!