The Wall, The Door and The Glass Ceiling

The Wall
I’m not the biggest fan in the world of Pink Floyd but I see with crystal clear 20/20 vision that their importance in the world is valid and that this story about EMI being brought to account over slicing and dicing their albums is a worthy victory - not only for the band but for artists all over the world in any field. Pink Floyd are an album band and need to be kept that way. A body of work is a body of work. Take That -for want of a better example - can carve their catalogue up all day long and it would probably do them more favours than damage them. It’s good that the industry may finally begin to realise that not all artists are created equal.

I’ve thought about this long and hard this morning. If you’re doing your thing with the song writing genie, maybe it would be helpful to decide which camp you fall into. The ‘mistake’ (which it wasn’t, but it was a ‘decision’) that I made was to always think in terms of albums. It would never have occurred to me to release track after track without an album to back it up. Maybe you fall into this camp? Maybe you’re overlooking hitting the world with small pockets of brilliance while you’re waiting for your planet to explode. It’s worth a thought. Until a few weeks back, I was not big on the short story genre, but I see now (and this rather enforces it), that short stories are very mobile and very effective. The chances of somebody reading a short online are far greater than a whole novel. In every case I can think of, shorts can be used to pimp your uber-projects with great success. Whatever you’re doing in the arts, the concept of single vs album is a good one to chew on over the weekend.

The Door 
I was walking back from the coffee house this morning with two cups of coffee balanced on top of each other, when the back door of a car that was parked at the side of the road suddenly opened as somebody tried to get out. Being the highly observant man that I am, I walked straight into the fucking thing and only managed to prevent the very sharp corner at the top from going into my face by catching the rest of the car on my testicles... and I didn’t spill a drop.

The Glass Ceiling
For the longest time I had no idea what a glass ceiling was but the world has taught me well since those days. I have recently joined a group of authors online - they are mostly good people doing the right thing for the greater good - and the idiots are easily spotted. Truth be told, idiot hunting is a good sport. Anyway, a thread turned up this week in which I discovered two things.

The first is that sometimes the glass ceiling is actually concrete with a high gloss finish so that you think it’s glass. When you find people whining and moaning about not having a publishing deal/record deal, most times, it’s for a reason. That reason being that your stuff is not very good - or at best, not marketable from a commercial perspective in the current environment. This is all food for thought that I’m putting on the table simply because I’m currently drilling through all of my projects and taking this point of view. It’s worth thinking about - whatever it is you’re doing. Which is where the whole concept of doing things for yourself comes into play. It’s hard work, but thoroughly convinced that it’s the future for any ‘artist’ so long as you’re able and capable of driving the car 24/7/365.

The second is this - and I shall repost it here in its original glory so that you may rummage in the wisdom for yourself. This is in response to me asking what was really happening at the coal face of getting a book published but whatever industry you’re trying to make it in, I’m sure you can research these figures for yourself and hear what I’m saying loud and clear:

“A not-bad idea is to remember that, roughly speaking, an advance represents the publisher’s best guess at what that book will earn for its author, if all goes more-or-less according to plan. A typical advance from a big house for a literary novel by an unknown was £8000, say, and since the recession advances are down 30%-50%, so £4-5,500?. I’ve heard of considerably less, too. When you think that books are sold to booksellers at 40%-60% discount, that doesn’t leave an awful lot of cash for production, distribution, sales, marketing, editing, publicity, overheads...”

I’m still doing the maths on this one but it’s a big arrow pointing towards everything we know about relentlessly self marketing yourself to be true.

Shit. Now my head hurts as well as my crotch.

Currently listening to: Blackboard Jungle - I Like It A Lot - One of the great lost albums of the Seattle vs The World battle in the early 90s. Great band. For my money, up there with the other classics of the era (Rock City Angels, Bang Tango..) for sure. Hunt it down.