From Russia…

…by DHL. (how many of you continued mentally “…with love”?)

My daughter called a while ago to say she’d signed for a DHL package from Moscow. I know exactly what it is: the Russian version of The Road to the Dark Tower. How cool. I can’t wait to see it. My thanks go out to Sergey E. Tikhonenko, the translator, who sent me this copy out of the goodness of his heart. Eventually, I’ll get a few more via my agent, but Sergey volunteered to send me this one himself.

The cover art, from what I’ve seen, is very cool, but having the volume in my hands will be just another of those thrilling moments in a writer’s life.

Sometimes it takes very little. Seeing our name in print. Getting a check. I remember asking my wife if she thought I was strange if I wanted to photocopy my first advance check from Penguin. Fortunately she didn’t.

There’s been quite a bit of discussion today about writing and getting paid and payment in exposure and payment in copies. Enough for me to plug my essay “Six Marketing Myths,” which will be in On Writing Horror: Handbook of the Horror Writers Association, Revised And Expanded Edition, edited by Mort Castle, from Writers Digest Books this fall.

One of the myths I debunk is the chestnut “payment in exposure.” Other words may be used, but they all boil down to the same thing. The premise is that you will expand your audience, editors will suddenly become more open to your submissions, and life will in general become much better if you give a story to this magazine.

You often hear writers railing against this. Some quite strongly. In spite of that, the message doesn’t seem to be getting through.

I have a theory. I believe this is one of those lessons that we all have to learn for ourselves. Did I buy into the “exposure” argument when I was starting out? You bet. I gave away several stories in the early days (or “sold” them to “payment in royalties” markets, which is another of the myths I tackle, but let’s leave that for another day). Some of the tales should never have seen print, but because they were sent to undiscriminating markets, they were accepted. No editorial feedback was offered. Printed as is, warts and all.

I was still learning the ropes (still am, always will be, but I didn’t even know what the ropes looked like back then).

In the early stages, we are desperate—desperate—for those first letters of acceptance. For the first opportunity to see our names in print. For validation. We’d sell our souls. Some of us do. Okay, so the magazine looks like it was produced by an idiot savant with crayons, but there’s my name! My story…though littered with typesetting errors, stray funky characters and a total absence of paragraphination. Mine.

Gradually, we learn. The satisfaction of seeing our work in print is overridden by the glee at getting a check for our work. Moolah. Cash money. We become hooked on payment. We come to expect it. We develop. Grow. Understand that our work has value and that it deserves compensation. (As a wise man said on a message board, “payment in exposure,” aka 4theLuv, markets pay the printer, the UPS guy, the phone bill, the web host, everyone, it seems, but the person they profess to love: the writer). Strive to do better, to become better writers, so we can meet the more exacting demands of pro markets. We try to pass this wisdom on to the next generation of writers…

And fail, as a rule. Because, I believe, this is one of those lessons we all have to learn for ourselves. If we are competent writers, eventually we do.

Apropos of nothing, Lulu will now turn your rejection letters into toilet paper for a mere $90.