The Economics of Entertainment

March has arrived with its usual mix of hope and despair. Spring is right around the corner/will this winter never end? In Ukraine neither hope nor despair are sufficient to define what people are experiencing but you don’t need me to tell you that. Or anything, really (see, despair) though you might find this interesting (hope springs eternal).

The baseball lockout continues cancelling spring training and putting opening day in doubt. For fans, despair looms, while for those who don’t care about battles between billionaire owners and millionaire players, there is always hope for classic movies or perhaps opera performances to fill the programming gap.

In seemingly unrelated news, author Brandon Sanderson popped out four unplanned novels in his spare time over the last couple of years (I assume he has no personal life) and is running a Kickstarter to bring them to the world. He was aiming for a million dollars but is over $20 million now. Good for him, though I won’t be contributing since I haven’t been able to get more than 50 pages into a fantasy novel in over 20 years.

I don’t begrudge him the money any more than I begrudge baseball players making millions for playing a game. It’s all entertainment and people love to be entertained. Better that the creators and athletes get the money than the rent-takers that make up most of the capitalist class. Still, it is somewhat sad to see writing increasingly look like every other aspect of the entertainment business, a few incredibly well-paid stars and thousands of others struggling to make a living wage.

Back to baseball, the very top players make $15-20 million a year (a couple of recent contracts provide in excess of a quarter of a billion dollars to the player over 8 or 12 years). The minimum big league salary is around $1 million so the 26 guys on the big league roster are doing okay. Of course, 20% of non-pitchers only play one season in the bigs and the average career for all players is reported to be 5.6 years. Meanwhile most players in the minors make a lot less. The minimum salary for a player in Single A (still considered professional) is now $500 a week (raised in 2021 from $290). They only get paid for the weeks they play so that works out to $10,000 a year. In other words, less than the minimum wage. Semi-pro players may get less than $50 a game or a few thousand for the entire season.

Thirty to forty years ago, a writer who got a professional advance for a novel could consider quitting his day job. A 2-book deal made going full time a viable option. Professional writers weren’t exactly rich but a middle-class lifestyle wasn’t out of reach. Even those who were less successful could combine their writing income with part-time work in other fields such as teaching (or they could find a supportive spouse with a decent income and do alright as a family). Even then there were a few writers who got big advances or sold a lot of books and did better than alright but million-dollar advances were unknown. In fact, according to Forbes, the first person to make a million dollars strictly from writing books (we’ll leave movies out of this) was J.K. Rowling in 2004. Now well-established authors or first-time authors with buzz or celebrities (Brittany Spears just got a $15 million advance for her tell-all biography, yet to be ghost-written) can easily make a million a book.

Good for them, you might say, and sure why not?

Meanwhile, average advances have been falling. Typically, a first-time author selling to a large or medium size publisher will get less than $10,000. Small presses offer even less and, of course, self publishers get no advance at all. Meanwhile the median income for full-time writers (from writing alone) is just over $20,000, down nearly 30% since 2009. In other words, the rich are getting richer while the poor as usual are getting poorer. And of course, the average career of writers, like those of baseball players is short. One and done is not uncommon with the big publishers and many writers are finished after 5 books (in other words 5.6 years like ball players). Self-publishing is always an option for those who love the game—just as retired major league players can get a gig playing semi-pro—but there is little or no money involved (unless you are in the satellite industry of editing, book design, coaching or selling courses to help self-publishing writers become rich and famous).

That is what the entertainment business is like. The same analysis can be made for actors, musicians, even talk-show hosts and stand-up comics. Hierarchies of income and status exist in all professions but none do it quite the way the entertainment business does where you are either a star or you’re a flash in the pan or you’re just an extra.

What keeps so many people going? In writing as in sports it is often the love of the game or the undying hope that next year will be better.

Photo by Tim Bechervaise on Unsplash

By the way, buy my book.

Standing with Ukraine

The brutal invasion of Ukraine has entered its sixth day with missile attacks on civilian areas. The Russians claim that only military installations are being targeted but if so, they obviously can’t hit the broad side of a barn, which does not bode well for the ongoing campaign. Western governments are sending everything except troops (but are not preventing their citizens from volunteering to fight) while hammering the Russian economy with (almost) everything they have in the way of sanctions. One suspects the last few arrows in the quiver will be loosed soon.

Meanwhile, China covers its eyes and sings “La, la, la, nothing to see here,” while slowly inching away from actual support for the “non-invasion.” And why not, trade with the USA and Europe is ten times as big as that with Russia and China’s carefully cultivated post-colonial partners in Africa and elsewhere are wondering exactly where China stands on national sovereignty.

Russia may well win this battle for Ukraine territory. Despite the reported ineptitude of their soldiers, they have a lot of them compared to their opponent and they are better armed. Fire enough missiles and some are likely to find vital organs. But what will victory look like—an ongoing insurgency at tremendous cost, paid for by a crumbling economy? Perhaps Muscovites might get used to bombs going off in their city the way they did with the interminable Chechen resistance. Or perhaps they will seek a kinder gentler president. As to relations with the west, Russia can threaten to nuke their cities (is he truly that mad?) but what use are nukes against your own people?

We’re not there yet and maybe we won’t get there. Strong voices in Russia—billionaire oligarch voices and brave ordinary citizens—are beginning to question this adventure. Are those voices being echoed in political and military circles? We are likely to find out in the coming weeks.

Sitting here, far from the battle’s fray, it can easily seem like something happening to someone else. I’ve never been to Ukraine (it’s not even on my bucket-list) but I have friends stationed at the Canadian embassy who have managed to convey the beauty of the country and the strength and kindness of the people there. Some of my closest friends in Canada are of Ukrainian background (more than 15% of all Albertans are) and I share their concern for their ancestral homeland and the relatives that live there. The war in Ukraine is also here, by the way, with two incidents of Ukrainians being targeted for hate crimes in Toronto this weekend. No arrests have been made but I expect the culprits will have been inspired by Putin-infatuated conservatives south of the border.

There is little that individuals here in North America can do but we should do what we can to stand in solidarity with Ukraine, because, Ukraine, by embracing democracy, is standing in solidarity with us against all the would-be dictators in the world. I’ve made a little donation to provide humanitarian aid to the country and placed their flag on my Facebook page. I will boycott Russian products (though I’m not sure yet what that entails) and will politically support on-going sanctions of the Russian economy, even after the fighting stops, if that doesn’t include the full withdrawal of Russian forces.

It’s not much but magnified millions of times it might just make a difference. Which is how freedom works. Nobody is free unless we are free together.