Yes. Doug is quite unusual among writers for being able to make a living primarily out of the sales of the _Left Business Observer_ (as I imagine he is). What's amazing is that Doug and Liza are both writers, living in New York City, apparently without starving.
Here are conditions of typical writers in the mid-1990s: "According to a national survey of 1,143 writers working in seven genres, experienced writers work long hours, are highly educated, yet their median income from freelancing totals only $4,000 a year" (Nancy DuVergne Smith, " The Freelance Writers' Lot: The NWU American Writers Survey Profiles -- A Project of the National Writers Union," <http://members.aol.com/nancyds/wlot1.html>, July 21, 1995). Journalists fare better if they have staff jobs -- I don't know how those who don't manage to survive (supported by their spouses?): "Journalists who hold staff jobs on newspapers or magazines, for example, fare better financially. Staffers report $25,000 in salaries while contractors, who work under long term agreements with publishers, earn about $7,500 a year" (Smith, "Journalists: Gathering the News for $7,500 a Year," <http://members.aol.com/nancyds/wlot2.html#jou>, July 21, 1995). No wonder Gary Webb killed himself! At least three quarters of book writers depend on day jobs: "Averaging 48 years of age and 34 writing hours per week, authors [of novels and nonfiction books] have been writing professionally for 17 years and earn a median income of $7,500 from freelance work. Those committed to multiple genres put in 26 hours a week on their primary field and 13 more on magazine features, short fiction, or other assignments. In addition, 75 percent earn nonwriting income, working an average of 16 hours in a nonwriting field for $17,500. An author's work week can top 55 hours for a total income of $25,000" (Smith, "Novelists and Nonfiction Authors: Making Books for $7,500 a Year," <http://members.aol.com/nancyds/wlot2.html#nov>, July 21, 1995).
Freelance writers' rates have declined since the mid-1960s, much more steeply than real wages of other workers: "In real dollars, freelance rates have declined by more than 50 percent since the 1960s. And while rates have gone down, publishers are getting more for their money. . . . _Writer's Market,_ which reports what magazines themselves say they pay, shows that writers' rates at the top magazines have declined by two-thirds to four-fifths since 1966, far more than the approximately 20% loss in real hourly wages that the average American worker suffered during the same period. Writers' real rates were falling even in the late '60s and early '70s when most workers' wages were rising." ("Report on Pay Rates for Freelance Journalists," <http://nwu.org/journ/minrate.htm>, 2001-2002). The publishing industry, though not a very profitable business, can certainly pay more: "We also compared publication income with words of text published to get an estimate of income per word and to determine what fraction of total revenue is paid to writers. For example, for Discover magazine, 500 pages of ads a year at $50,000 per full-page ad gives $25 million a year in gross revenue. (This underestimates their income, because half-page ads cost two-thirds as much as full-page ads). Since the magazine has one million subscriptions at $25 per year, it has another $25 million a year. (This ignores newsstand sales, which make the total even larger.) Divide by 500 pages of text a year at 800 words per text page and Discover's income is more than $125 per word. Discover pays its writers $1 a word. So they pay their writers less than 1% of their gross income. If they paid them 15% of gross income, the way book publishers manage to and still turn handsome profits, they would be paying at least $19 a word" ("Report on Pay Rates for Freelance Journalists," <http://nwu.org/journ/minrate.htm>, 2001-2002).
[Australian writers are doing no better: "An Australia Council report in 2003, _Don't Give up Your Day Job_, found the number of professional writers had tripled in 20 years and one in four earned below the poverty line. The average income was $35,000 a year but less than $5000 of that came from writing" ("Grant Me a Wish," <http://www.smh.com.au/news/Books/Grant-me-a-wish/2005/03/04/1109700674667.html?oneclick=true>, March 5, 2005).]
Verso probably didn't do enough for _Wall Street_. Googling the Net for "henwood 'wall street' syllabus" <http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=henwood+%22wall+street%22+syllabus> reveals that several college professors adopted the book for their courses: <http://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/sgabriel/215.html>, <http://www.arts.yorku.ca/politics/nitzan/courses/4295/Nitzan%204295-5295%20Syllabus%20(2002-3%20Fall).pdf>, <http://www.williams.edu/politicaleconomy/301>, <http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/gschnedr/syllabus_258.htm>, etc. (62 results to be exact, but not all of them, alas, require the book) But not as many as one might think (for the sake of comparison, take a look at circulation of old and new books on the left as textbooks -- a search for "marx 'communist manifesto' syllabus" returns 5,810 results; "said orientalism syllabus," 5,610 results; "freire 'pedagogy of the oppressed' syllabus," 3,760 results; "schlosser 'fast food nation' syllabus," 766 results; "ehrenreich 'nickel and dimed' syllabus," 636 results; "chomsky 'manufacturing consent' syllabus, 360 results; "hardt negri empire syllabus," 333 results; "mintz 'sweetness and power' syllabus," 139 results; etc.). The publisher should have systematically contacted likely professors, adjuncts, TAs, and high school teachers in the humanities and social sciences and gotten them to consider _Wall Street_ for textbook adoptions. Imagine that _Wall Street_ was required in 100-200 college courses in the Unites States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand with the average of 25 students each for 10 years (surely there must be a couple of hundred left-wing teachers in the five English-speaking nations combined) -- that's 25,000-50,000 copies.
And how many copies of _Wall Street_ did Verso sell to libraries? Does Verso have a sales representative that specializes in selling books to libraries? Did it send information to library suppliers in overseas market?
Verso should have sought out activists and organizers and attempted to turn them into buzz agents for _Wall Street_, giving them preview chapters and encouraging them to organize book and brunch gatherings (a crypt-Democrat outfit League of Pissed Off Voters <http://www.indyvoter.org/article.php?list=type&type=4> did this with _How to Get Stupid White Men out of Office_). -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * OSU-GESO: <http://www.osu-geso.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>