Simon Kuper tells us about the joys of getting published, being translated – and the money to be made….or not.
Almost everyone writes for love not money, proof of which is that I’m doing this for Allaboutwriting for free. They’re friends, so I suppose it’s ok.
Being published teaches you just how much or how little you are worth. Even when you get translated, you don’t get rich. The Chinese, for instance, will copy the exciting bits for free – but that hardly matters once you realise how little you make on each copy elsewhere. Right now I’m engaged in an argument with a publisher in a well-known rogue state in the Middle East which decided to publish one of my books for free. Anyway, here it all is in an article I wrote for the Financial Times: How the (book) world works.
Simon Kuper is a columnist for the Financial Times and the author of The Football Men: Up Close with the Giants of the Modern Game, Football Against The Enemy, Ajax, The Dutch, The War: Football in Europe During the Second World War and co-author of Why England Lose: and Other Curious Phenomena Explained.
And click here for one of the best Soccer books ever – Amen by photographer Jessica Hilltout.
Lovely post!