Failed Writer's Journey: I Do Not Want an Investor, I Want An Economy That Works for Authors (and Everyone Else)

So this newsletter has been making the rounds a bit, and it strikes me as looking for a solution in the wrong place. Griffin’s basic argument is that investors would be better for authors than publishing house because publishing houses have too much power with respect to authors. They keep too much of the profit, have too much control, and take away ownership of rights that should belong to the author. Investors would partner with creatives and not abuse them. That is, to put it mildly, not a realistic look at how investment work. Griffin is missing the forest for the trees — her problem is not with publishers but with modern capitalism.

To start, investors do not partner with founders or creatives. They are attempting to make a return on their spend, and they will do what they can to achieve that. Sometimes, if things are going well, this can mean letting the founder run wild. Most of the time, however, it means that each injection of capital results in more control for the investors and less for the founders. It is not uncommon for founders to be pushed out as the business matures and the investors look to cash in. Griffin mentions Shark Tank as an ideal — it might surprise her to see just how controlling and lopsided the offers actually are.

If you prefer the post-IPO sell stock model, even that comes with ceding control. It is rare for a company to be able to structure stock offerings in such a way as to lock out shareholder control of the business. You have to be extremely attractive — i.e. already making money hand over fist — to get away with that.

If you are thinking more the patron model, then, well, you are completely giving up control. If you are dependent upon someone for your livelihood, their opinion is going to control what you are allowed to produce. Giuliani recently lost his radio show because his patron got tired of Giuliani courting lawsuits over his “stolen election” nonsense. Now, I find this amusing because Giuliani is one of America’s worst people and the stolen election lies are a direct attack on American democracy, but it does demonstrate just what having a patron actually entails.

To be fair, Griffin does seem to be talking more about better contracts. “Music studios could invest in musicians and Spotify could invest in podcasts, giving those artists the capital they need to distribute their work on a grand scale, but the artist could retain majority ownership and creative control over their work,” she writes. And this is absolutely true — they could. But why would they? They have the power in the relationship — why would they willingly give that up?

The problem with the creative industries is that the creatives have no power. No company is going to give up the very lucrative control they have over creatives unless they are forced to. The writers and actors that power Hollywood just endured months of strikes in order to wrest back some of the control that studios had taken from them since the last contract. And that demonstrates how off-base Griffin’s opinion really is. At no point does she mention the recent strike, and the word union never appears in her piece. She wants power, but only if she can ask nicely.

There are many reasons that creatives have so little power. The concentration of creative industries in so few hands; the fact that almost all creatives are independent contractors and thus the law says they cannot form a union; the fact that distribution is controlled by only a couple of companies. All these realities combine to enforce a power imbalance that pushes the wages down and limits the control over their work of most creatives. One of the reasons having a middle-class life in Hollywood has been easier (not easy, mind you, just easier) than in other creative industries is because the writers, directors, actors, and crew are unionized. They have been able to balance the power, somewhat, of the capital class in that corner of the creative arts. They studios did not give up control — they had it wrested away from them.

If you want artists to get better deals, to retain more control, then you don’t want an investor. You want, at a minimum, social democracy. You want robust anti-trust enforcement to ensure that there are many places to publish and distribute your work. You want laws that force distribution and production to be handled by separate entities, so that the market has options for creatives at every step. You want to change the laws so that independent contractors like authors and musicians can form unions. You want to ensure that unions are treated fairly by the courts and companies. You want to manipulate the tax structure so that worker-owned co-ops are favored over shareholder owned corporations. You want, in other words, a fair economy that rewards labor instead of the hoarding of capital.

All of that is going to be hard work. Power does not generally quietly accede to its own diminishment. You have to fight for it, you have to become involved in democracy at all levels, including the workplace. Griffin’s avoidance of these issues marks her argument as misguided at best. Griffin is correct that there are many, many problems with the way creative industries work. But her fantasy that being invested in rather than published would somehow solve the power imbalance that leads to the loss of income and control for creatives is just that — a fantasy. Griffin’s model is apparently Oliver Twist, standing in front of the publishers asking “Please, sir, can I have some more?” And she has no answer for what to do when they inevitably answer “No.”

Fortunately, we have models for dealing with people who unjustly say no. They aren’t easy or fast or without friction. But they work, and if you care about economic justice for creatives or labor in general, you should be advocating for those ideas — not for turning the publishing industry into Shark Tank.

Weekly Word Count

Pretty much zilch. I know: how can I fail if I won’t even write? Last week’s health scare put behind in a lot of areas of my life, so what writing work I have done has been focused on plotting. I promise to do better this coming week.

Enjoy the weekend everyone.