Coffee heat rising

Dollars and Ducks

The ducks are visiting again this morning. They come and go, DuckDuck and her Drake. They don’t seem to be interested in nesting here — they spend most of their time elsewhere. So I doubt if we’ll be seeing ducklings anytime in the near future. But it’s nice to have them drop by and paddle around the pool now and again.

The drake is a spectacular thing. He’s exceptionally handsome even for a mallard, his feathers in prime shape and he obviously at the height of his life. When he spreads his wings and takes off, he makes an astonishing flash of color and motion. DuckDuck is also quite charming, given to standing on the coping and stretching one leg at a time, causing her wing to lift so the long striped feathers and with their bright teal patch fan out… uh oh…she’s over at the old nest and peering in there. Hmmm…..  Is it only that she wishes to eat the cat’s claw leaves, or does she have designs on the old homestead?

Whenever I get back from choir, I’ve gotta do some bookkeeping and pay the S-corp’s AMEX bill. Ugh. Racked up over $900, mostly on consultancy fees.

And truth to tell, the book enterprise isn’t making any money, mostly because I don’t like working with social media, because I can’t even get into Goodreads, and because I have just enough editorial work that it takes time way from the publishing scheme that should be used on marketing. I think I’m probably going to focus on the cookbook and let the others moulder on the Internet. I will take shop versions of the cookbook and Fire-Rider around to local bookstores, but that’s about it. I tire of this enterprise, especially since I can earn as much as I made teaching with editorial work that occupies about a third of my time.

Yesterday at our merry writers’ group, one of the members asked me if I’m interested in ghost-writing. Topic: how to write computer games.

Well…zzzzzzzzzzzz….. Maybe. If the person is willing to pay the going rate for a ghost-written book — about 20 grand — sure. But frankly, most people outside publishing and politics faint dead away when they hear that price. They wouldn’t pay half that  much, and believe me…you do a lot more than $10,000 worth of work when you write an entire book for someone.

Math Magic, which I wrote for Scott Flansburg and for which I did get $20,000, had a one-year deadline. That’s less than $1,667 a month, gross, for full-time work: exactly the amount of one of my net paychecks at the Great Desert University, after taxes and the state’s generous benefits were extracted. Half-time pay for full-time work. That book was done in six months, mostly because as soon as SDXB left town for a stint in the reserves, I spent 14 to 16 hours a day on it.

Oh well. Nothing ventured: I’ll probably look into it, but not hold my breath until the check clears the bank…

But frankly, I suspect that if I put as much time and money into marketing the editorial business as I’ve done for the publishing scheme, I’d  hustle up more than enough work to meet the target I’d like to earn. And NOT have to work 14 hours a day at it…

2 thoughts on “Dollars and Ducks”

  1. I didn’t know the editorial work was paying so well. Yeah, sounds like you should concentrate on that for now, especially if it keeps you from going back to teaching.
    Also, I’d like to see pictures of Duck Duck and Drake, please.

  2. I aim for $60/hour. By the time all is said and done, even if I’m charging that much I probably get about $30 or $35, because of stuff that has to be done over or just the sheer, unbillable waste of time generated by the computer. That’s in the ballpark of what I grossed at GDU.

    Yah, I took a couple of photos. My camera’s not up for the job, but will download them in the near future.

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