So, I was just flipping through my most recent issue of Poets & Writers (a mag with which I’ve had a several years love/hate relationship), and I saw a little blurb about Madras Press. Madras is a new press that publishes stories in individually bound editions… so fiction writers don’t have to cut their stories short to fit into lit mags, or make them unnecessarily long to be a novella. They can, ostensibly, have an outlet for stories that are the length they’ve decided they should be. And readers get one story, without lots of ads or other filler. Nice. I like it.

Here’s the thing I’m feeling iffy about. Madras is a nonprofit, and the website explains that all net proceeds from books sales are donated to a charity of the author’s choosing. Now, I come to you as a woman who has spent the better part of her life trying to be of service — giving away my 8th grade field trip spending money to a homeless man in D.C., volunteering in high school, college & after, and ultimately settling into a career as a nonprofit fundraiser & manager. I am all about supporting nonprofits of all shapes and sizes. BUT, I don’t understand why the writers can’t make a little money off their writing?

Now, I don’t know what exactly Madras means by “net proceeds” — maybe they have built in some compensation to the writer — but it seems to me that writers can raise their voices and use their work to support nonprofits, without sacrificing themselves. We need to be able to leverage our art to get money from those who really have it to spare, rather than just giving up what little we might earn.

And this isn’t the first I’ve heard of this… the Poetic Arts Performance Project here in Philly that aims to “use our poetic gifts and those of artists from around the country and globe to help other charitable organizations in the Philadelphia area.” That’s commendable… and yet, I often wonder about arts organizations (which are hobbled to begin with) trying to help other organizations. Why can’t it be enough to raise up the arts, to focus on raising up the arts, and let the art have the powerful social effect that art can have. Keep what little money you might make and put it back into your own organization, so you can spread more art, whether that’s through publishing more stories that won’t find a home any other way, or putting on kick ass readings & educational events. I wonder… do these organizations think that they need to bribe potential patrons with the promise of a tax write off? Do they think it somehow makes it okay to pay for art by not really paying for art by giving to something “more worthy”?  Honestly, I suspect these organizations recognize that they aren’t going to get rich off their books and events, and they altruistically believe that what little they raise can make a difference to another struggling organization. And they may be right.

But I’m not convinced… I’m not sure that doing this doesn’t just reinforce the idea of writing as folly, hobby, something readers can & should get for free… unless its by someone a major publishing house has told them they should pay for.  I know that no one goes into writing for money… but why must writers always be hobbyists, why must we exhaust ourselves at full-time jobs so that we can pay the bills, so that we can live, so that we can write. Why can’t we try to get a least a little compensation for all the hours, heartache, tears, and papercuts we endure as artists.

Everyone else does it. I know its hard for some of us to understand that people who are scientists, engineers, and technologists are really passionate artists in the work they do. Only they make medicines and machines, and they don’t give them away for free just because they loved the process of creating and because they are so impressed with what they made. Hells no. If that was the case, everyone would have a car, a computer, and an iPod.

Maybe that’s over-simplified. And maybe not. All I know is when I buy a book or go to an event, when I’m really impressed by a writer, I feel great knowing that writer is going to get a little compensation for a job well done. A writer who needs that money to keep doing the best damn job she can. Making art. Putting it out there, in people’s faces, saying I am worth something. I am valuable. Listen to me.