The latest kerfuffle in the writing world involves one of my favorite writers, and money. Tobias Buckell, John Scalzi, and Neil Gaiman himself have blog posts about the incident and I’m not going to duplicate their efforts. Go read them and then come back here. If you want the bullet points, it’s come out that Neil Gaiman got $40K to speak at a library. Apparently a newspaper would have rather spent that money on a stadium. I guess encouraging readers (and writers!) with a visit from a NYT bestselling author is frivolous spending.
(If you want to howl in outrage like others did, read the blog posts above for the details, including where the money came from, and how Neil spent it, before you comment. Really, if you’re here to make uninformed, angry, comments, they won’t be allowed. My blog, and all that.)
Since the blog posts above have covered the big picture stuff, I want to cover the smaller, more intimate picture. I have seen Neil speak several times. I have stood in amazingly long lines to get his autograph. I have interviewed him in person twice.
Neil Gaiman is worth forty thousand dollars.
In a world where people with lower intelligence and lower tolerance of fans get upwards of $100-400K per speaking event, I’d like to say that Neil is worth it. Why?
- Neil Gaiman talks to fans. Neil’s autograph line moves very slowly. This may irritate you because you want your face time. Then when you get to the front of the line, and he smiles at you and asks your name, and accepts the fact that you’re handing him seven things to sign, and puts a personal note in your book, and gives a sincere “thank you so much” when you tell him how much his writing means to you, you realize it was worth the wait because he does that for everyone.
- Neil Gaiman is an excellent storyteller. Some say authors suck at reading their own stuff, but I don’t know any author who is more suited to read their own work than Neil (and I hang with podiobook authors.) If you’ve never heard him read, then he is definitely worth your time. I remember him reading “Blueberry Girl” many many years ago (2000?) right after he’d written it for Tori Amos’ baby girl, and it moved me deeply. I have the book now, and as the mother of a daughter, I can’t read it without tearing up a bit.
- Neil Gaiman connects with fans. He doesn’t show up, do his thing, collect the check, and go (like more expensive speakers will do). He will mingle, he will talk, he will pose for pictures with fans. During that 2000 visit I mentioned, Jim and I had won airline tickets in a company giveaway so we went to NYC to attend a CBLDF function (ah, those double-income-no-kids years…) and see Neil speak and attend a cocktail party with him and the other donators. We were shy geeks, tongue tied, so we didn’t know how to approach him. So he did the rounds and approached us, asking us where we were from and showing complete, charming bafflement that we’d flown from NC to hear him read from his unpublished book (American Gods.)
- Neil Gaiman is always kind. As a tiny, small press author who has maybe one, two readings a year, who once had an autograph line of 20, and attends several cons, I cannot imagine the stress it takes to read to, sign for, and mingle with hundreds of fans. It’s got to take a lot out of you. And the many times I’ve seen Neil, he has always been gracious, kind, friendly, and approachable. He could be in the worst mood in the world, but he’ll never take it out on a fan. The first time I interviewed him, he was just in from Australia and horribly jetlagged, and while he was clearly exhausted, he was still kind and engaging. Dunno about you, but I’m a whinypants when I am tired, and am not fit for polite company.
- Neil Gaiman is not an ass. (He follows Rule 5) I’ve met some authors who are real jerks, some who have made sexist jokes directly to me, or didn’t want to meet fans. I’ve met some authors who are shy and uncomfortable with their fame and unfortunately come off as rude and aloof. No one interacts with an audience like Neil. No one else makes an audience feel welcome, or makes them feel like they’re sharing a secret with them, or makes them think “that drive/donation/wait was worth it.”
What the non-fans don’t realize is he’s not just an amazing author reading a story. There are a lot of amazing authors out there. But Neil Gaiman makes an event; his personality, his very nature, makes the experience unique. It’s something I wish all of his millions of fans could experience.
And if a newspaper would rather have a sports stadium than an amazing NYT bestselling author to encourage readers, does anyone wonder why no one is reading the papers anymore?
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15 Responses to Nicest author in the world makes money. WORLD OUTRAGED.
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Agreed. It’s shameful that people see more value in sports than the value of reading. I am also of the opinion that people should be paid for their work regardless of how much they enjoy it.
I would take Neil over a stadium any day. They have been trying to fund a stadium for years; do it with private funds and be done with it. It is appalling to use public funds for a private business.
I live in out state Minnesota and have attended Vikings football games. I am a Vikings fan. I would rather see them relocate to another state than have tax money spent on a stadium.
I saw Neil at a Jonathan Coulton concert last year and he seemed like a very approachable person. I hope he doesn’t think all Minnesotans feel a stadium is more worthy than supporting authors and libraries.
Just the other day I wondered what guidelines he’d gotten for writing the upcoming Doctor Who episode. So I @d him on Twitter. And he answered. It’s not the first time he’s done it, either. Sometimes he doesn’t answer, which doesn’t worry me because he gets a LOT of @s, but I appreciate that he will sometimes answer. He and his fiancée also took a picture together with the little Cthulhu I gave them & twitpicked it to me. Nicest guy in the world, I’m a totally random person on Twitter who just happens to love his books & his fiancée’s music, which I discovered separately.
The guidlines were apparently just to write a good episode. I’d wondered if he was told he couldn’t use Daleks but Cybermen were ok, etc.
Wow. Just wow. And here I thought I wouldn’t have anything else to get riled up about today.
From what I can tell it looks as though people complaining the loudest about the library allocation simply don’t understand how it works. I totally agree with your sentiments here – I guess encouraging literacy just isn’t important enough to some folks. The man didn’t even KEEP the money — but yeah, he’s totally worth it. I could only ever aspire to become one tenth as patient and dedicated as Neil Gaiman is.
I read about this on Neil (Neil is the only famous person I feel comfortable only using their first name when referring to them, a by product of how he treats his fans)’s blog and to be honest it doesn’t surprise me. Not this case in particular, but there’s alwasy a large group of people who feel that public money should only be spent on *thier* interests. God forbid having one of the few heavy weight authors in the world talking at a library may get kids reading.
Honestly I have no idea who the guy is or what he’s written, (yes I’ve been living under a rock for years) but if somebody is willing to pay him to speak, then more power to him. I don’t really see what the problem is. If the football team wants a new stadium maybe they should hold a bake sale or a car wash and stop their complaining.
I’m not a fan of his work and would even go so far as to say I don’t like any of it(No gasps, please), but I can admire what he does. He definitely gives me hope as an aspiring writer and I certainly can’t hold how he treats his fans against him.
This is just beyond stupid. Would they have the same problem if it were a big time athlete or actor/actress? Or as Neil himself points out, a politician?
But heaven forbid we actually value an artists that promotes reading since, you know, reading is so last century.
Death to literacy and those who make it enjoyable! Fight literacy, the root of revolution and bad ideas! Down with…
… oh dear. I’ve gone and done it again. It’s time to scurry back under my rock.
Well… that newspaper can go eat themselves. It’s a LIBRARY. They pay for reading stuff. Not sports stuff. They really need to get over themselves and look at the benefits that come from reading good books. They develop character, and not the rioty ugly behaviour you can get at sports games :p
I went to see Neil speak in new Zealand, and was lucky enough to sit a row behind him on the plane. The speaking engagement was awesome, he was nice enough to speak to me when he as jetlagged to all hell and he was just an amazingly kind person, even to the scary looking guy that shook his hand at the airport (me).
Neil Gaiman is worth 40k. He’s worth even more than that, but to pay him what he’s worth would require someone to open up Fort Knox.
When Tiger Woods came to Australia last year to play golf, he was paid 3 million dollars to appear. The prize money for the winner was $250,000. It was worth it for the publicity, the ratings and the gate takings for the event.
Neil Gaiman is well worth the $40K to speak at the a library and I don’t particularly care how he spent the money. Neil is brilliant and one of my favourite authors too. You get what you pay for and I think they did alright by the deal.
Nice post. I love M.r Gaiman’s work, too. And it should be remembered that the MSM’s primary job is to sell tampons and underarm deodorant. It’s all about catching eyeballs. Don’t Feed the Negative Energy Monster.
I blogged about this too – good on you for joining the increasing numbers of Gaiman supporters. I’m glad that he’s getting a lot of press for the right reasons. He deserves it and is an inspiration to all of us.
Today, the world was astounded and offended to learn whatever the media told them to be astounded or offended by.
Tis true. Lots of peeps sit around awaiting their next outrage to occur, so they can stand up off their couch, object loudly, and get it over with before the commercials are over. But I think they are probably a smaller number than it seems. They are simply more noticeable because they are loud and because noise and controversy make the news.
Plus, in this case, they are saying that the 45K should have went into a 750 million stadium fund instead? People really have no concept of how much a mil is to make this argument. That’d be like me stashing a quarter in a jar for my daughter’s college fund and telling her it’s a better use of her money than ice cream.
I’m… I’m flabbergasted that a NEWSPAPER, of all entities, is knocking the money being given to libraries for things like this. I noted in the article that their biggest complaint was that the library didn’t “need” this Legacy Fund (they wanted those tax dollars to go toward a sporting event stadium). Sure, shoot yourself in the foot, Newspaper. I don’t see the stadium archiving your past issues or encouraging kids to read, and do research so that your newspaper continues to be useful and isn’t replaced by free newsletters and CNN.
They should be ashamed of themselves.