Codeword Junyu:
With the increasing prosperity of online literature, the income of online writers has risen, and the frequent appearance of the rich list of online writers in recent years has attracted the attention of many people. However, the income situation of traditional literary writers is not optimistic. Here's what writers have to say about fees.
Just after the 2016 Lunar New Year, young writer Fu Yuehui received his first manuscript fee of the year - 17,000 yuan, which is the fee sent by "Fangcao" for a 37,000-word drama script, about 460 yuan for a thousand words. Fu Yuehui laughed in the WeChat circle of friends: "Probably you can still live a good life by writing." But he also set an indispensable premise for this conclusion, that is, "if you go back to your hometown and stay in your village." If Fu Yuehui did not "go back to his hometown and stay in the village" but stayed in Shanghai, the city where he now lived, would he be able to support himself and even live a good life on the basis of the manuscript fee? What is the fee standard of major domestic literary publications? What exactly does such a standard mean for writers?
1. The vicissitudes of the manuscript fee: from "discussing to give" to a thousand words and a thousand yuan
In 2010, Han Han's "Solo Choir" challenged the widely criticized remuneration standards of Chinese writers with a sky-high fee of "a thousand words and a thousand yuan", which caused a big earthquake in the domestic literary world. Prior to this, the remuneration standard for original works in China was "30 yuan to 100 yuan per thousand words", which has remained unchanged for 11 years since the Ministry of Culture formulated in 1999.
Subsequently, well-known literary journals such as Harvest and People's Literature quickly followed up, announcing that "the standard of manuscript fees has increased by at least twice", which has made the pure literary journal industry in the country no longer calm, and has also attracted many writers to "no longer write poorly", "submit articles to get rich" and other beautiful expectations.
The shock in the payment that prompted a number of literary journals to respond this time is actually a concentrated response to the long-standing call that "literary journals are too low to pay". In the past 11 years, prices have risen in many rounds, and the salary standard has been continuously raised, but the standard of writing fees has always been rock solid and unchanged.
In fact, China's fee standards have not always remained unchanged. In the more than 60 years since the founding of the People's Republic of China, the remuneration system has undergone many adjustments, which can be described as a huge change.
At the beginning of the founding of New China, the remuneration system automatically opened the "gentleman mode" - the first national publishing conference in 1950 stipulated that the remuneration should be "decided in consultation with the author" under the principle of taking into account the interests of writers, readers and publishers.
By 1953, this "negotiated" fee had been replaced by a fixed payment of remuneration; by 1958, it had been replaced by a "combination of basic remuneration and print remuneration", and the first basic remuneration standard was introduced, 4 to 15 yuan per thousand words.
Subsequently, the remuneration standard was raised four times in 1980, 1984, 1990 and 1999, and finally adjusted to "30 yuan to 100 yuan per thousand words for original works".
What does the standard of 30 to 100 yuan for a thousand words mean to writers? Someone calculated an account, in China's first-tier cities, the average salary in the spring of 2015 was more than 6600 yuan, according to the standard of "30 yuan per thousand words", a writer has to write at least 200,000 words of literary works per month, that is, more than 7,000 words per day, and it is also necessary to ensure that each word can be published, so that the income can be equal to this average salary, and for the literary creation that needs to be created and inspired, this is obviously impossible.
Writer Bi Feiyu believes that on the surface, the fee for writing has indeed risen over the years, but the phenomenon of "relative poverty" of writers has become more and more serious. He recalls: "In 1991, my novella debut 'Lonely Island' was paid about 1700 yuan, which was equivalent to my salary for 3 years at that time. Today, I get thousands of dollars for publishing a novella, but it's only equivalent to a month's salary. ”
2) Can writers support themselves by writing?
It was not until November 1, 2014, when the National Copyright Administration promulgated new regulations and the Measures for Payment of Remuneration for The Use of Written Works came into effect, that the remuneration standard for manuscripts was raised again, from 80 yuan to 300 yuan for 1,000 words.
So, can the adjusted fee standard really bring benefits to writers? Not long ago, media people and writers Duomushi spent a year to launch a questionnaire to writers, scholars, professors, officials, tax experts at home and abroad. Most writers have given a negative answer to the question that "writing alone can support themselves." Shenzhen poet Wang Xiaoni's answer was extremely crisp: "Of course not." Zhou Tao also categorically said that he could not support himself by writing at all, "There is no unit to guarantee that I have to go to ask for food." ”
Lin Bai joked: "If you don't have children, you don't have to support your family, you have a house to live in, you buy the cheapest clothes on Taobao, and you often eat instant noodles, it's still okay." ”
In Han Shaogong's view, although China's publishing market is large, the opportunity is much greater than that of many small language countries to support writers, "but 90% of writers are afraid that they still can't completely support themselves by writing." However, if the definition of "feeding" is limited to food and clothing, hunger and death, the above ratio will be lowered a lot. ”
Huang Xiaoyang believes that whether he can support himself by writing first depends on what the writer writes, "if he writes a bestseller and writes it as a 'wrist', he can support himself; if he writes serious literature, it is basically impossible, unless his works are fortunate to be included in the classic category." ”
Yang Xianhui recalled with emotion the fees he had received over the years. He said that his children were raised on the salary of his wife and the salary of the employer, and that "after the publication of the fourth book, these books were able to print five thousand and ten thousand copies a year, so that every year there was a little income, and they could barely maintain their own poor days." ”
3. How much is the fee for a writer to support his family?
Compared with foreign developed countries, Chinese writers can get a pitiful amount of money. It is understood that in the United States, the manuscript fee of publications issued nationwide is between $750 and $2,000 per thousand words, for example, the basic manuscript fee of the "New Yorker" magazine in the United States is 1,500 US dollars per thousand words, which is equivalent to nearly 10,000 yuan; in European newspapers and periodicals, the remuneration for each thousand words is converted into as much as four or five thousand yuan.
Even according to the newly adjusted fee standards, except for a very few big-name writers, "writing to get rich" is still a fantasy for most Chinese writers. However, for writers, "getting rich" is not the original intention of writing, and for them who write because of love, it is enough to be able to support their families with the fee, which is enough to make them happy.
So in the minds of writers, how much is the fee to support their families?
Bi Feiyu said that supporting his family is not a problem for him, but this part of the income does not rely on simple remuneration, but more from the transfer of film and television adaptation rights to get remuneration. "If you rely solely on the current fee, let alone support your family, your own food, clothing, shelter and transportation will become a problem."
Writer Xue Bing believes that a thousand words and a thousand yuan is more reasonable under the current circumstances, and this figure is derived after he calculated an account. Now, a 14% tax is levied on a book, and the threshold of this tax is still at 800 yuan. At present, in the market, the sales volume of books and magazines such as literary works continues to shrink, and it can reach the sales of 10,000 copies, which is already very good. According to the calculation of 30 yuan for a book and 10% for the writer's royalties, 10,000 books can only get 30,000 yuan. If you remove the individual tax, you can only have an income of about 20,000 yuan. "You know, a work can't be written in a month or two, and some even take three or five years."
Source: Call for Papers Commune
(Image from the Internet)
【Personal Profile】: