The joy of telling people how much money you make

boing
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Oh, I was supposed to not have kids, and live in a crap neighborhood…

Well, shit. At least I’ve got the broke-and-maxed-out-credit-cards part right. EDIT: I’ll echo Maggie’s sentiment, even though I’ve only made tens of dollars on freelancing so far. Being married to a schoolteacher, even in Illinois and in these troubled times, is a great stress-reducer. At least she has steady paychecks and family health & dental.

I actually know a guy who farms, is a road commissioner, and makes most of his money operating heavy machinery as a contractor for oil companies. His sister-in-law thinks he’s unemployed because he doesn’t have a 9-to-5 job; he’s in his 70s and works more than anyone I know.

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Does Jaron Lanier know about this?

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I used to do really exciting, often groundbreaking work in the sciences, but the pay wasn’t anywhere near what I needed in order to own the property I wanted and have the family I wanted.

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I think freelancers don’t often share their income because people use that information to unfairly evaluate your talent/worth. I self-published my first two novels, and they’ve done admirably well. (A couple hundred bucks a month, and enough lifetime sales to qualify me for some professional organizations). But unless you’re on the NYT list, most non-publishing geeks assume your books must suck.

On the flip side, broke artists like me often criticize each other for “selling out” by making a living wage.

Sharing your income as an indie artist often feels like a no-win situation, except for other strivers in your specific field.

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I would like to see that study too. Many people I know would be interested in striking out as independent entrepreneurs and small business owners if access to health care weren’t a factor in the decision.

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I sincerely hope that’s not true of us.

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It’s not just freelancers, or beginning professionals that can’t make a living wage in music. The David Byrne book “How Music Works” was a huge eye opener for me (music hobbyist, professional engineer). I read it about a year ago, but if if I recall correctly, even with his “brand” established, these days he is lucky to personally make $200K gross on an album - which may take two years to make. And he runs a lean and financially aware operation. The book delves pretty deep into the finances of music making, but gives great observations on history, how venues effect music and other cultural things. Anyway, a great read, and forever changed my perception of rock star finances.

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In a lot of circumstances, I totally agree with you. Especially for people in the same field, working in the same company, etc…
Companies do NOT like this, of course. Last contract I was on, there were several of us that all got hired at the same time. Two of us talked and got more money than the other person that was brought on - like close to 10K/year diff. - and it didn’t have to be like that.
Also, one of the senior guys there told us flat out what to ask for. I did and didn’t get that much, but better to start out way high and make HR negotiate…

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From what I have noticed in the US, the only people who find joy in telling how much money they make are the ones who enjoy emphasizing how much more money they make.

Murmurs of “christ, what an asshole” are often heard in the periphery…

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Kudos to Nicole Dieker for providing valuable information to the music community.

My wife put her first book contracts from a major publisher up (with amounts) about 20+ years ago and people are still referring to them because actual real examples with actual dollar amount are so rare.

Good, concrete information is exceedingly useful and very hard to come by.

However, there are good reasons why it’s rare to do so. People tend to assume things that are comfortable to them, and providing hard data can cost you when reality conflicts with those comfortable assumptions. (Same reason why politicians who fail to articulate a position tend to do better - people project the “right” values.)

Earn too little, and people (and publishers!) figure that you can’t be that good or you’d be more successful. Earn too much, and you garner resentment from some of your peers, and a drop-off of ardent fans who might be providing critical support.

Likewise, revealing salaries in companies might allow someone valuable to negotiate a higher salary, but for every one who does so, there’ll be a dozen who will be bitterly unhappy about being paid less, or at least so much less. How many of us want to acknowledge that we’re in the lowest quartile? Given measurements are always subjective, we can tell ourselves a dozen stories about why we’re underpaid and get mad.

So, no, I’d never work in a company with open salaries for everyone. Too many bitter people, and a good chance I’d be among them.

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Well OK. I’ll bite —my salary scale is publicly available anyway. I have a skilled professional job that takes 13+ years to train for. I gross NZ$180 000 (~£93 000) basic, but NZ is relatively high tax. I could double my money by moving across the Tasman to Oz and triple it by moving further afield. But I do like it here.

The question of whether it’s enough depends on the social contract in the country you live in. If NZ had a guaranteed minimum income for life; comprehensive and efficient healthcare free at point of access for all (including dentistry); funded high quality education to tertiary level for anyone with the talent to succeed at it; easy and economical access to public transport; and high quality utilities including internet access for all —then I’m paid way too much. But it doesn’t. In my estimation NZ is merely OK at most of those and so I’m looking at needing to earn enough to keep a roof over our heads while fully funding 2 children through university and then supporting myself and my wife in our old age and needing significant savings to buffer for a rainy day. So in my judgement it’s just enough. For people in countries with even less public services then even more income is required to insure against risk.

So, here I am. Give me a decent social contract and you can tax the hell out of me. :wink:

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I’ve been freelancing in web/database for 5 years. On reading your post it occurs to me that were I living on the American side of the nearby US/Canada border, I almost certainly would have quit years ago in order to find a job with medical insurance. What a weird thought.

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I Love this post. I agree that we need more open communication about wages, I think many people would be surprised to know how much some job fields are really paying. There is a TON of false information out there.

American violinist/private teacher here. I’m now a freelancer, building my own business employing only myself so far. I’m proud to say I earn $40/hr for gigs and lessons, and that all of my current customers say I very much deserve it… but I currently only have 7 solid students each week, and gigs are about once every 2 months now. I’m earning just enough to cover my rent and food, but without more students soon I will have to figure out another way to earn money on the side.

I’ve been Appalled to hear several colleagues of mine say that I should be ashamed to charge so much per hour. Several other violinists in the area are working at private lesson studios earning $11-$20/hr, and they have the same or sometimes better credentials than I do. To them, I stuck to my guns and argue “But how many other people do you know with advanced degrees working part-time jobs with no hope of benefits or raises for $11/hr? How is that even going to work??” We could all take retail jobs, for FAR CHEAPER, and a lot less effort.

If you consider how much I’ve paid to earn my $40/hr (for limited hours)… I’ve bought 4 violins as I grew, and I paid for violin lessons for 15 years in addition to my bachelor’s degree and two years of an advanced degree, both from out of state universities. I have membership dues to my teaching association, and thousands of dollars of books, CD’s, and other violin learning materials which I used myself and purchased for my students. Many many thanks for my parents giving me the opportunity to go with my talent and try to make something of myself with it… but I am SICK of people talking to musicians and saying that they are charging too much. There aren’t many other fields that require so many years of expensive training and hours of preparation (sometimes for weeks) before EACH job, and I honestly can’t think of any that pay as little.

To all of those who think that getting up on a stage to play or teaching an 8 year old to play an instrument is easy work, only worth minimum wage, you are the reason there will not be music teachers left, or quality musicians coming into the music business in the next few years. Our costs far exceed those wages. Too many musicians and music industry professionals play the game and shy away from disclosing their expenses, and take jobs that pay nowhere near what they need to live on because of industry pressures. Often if you don’t take a job paying next to nothing, there WILL be someone right behind you that will. I know very well that some students have turned me down because I charge more than some other teachers. But I know I work hard, give good results, and have made big investments into my career so I MUST demand at least this much for my work. It does no one any good for me to charge less and go out of business when I can’t pay my bills.

All the people working music jobs for free or any unpaid internships are destroying opportunities for others to ask for a living wage. Stop cooperating! Value yourself, and your work! …Thanks for reading my rant. =)

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We cheerfully pay a similar amount per hour for our son to learn piano and wish you lived near us. Our daughter would like to learn violin but there is a shortage of tutors nearby.

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Preach it, sister. Value yourself, indeed!

I’m not a musician, but I am a freelancer, and my rate is also $40 per hour. When someone with a regular employee-type job says that they’d “love to make $40 an hour” I cringe. $11 to $20 an hour might be a decent wage from an employer, but self-employment is a whole different ballpark. When it comes time to write the quarterly tax estimate checks, it feels like a whole different planet.

I wish that the kind of job creators who create one job would get as much respect as the kind of job creators who create lots of jobs (in other countries). Instead, we are told that we charge too much, and accused of not paying our taxes. Someone once said to me “I won’t pay that much because you freelancers don’t pay taxes anyway, so it’s all under the table” and I politely declined to do any work for that person.

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BandCamp, iTunes and PayPal don’t “take” a cut of your music-for-sale income. You give it to them. You give it to them for their services that provide the digital underpinning of where many people find, hear, try, buy and consume music. I mention this because your decision to use the word “take” indicates (to some degree) your measurements of worth. The worth of your music vs. the worth of those services you use to help sell your music. You should be happy those services “take” your money. Otherwise you’d likely make a fraction of what you currently make. That is music as a profession, and there are no good deals. Only good fortune.

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Transparency without envy will always favor the employee over the employer. The problem is people who know their direct peers and their earnings tend to let all those pesky human emotions get in the way.

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My reply in these cases: “You should check out a small company called Apple.”

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