‘When will you pay me?’ say the bells of Old Bailey

‘When I am rich,’ say the bells of Shoreditch

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The economy is crumbling around me. My talented friends cannot get jobs, my husband is on less than he was two years ago despite inflation, and I am building my castle on sand with full awareness of the shifting tides. As a member of at least three dying professions [1] I work hard to further myself and try to show our value through well-deployed efforts and creative thinking, but it doesn’t make it less exhausting to be faced, again and again, with the same limitations as everyone: time and money.

I’m not helping. I subscribe to literally hundreds of Substack publications, but I don’t pay for any of them. I’ve cut down my magazine subscriptions to just one. I am more inclined to buy the book, CD, or ticket for somebody big and famous where the release is an event than I am to support an up-and-comer with my dollar.[2] I try to support people – whether it’s by reading, streaming, sharing their work, requesting it from the library or displaying a £2 sticker made by a fan – but I simply do not have the money to be spending on largesse, however important my work is to me. How can I expect anything but the same treatment in return?

I remember a time when the internet was different. Artists like Lloyd Cole – successful, but small-scale and independent – would crowdfund their projects, making the money to rent the studio from the pre-sales of the album. Artists would send out newsletters or interact with fans on social media seemingly on a whim, and whilst I have no doubt that they were ticked and touched up by their marketing teams it did generally feel like at least aspects of their own voice could be heard. There was a democratisation of access and creation: back when I was an amateur bookstagrammer I met people who made their livings that way, and they were normal. Perhaps retired, perhaps stay-at-home-parents, perhaps students or teens trying to learn and share and engage with a community. They were passionate people who just really had a lot to say about books. I would get 30-70 likes on literally everything; now I’m barely ever breaking 5.[3] Is it because I’ve let myself fall behind in the algorithm, or is Dead Internet Theory coming for my potential income? Is the only way to do better to post a picture of myself in a bikini on a yacht, or would even that underperform because I’m not already famous? Is it only bots in Dua Lipa’s comments, too? Would it be better if I – or a social media manager, pretending to be me – sat and talked to people instead of reading and sharing the work and thoughts of others?

I want to make money for my work. I think it’s worth it. I wouldn’t publish something I didn’t think was, even for free, and I use the regularity of posting to keep my writing muscles taught and lithe, so I think it actually makes me better. When people don’t understand why I spend £7.99 on a book I could get for free or keep stacks of them when I usually only read one or two at a time, they aren’t seeing that what I’m buying isn’t a book – it’s a community, a culture. It’s the idea that somebody, somewhere, some time ago, shaped, and I want that to exist, so I pay for it. I pay for the labour that went into it, the attraction to it, and what it represents. At £7.99 a time it’s not much, but it’s the side of the economy I want: somebody creates, I use money to encourage more of it. I have books in baskets, books in photographs, and lists of books that well exceed my capacity to read or buy books – but out there, somebody is making a new one, just for me, just as I am for them, and I want to believe I can get paid by them.

As a librarian I AM paid money for my work, and what they get out of me for that is energy, and most of my time. I am constantly thinking about my job, with a camera roll full of images of books I think my students would like or journals full of project ideas for events that are months away. More than that, they get my joy, which I disseminate and spread to the fullest of my extent. I am a very lucky librarian, when compared to my more precariously placed peers at state schools or in higher ed. I would, however, like to devote that same energy to bigger thoughts – my PhD, which does not pay me, is a longform project wrestling with structural conventions as well as unique thought processes. The idea that I am the only person who can do this has kept me focussed through many long nights at the library, but it is excruciating to work so hard on something and see its worth and have it not be funded, to have it implied by the world at large that the burden of proof of its importance is on me, that I must finish it before they will even look, and that the worth I know it has for our society has no economic value. At least, in that case, I have my supervisors: they are both emphatic about how much they, too, believe in the project, as well as my role as the person who will bring it to fruition. When finished there will be some accolade – a title, Dr Kitty – as recognition for my work, which brings cultural (if not economic) capital. For this? My practiced journalism, fiction, philosophy, or wider craft? This is worth nothing, quoth the market.

Still. You have to believe. That’s the manifestation they talk about – the slightly woo-woo belief that if you tell your goals to the universe, or the mirror, or the wishing-well, then it’s sure to happen. The thing you have to bear in mind even as you dismiss this errant nonsense is that it’s scientifically proven that placebos work, even when we know they’re fake. The human mind is miraculous, and surprisingly capable of doublethink. It’s not that the believing is the important part, it’s how you act and carry yourself when you do believe: the confidence, the sending of the application, the relationships built that may flower into something. ‘Dress for the job you want’ sends signals to you and those around you about who you are and what you’re capable of; reminding yourself regularly of your intentions teaches you to look for and create opportunities to get there. I post every week because I am the kind of person who posts every week, and one day somebody will recognise that. I study because I think my work is important, and it cannot be important if it doesn’t exist. I bring joy to my work because it needs joy to thrive. A book is not a book, it is the construction of what has been written; a subscription is not a subscription, it is the further dissemination of my ideas, as written by me. I believe in imbuing my work with joy, and I don’t have a great amount to spare right now, but I will keep on building until the castle is crumbled around my ears, then I’ll pick up the stones and start again.

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On This Topic:

• A Black-owned small publisher that I did, in fact, give my $$ to.
• The publicly-funded newsletter I never miss, even if I can’t always afford to buy their books.
• A few of my friends ARE making money as artists – buy their work! Sustain them!

To-Do:

• Order textbooks
• Reply to WBD planning
• Learn to get up at 6 again because work is starting soon

Today’s Culture:

• Camel yellow.
• After years hearing tell of her work from Crow Caller, I have finally succumbed to buying an Alex Aster book. I wish I were better but I’m not.
• I bought this clip in Japan and it makes a great bookmark for academic work.

[1] librarian, academic, author – symbiotic but not sympathetic to the host

[2] pound sterling.

[3] though I always get one or two comments from a bot – which, of course, feels worse. Nobody wants my content unless they think they can use it to get attention for themselves.