Real Love

On parle BUSINESS

(de la rémunération des auteu.rices)

By Lindsay Lerman - Mar 19, 2021

D’abord un petit mot introductif sur notre positionnement général, avant de parler des auteu.rices.

Fidèles à la doctrine connue de nous seul.es de l’anarchie des interstices, nous ne souhaitons pas intégrer le système général de cette industrie qu’on dit du livre; ce qui ne veut pas dire que nous nous prenions pour des rebelles, que nous voulions sa disparition (même si ça ne nous arracherait certainement pas de grands cris de douleur) ou que nous ne voulions rien avoir à faire avec elle.

Non.

Nous, tout ce que nous voulons c’est vivre notre vie comme bon nous semble dans les interstices qu’elle laisse innoccupés, tranquilles, sans nous y soumettre ni la combattre. C’est la Pax kixotika.

Et si ça ne fonctionne pas on s’en retournera à nos lectures et à nos activités respectives: c’est un prix à payer qui n’est pas très élevé au regard des convictions qui sont les nôtres.

Cela étant précisé, n’étant pas allergiques au doux commerce, nous avons une stratégie commerciale sur laquelle nous reviendrons plus en détail une autre fois mais qui repose en partie sur un élément que nous souhaitons aborder ici et maintenant, à savoir notre boutique en ligne.

Pourquoi notre boutique en ligne? Parce que c’est à travers elle que nous entendons faire la différence concernant la rémunération des auteu.rices.

Comment?

On va faire simple.

Chez kixotik:

. la rémunération que perçoivent les auteu.rices sur tout ce qui est vendu chez des intermédiaires commerciaux (libraires, plateformes,…) correspond aux standards de la profession (le haut de la fourchette habituelle mais rien de sensationnel), soit une moyenne de 10% du prix TTC du livre acheté.

Désolé mais on a pas parlé de miracle… En revanche:

. pour les livres achetés sur notre site internet, la rémunération des auteu.rices grimpe à une moyenne de 42% (s’ajoute, en gros, la presque totalité de la part revenant habituellement aux intermédiaires commerciaux, absents de la transaction dans ce cas).

Voilà. C’est simple, assez significatif et plutôt facile à mettre en oeuvre.

DONC, SI VOUS VOULEZ CONTRIBUER AU FAIT QUE NOS AUTEU.RICES REÇOIVENT UNE RÉMUNÉRATION DÉCENTE POUR LEUR TRAVAIL, C’EST À VOUS DE JOUER, SACHANT QUE, POUR VOUS, LE PRIX DES LIVRES EST LE MÊME PARTOUT.

Voilà: on compte sur vous…

VOIR AUSSI

La forme des mots

Dad taught me how to shoot pool when I was twelve, insisting that I get good at it, telling me it was important. “You live by the cock, you die by the cock, I’ve always said.” I nodded like I understood.

“I never fucked around on your mother, remember that,” he said as he lined up a shot for me. “Get your eye level with the table. Take your time.”

Three weeks later I went to my first middle school party at the rich kid’s house on the edge of town and bet an older guy 100 bucks that I could beat him at a game of pool. I won by a hair and he called me a bitch, but his friends seemed impressed. Dad beamed when I showed him my little stack of twenties the next day.

The first girl I ever fell in love with was obsessed with capturing the popular boys. She didn’t care if they were stupid or cruel. She said she just loved the way they felt inside her. “The more popular they are, the better their dicks are, it’s a fact,” she said. I was pretty sure she was a virgin.

I watched, spellbound, as she applied lipstick like a pro, without ever needing a mirror. She did it in their presence, in front of the lockers, watching their eyes watching her lips. She flipped her hair after putting the lipstick cap back on, acting mildly annoyed that they were paying such close attention. It worked every time.

I asked her how she learned to do it and she said, “Start with lipgloss, then work your way up to lipstick,” not understanding that I’d meant all of it.

It was a series of foreign languages I would never learn.

The first animal I saw get killed was a cat. The neighbor drowned it in a bucket, his eyes daring me to look away, to freak out. I was 14, older than him, capable of stopping him. But I’d been caught off guard when he said “Hey, c’mere,” and I just stood there, paralyzed, looking at the cat, the bucket, the hose on the ground next to him.

I told Dad and he said, “I’m taking you to the shooting range next weekend, don’t let me forget. You’re gonna learn how to hold a gun.”

But he was proud that I hadn’t flinched at the boy, the drowned cat. “The minute you give them what they want, they start taking more.”

By the time I met him I was pretty far gone. Sixteen and hiding inside myself, ugly and awkward and tired of not being loved back.

He was the first person to say “I love you” like he meant it, though he only said it once he was six beers deep. It didn’t matter. And he was a gentle drunk most of the time. Most nights he would pass out on the couch with a smile on his face.

I knew better than to ask about his work or his life, and he knew better than to ask me anything.

“Just don’t get pregnant,” Dad had said, the first time I told him I wouldn’t come home one night. “I’ll buy every condom in the goddamn world you need, just don’t get pregnant. You have a brain, you know.”

On the back of his bike I was no one and nothing. I hadn’t known such a freedom was possible.

After a few months, Dad started to worry. “How old is he?” Dad asked once. I left the room, refusing to answer. I couldn’t tell him that I had started to worry too.

He told me I didn’t need to learn how to drive, that he could drive me anywhere, that he would pick me up from school if I wanted. I had told him that Dad was going to teach me how to drive a stick so I could get my license and maybe even a job. I saw a rage boiling in him when I told him that.

He drank faster after that. We fought. He was stronger than he looked. I was dumber than I looked. When his friends came around, they looked at me with sadness in their eyes until they drank enough to erase it.

Soon all I could see was the rage boiling inside him, like he was vibrating with it. Once I saw it, I couldn’t stop.

He told me I should drop out, that I could live with him rent-free. He said he would save up and we could leave, go far away and start over. I worried what would happen if I said no.

A few weeks later Dad noticed a bruise on my wrist, and a look came over him like nothing I’d ever seen before.

“You have to live your own life,” he said. “But you better know by now, you can tell me if it’s more than you can handle.” Tears fell hot and fast as I whispered, “It’s more than I can handle.” Dad nodded. It was all he needed to hear.

That night, we made a plan. We would drive to his house around midnight, when he was sure to be asleep on the couch. Dad would hold him down, and I would hold the gun.

If I wanted to, I’d shoot. “Your call,” he said.