.
I have been thinking of doing this for a while. I don't know to what extent it will work, but I've started a Patreon:
https://patreon.com/jacob_wren_writer
I've set it to the lowest monthly amount: $3 U.S. / $4.50 Canadian. I was trying to think of what kind of amount I could afford. I know money is tight for everyone.
I'm currently writing some kind trilogy based loosely around the desire for utopia:
Dry Your Tears to Perfect Your Aim (2024)
Amateur Kittens Dreaming Solar Energy (2027)
Desire Without Expectation (2030)
This makes me realize I need more writing time then I've needed in the past.
If people were to sign up it would really help give me the extra time necessary to finish writing these books. For those who do so, they can read excerpts as I am writing them.
As well, as everyone knows, I'm very addicted to social media. So I'm wondering if this particular kind of addiction can help bring in any funds. (Also, a lot of people seem to be leaving social media at this moment. So Patreon could be a place for me to post things.)
In the long run I'm hoping to sign up 1,000 people. So far I'm at 2.
I know a lot of people like my books. I'm just wondering if any people like them enough to help out a bit.
Let's see what happens.
Jacob
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January 16, 2025
January 15, 2025
Camilla Townsend Quote
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“In the privacy of their own homes, away from the eyes of the Spaniards, what the Nahuatl speakers most often wrote was history. Before the conquest, they had a tradition called the xiuhpohualli (shoo-po-WA-lee), which meant “year count” or “yearly account,” even though Western historians have nicknamed the sources “annals.” In the old days, trained historians stood and gave accounts of the people’s history at public gatherings in the courtyards located between palaces and temples. They proceeded carefully year by year; in moments of high drama different speakers stepped forward to cover the same time period again, until all perspectives taken together yielded an understanding of the whole series of events. The pattern mimicked the rotational, reciprocal format of all aspects of their lives: in their world tasks were shared or passed back and forth, so that no one group would have to handle something unpleasant all the time or be accorded unlimited power all the time. Such performances generally recounted stories that would be of interest to the larger group – the rise of chiefs and later their deaths (timely or untimely), the wars they fought and the reasons for them, remarkable natural phenomena, and major celebrations or horrifying executions. Although certain subjects were favored, the texts were hardly devoid of personality: different communities and different individuals included different details. Political schisms were illustrated via colorful dialogue between leaders of different schools of thought. The speakers would sometimes even slip into the present tense as they delivered such leaders’ lines, as if they were in a play. Occasionally they would shout questions that eager audience members were expected to answer.”
– Camilla Townsend, Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs
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“In the privacy of their own homes, away from the eyes of the Spaniards, what the Nahuatl speakers most often wrote was history. Before the conquest, they had a tradition called the xiuhpohualli (shoo-po-WA-lee), which meant “year count” or “yearly account,” even though Western historians have nicknamed the sources “annals.” In the old days, trained historians stood and gave accounts of the people’s history at public gatherings in the courtyards located between palaces and temples. They proceeded carefully year by year; in moments of high drama different speakers stepped forward to cover the same time period again, until all perspectives taken together yielded an understanding of the whole series of events. The pattern mimicked the rotational, reciprocal format of all aspects of their lives: in their world tasks were shared or passed back and forth, so that no one group would have to handle something unpleasant all the time or be accorded unlimited power all the time. Such performances generally recounted stories that would be of interest to the larger group – the rise of chiefs and later their deaths (timely or untimely), the wars they fought and the reasons for them, remarkable natural phenomena, and major celebrations or horrifying executions. Although certain subjects were favored, the texts were hardly devoid of personality: different communities and different individuals included different details. Political schisms were illustrated via colorful dialogue between leaders of different schools of thought. The speakers would sometimes even slip into the present tense as they delivered such leaders’ lines, as if they were in a play. Occasionally they would shout questions that eager audience members were expected to answer.”
– Camilla Townsend, Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs
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January 13, 2025
Royalties
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People often ask me how much I make from each of my books when they sell. And it's kind of a complicated calculation, so I'm never able to answer off the top of my head. But I just thought to look it up again, and thought I would share it here (if you've asked me in the past and I've given a vague answer, here is a more precise one):
PRINTED EDITIONS:
10% of List Sales from the sale of the first 3,000 copies of printed editions of the WORK;
12.5% of List Sales from the sale of 3,001-6,000 copies of the WORK;
15% of List Sales from 6,001 or more copies of the WORK.
ELECTRONIC EDITIONS:
25% of Net Sales from the sale of all electronic editions of the WORK
AUDIO EDITIONS:
25% of Net Sales from the sale of all audio editions of the WORK
(If I understand correctly, this is all after the book has sold out it's advance. As the contract clearly says the advance "will be deducted from the author’s Royalty Commissions." As well, just to be clear, this post was not meant as a criticism. It's just a question people frequently ask me.)
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People often ask me how much I make from each of my books when they sell. And it's kind of a complicated calculation, so I'm never able to answer off the top of my head. But I just thought to look it up again, and thought I would share it here (if you've asked me in the past and I've given a vague answer, here is a more precise one):
PRINTED EDITIONS:
10% of List Sales from the sale of the first 3,000 copies of printed editions of the WORK;
12.5% of List Sales from the sale of 3,001-6,000 copies of the WORK;
15% of List Sales from 6,001 or more copies of the WORK.
ELECTRONIC EDITIONS:
25% of Net Sales from the sale of all electronic editions of the WORK
AUDIO EDITIONS:
25% of Net Sales from the sale of all audio editions of the WORK
(If I understand correctly, this is all after the book has sold out it's advance. As the contract clearly says the advance "will be deducted from the author’s Royalty Commissions." As well, just to be clear, this post was not meant as a criticism. It's just a question people frequently ask me.)
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January 10, 2025
CODE NOIR by Quinton Barnes
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Quinton Barnes just put out a new record. It's called CODE NOIR and you should listen to it here: https://quintonbarnes.bandcamp.com/album/code-noir
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Quinton Barnes just put out a new record. It's called CODE NOIR and you should listen to it here: https://quintonbarnes.bandcamp.com/album/code-noir
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January 8, 2025
Francesca Polletta Quote
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“What comes across in the stories that Myles Horton tells, in SNCC workers’ tales of best organizers, and in the broader literature on organizing is good organizers’ creativity: their ability to respond to local conditions, to capitalize on sudden opportunities, to turn to advantage a seeming setback, to know when to exploit teachable moments and when to concentrate on winning an immediate objective. Sometimes you insist on fully participatory decision-making; sometimes you do not. Albany SNCC project head Charles Sherrod urged fellow organizers not to “let the project go to the dogs because you feel you must be democratic to the letter.” Horton recounted on numerous occasions an experience that he had had in a union organizing effort. At the time, the highway patrol was escorting scabs through the picket line, and the strike committee was at its wit’s end about how to counter this threat to strikers’ solidarity. After considering and rejecting numerous proposals, exhausted committee members demanded advice from Horton. When he refused, one of them pulled a gun. “I was tempted then to become an instant expert, right on the spot!” Horton confessed. “But I knew that if I did that, all would be lost and then all of the rest of them would start asking me what to do. So I said: ‘No. Go ahead and shoot if you want to, but I’m not going to tell you.’ And the others calmed him down.”
Giving in would have defeated the purpose of persuading the strikers that they had the knowledge to make the decision themselves. But Horton sometimes told another story. When he was once asked to speak to a group of Tennessee farmers about organizing a cooperative, he knew, he said, that since “their expectation was that I would speak as an expert… if I didn’t speak, and said, ‘let’s have a discussion about this,’ they’d say, that this guy doesn’t know anything.” So Horton “made a speech, the best speech I could. Then after it was over, while we were still there, I said, let’s discuss what I have said. Well now, that was just one step removed, but close enough to their expectation that I was able to carry them along… You do have to make concessions like that.” What better time to make a concession than when you’re looking down the barrel of a gun? Horton presumably knew that he could get away with refusing to be an expert in the first situation and not in the second. Perhaps the difference was that he was unknown to the farmers and was known to the strikers. But one could argue that a relationship with a history could tolerate aberrant exercises of leadership while first impressions die harder. In other words, extracting rules from the stories that Horton tells is difficult. When to lead and when to defer, when to ask leadings questions and when to remain silent, when to focus on the limited objective and when to encourage people to see the circumscribed character of that objective – the answers depend on the situation and are not always readily evident.”
– Francesca Polletta, Freedom Is an Endless Meeting: Democracy in American Social Movements
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“What comes across in the stories that Myles Horton tells, in SNCC workers’ tales of best organizers, and in the broader literature on organizing is good organizers’ creativity: their ability to respond to local conditions, to capitalize on sudden opportunities, to turn to advantage a seeming setback, to know when to exploit teachable moments and when to concentrate on winning an immediate objective. Sometimes you insist on fully participatory decision-making; sometimes you do not. Albany SNCC project head Charles Sherrod urged fellow organizers not to “let the project go to the dogs because you feel you must be democratic to the letter.” Horton recounted on numerous occasions an experience that he had had in a union organizing effort. At the time, the highway patrol was escorting scabs through the picket line, and the strike committee was at its wit’s end about how to counter this threat to strikers’ solidarity. After considering and rejecting numerous proposals, exhausted committee members demanded advice from Horton. When he refused, one of them pulled a gun. “I was tempted then to become an instant expert, right on the spot!” Horton confessed. “But I knew that if I did that, all would be lost and then all of the rest of them would start asking me what to do. So I said: ‘No. Go ahead and shoot if you want to, but I’m not going to tell you.’ And the others calmed him down.”
Giving in would have defeated the purpose of persuading the strikers that they had the knowledge to make the decision themselves. But Horton sometimes told another story. When he was once asked to speak to a group of Tennessee farmers about organizing a cooperative, he knew, he said, that since “their expectation was that I would speak as an expert… if I didn’t speak, and said, ‘let’s have a discussion about this,’ they’d say, that this guy doesn’t know anything.” So Horton “made a speech, the best speech I could. Then after it was over, while we were still there, I said, let’s discuss what I have said. Well now, that was just one step removed, but close enough to their expectation that I was able to carry them along… You do have to make concessions like that.” What better time to make a concession than when you’re looking down the barrel of a gun? Horton presumably knew that he could get away with refusing to be an expert in the first situation and not in the second. Perhaps the difference was that he was unknown to the farmers and was known to the strikers. But one could argue that a relationship with a history could tolerate aberrant exercises of leadership while first impressions die harder. In other words, extracting rules from the stories that Horton tells is difficult. When to lead and when to defer, when to ask leadings questions and when to remain silent, when to focus on the limited objective and when to encourage people to see the circumscribed character of that objective – the answers depend on the situation and are not always readily evident.”
– Francesca Polletta, Freedom Is an Endless Meeting: Democracy in American Social Movements
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"I think it needs activism and it needs people who are really able to get out there and fight."
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“In some deep way, I feel I need to be an artist. But I don’t actually think what the world needs right now is art. I think it needs activism and it needs people who are really able to get out there and fight. I think art is probably more a reflection of the world than a driver of change.”
- Jacob Wren, from this interview with Sruti Islam in Cult Mtl
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“In some deep way, I feel I need to be an artist. But I don’t actually think what the world needs right now is art. I think it needs activism and it needs people who are really able to get out there and fight. I think art is probably more a reflection of the world than a driver of change.”
- Jacob Wren, from this interview with Sruti Islam in Cult Mtl
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January 2, 2025
Dry Your Tears Quote
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“And once again it makes me realize how never in my life as a writer have I genuinely tried to get anything “right,” if getting it right means an accurate portrayal of reality, or even if it means providing access to something we might call truth or wisdom. In fact, it now seems to me, I have attempted to do almost the opposite, a search for how to “get it wrong” as evocatively as possible. Or to fully engage in the struggle between getting it right and getting it wrong. Of course, I’m always considering ethics, so I would never want to be ethically wrong, or to harm anyone with my words, but nonetheless there is the desire to be artistically off-kilter in ways that create the possibility of seeing things anew. To fully admit that I don’t know. But now I’m not so sure. Rethinking all such assumptions might be one of the many ways I find myself trying to change.”
- Jacob Wren, Dry Your Tears to Perfect Your Aim
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“And once again it makes me realize how never in my life as a writer have I genuinely tried to get anything “right,” if getting it right means an accurate portrayal of reality, or even if it means providing access to something we might call truth or wisdom. In fact, it now seems to me, I have attempted to do almost the opposite, a search for how to “get it wrong” as evocatively as possible. Or to fully engage in the struggle between getting it right and getting it wrong. Of course, I’m always considering ethics, so I would never want to be ethically wrong, or to harm anyone with my words, but nonetheless there is the desire to be artistically off-kilter in ways that create the possibility of seeing things anew. To fully admit that I don’t know. But now I’m not so sure. Rethinking all such assumptions might be one of the many ways I find myself trying to change.”
- Jacob Wren, Dry Your Tears to Perfect Your Aim
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December 30, 2024
Six albums that would have made my list if I'd heard them earlier
December 27, 2024
Six Months
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There's something about how when you put out a book it allegedly only has six months to find its readership. Because in six months it will be the next season, and then bookstores will no longer have your book out on the display tables, but the new books that just came out. So my book has been out for about three months, which means it just has three more months to go: https://bookhugpress.ca/shop/author/jacob-wren/dry-your-tears-to-perfect-your-aim-by-jacob-wren/
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There's something about how when you put out a book it allegedly only has six months to find its readership. Because in six months it will be the next season, and then bookstores will no longer have your book out on the display tables, but the new books that just came out. So my book has been out for about three months, which means it just has three more months to go: https://bookhugpress.ca/shop/author/jacob-wren/dry-your-tears-to-perfect-your-aim-by-jacob-wren/
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December 21, 2024
Excerpt from the novel-in-progress: One Yes & Many Know
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“I would write it as fiction, so unreal things could happen. I always wanted to write books in which unreal things happened. Of course, another reason was to avoid possible libel suits from the family of the deceased. They had a lot of money and could therefore hire a lot of lawyers. Expensive lawyers. But fiction was always the best defense. It was the first time I had a story with genuine appeal. The first time anything high-profile ever happened to me. Previous to this, my life was a long series of uneventful middle ground, with few moments worth writing about, and my mid-range level of success reflected this history. But now something had really happened. How could I let it pass? It would be like a Faust story, but instead of making a deal with the devil I would make a deal with myself. Up until now, I’d fully dedicated myself to art, and to living art ethically. But now something had changed. I was dissatisfied, and my dissatisfaction suddenly had a possible solution landing directly in the middle of it, as unexpected as a UFO. (Though hadn’t I always said: it’s my nature to be dissatisfied.) There was a success that had eluded me for as long as I could remember. Was my inability to achieve it due to some shortcoming in my work, or was it only because I’d never really tried? What would it mean to reach for the brass ring, and not stop reaching until it was fully in my grasp? I didn’t know but if there was ever a time to find out, it was now. I wasn’t planning to do so at the expense of anyone else, didn’t believe that would be necessary. But I was planning to focus on myself, on my own trajectory. A trajectory that was going to be convincingly upward. At all costs. This is what I began to repeatedly tell myself. What quickly became almost an obsession, taking over my life, while at the same time realizing I didn’t know much about success or how to achieve it. What would be my first move (apart from writing the book itself)? The goal was to win a major prize. Or to have one of my books made into a movie, most likely the book I was about to write. Or to have a celebrity seen with the book on some red carpet. Or some other path onto the bestseller list I couldn’t yet intuit. I had decided on a fairly narrow and conventional definition of success. But I was open to mixing it with a broader definition. Could I imagine being as successful as Jonathan Franzen or Ben Lerner? As George Orwell? As Franz Kafka? As Willian Faulkner or James Joyce? As Shakespeare? Could this become my own small version of Citizen Kane? I knew this line of questioning was corny as hell. I should focus on success within my lifetime and let matters of legacy take care of themselves. The writers who were famous now weren’t very good anyways, it shouldn’t be difficult to overtake them.”
[A paragraph from my current attempt to write a novel about an artist who tries to sell out. Working title: One Yes & Many Know.]
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“I would write it as fiction, so unreal things could happen. I always wanted to write books in which unreal things happened. Of course, another reason was to avoid possible libel suits from the family of the deceased. They had a lot of money and could therefore hire a lot of lawyers. Expensive lawyers. But fiction was always the best defense. It was the first time I had a story with genuine appeal. The first time anything high-profile ever happened to me. Previous to this, my life was a long series of uneventful middle ground, with few moments worth writing about, and my mid-range level of success reflected this history. But now something had really happened. How could I let it pass? It would be like a Faust story, but instead of making a deal with the devil I would make a deal with myself. Up until now, I’d fully dedicated myself to art, and to living art ethically. But now something had changed. I was dissatisfied, and my dissatisfaction suddenly had a possible solution landing directly in the middle of it, as unexpected as a UFO. (Though hadn’t I always said: it’s my nature to be dissatisfied.) There was a success that had eluded me for as long as I could remember. Was my inability to achieve it due to some shortcoming in my work, or was it only because I’d never really tried? What would it mean to reach for the brass ring, and not stop reaching until it was fully in my grasp? I didn’t know but if there was ever a time to find out, it was now. I wasn’t planning to do so at the expense of anyone else, didn’t believe that would be necessary. But I was planning to focus on myself, on my own trajectory. A trajectory that was going to be convincingly upward. At all costs. This is what I began to repeatedly tell myself. What quickly became almost an obsession, taking over my life, while at the same time realizing I didn’t know much about success or how to achieve it. What would be my first move (apart from writing the book itself)? The goal was to win a major prize. Or to have one of my books made into a movie, most likely the book I was about to write. Or to have a celebrity seen with the book on some red carpet. Or some other path onto the bestseller list I couldn’t yet intuit. I had decided on a fairly narrow and conventional definition of success. But I was open to mixing it with a broader definition. Could I imagine being as successful as Jonathan Franzen or Ben Lerner? As George Orwell? As Franz Kafka? As Willian Faulkner or James Joyce? As Shakespeare? Could this become my own small version of Citizen Kane? I knew this line of questioning was corny as hell. I should focus on success within my lifetime and let matters of legacy take care of themselves. The writers who were famous now weren’t very good anyways, it shouldn’t be difficult to overtake them.”
[A paragraph from my current attempt to write a novel about an artist who tries to sell out. Working title: One Yes & Many Know.]
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December 12, 2024
Luigi Mangione
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So many people have written to me to say that the Luigi Mangione story reminds them of my novel Rich and Poor. [Rich and Poor was also translated into French and published by Le Quartanier as Riches et pauvres.] The perfect gift for Xmas.
Years ago I also started writing a sequel to Rich and Poor but then gave up on the endeavour. If you’re curious you can find it here: The Biography (Unfinished Story Fragment).
As well, so I don't need to do another post, Dry Your Tears to Perfect Your Aim is a bestseller at Librairie Drawn & Quarterly.
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So many people have written to me to say that the Luigi Mangione story reminds them of my novel Rich and Poor. [Rich and Poor was also translated into French and published by Le Quartanier as Riches et pauvres.] The perfect gift for Xmas.
Years ago I also started writing a sequel to Rich and Poor but then gave up on the endeavour. If you’re curious you can find it here: The Biography (Unfinished Story Fragment).
As well, so I don't need to do another post, Dry Your Tears to Perfect Your Aim is a bestseller at Librairie Drawn & Quarterly.
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