August 2014 - Ruth Madison

Income Transparency

I’ve been challenged by my friend and fellow author Matthew Selznick to share information about my income as an author. He makes the point that it’s helpful for other writers to get a sense of what to expect from creative endeavors and most of the numbers you see are articles about the huge success of one or two indie authors. I find that people tend to assume that best selling authors are spectacularly rich and it’s a very glamorous life. Someone wrote a while back about the truth about his income after having a book that was a NYT best seller. I wish I could find it now. The truth is that authors don’t make much money and even the best selling authors aren’t immune. You can count on one hand, most likely, the number of authors who...

Posted by RuthMadison on Aug 26, 2014 in Uncategorized, Updates on Ruth's Fiction | 1 comment

Casting Directors: You Don’t Have A Leg To Stand On!

(Pun Intended!) There are actors who have disabilities. And yet when it comes to casting shows and movies, 99% of the time the actors are able bodied and pretend to have the disability of the character in question. This is a problem because this actor usually has no knowledge of what it’s really like to have the disability and so their performance is often cliched to the point of being painful to watch. It’s also a problem because people who actually have disabilities remain invisible and true diversity is not represented in our media. And it’s not just roles specifically written for characters with disabilities. I read an interview the other day with an actress in the UK who is a wheelchair user. She auditioned for a small part as a secretary...