Burnin'

“Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand.” -F. Scott Fitzgerald

Law professor William J. Quirk, writing in The American Scholar, examined F. Scott Fitzgerald’s tax returns from 1919–1940 and came away with a detailed portrait of a rich man–perhaps unexpectedly, for Fitzgerald portrayed the rich from close physical proximity, but with (mostly devastating) emotional distance.

Quirk’s direct examination of the writer’s records indicate:

• Until 1937 he kept a ledger—as if he were a grocer—a meticulous record of his earnings from each short story, play, and novel he sold. The 1929 ledger recorded items as small as royalties of $5.10 from the American edition of The Great Gatsby and $0.34 from the English edition.
• The publication of This Side of Paradise when he was 23 immediately put Fitzgerald’s income in the top 2 percent of American taxpayers. Thereafter, for most of his working life, he earned about $24,000 a year, which put him in the top 1 percent of those filing returns. Today, a taxpayer would have to earn at least $500,000 to be in the top 1 percent.
• His best novels, The Great Gatsby (1925) and Tender Is the Night (1934), did not produce much income. Royalties from The Great Gatsby totaled only $8,397 during Fitzgerald’s lifetime.

Fitzgerald wrote short stories for magazines to earn money which provided him the freedom to pursue less well paying but artistically significant works. He also moved to Los Angeles and wrote scripts for the studios. During his Hollywood years, he was never paid less than $1,000 a week. By contrast, Warner Bros., in the 1940s, paid William Faulkner $300 a week.

Also by comparison, I received a check in the mail from Google today for $100.73. According to Technorati, I’m among the 28% of bloggers, a.k.a. writers, who make some amount of cash from their efforts today. That’s a lot of people making a little bit of money, when the trick–one clearly mastered by Fitzgerald–is to be one of the few writers making lots of money.

It’s Sunday and a great day to visit the northern Willamette Valley. We hightail it out Highway 26 to Forest Grove, home of Pacific University, a quaint downtown and increasingly, new homes on the outskirts. We motor up David Hill Road, leaving pavement and worldly concerns behind, to David Hill Winery which welcomes us and our dog, Lucy.

David Hill’s tasting room is located in an historic farmhouse, originally built in 1883. The farm is on 140 acres with some of the oldest vines in the state. We buy a bottle of 2007 Estate Pinot Noir, on sale at $16.00 and a bottle of Farmhouse Red for $10.00. We pop the pinot and enjoy it immensely in the picnic area with some bread and cheese that we toted from the city. The $16.00 bottle sure tastes like a $30.00 to us.

Next up, a rendevouz with Kim and Alan at Lion Valley Vineyard in Cornelius. Except it’s not Lion Valley anymore. It’s Ardiri. That’s what the sign says. Hey, we’re adaptable. The gates are open and when we get out if the truck, a gentle Rodesian Ridgeback greets Lucy. Proprietor John Compagno comes out to meet us and explains the multiple changes in ownership (remind me to get a new guidebook). He also says they’re planning to build a tasting room. I ask if he will sell us wine and he graciously agrees, noting that he’s right in the middle of harvest. I say don’t worry about us. He says help yourself to the picnic area and I’ll be out with some wine in ten minutes.

We buy a $20 bottle of 2006 Carneros Napa Valley Pinot Noir. The wine is made from California grapes from Ardiri’s Napa vineyard, but it was aged and bottled in Oregon (under contract with Gypsy Dancer Estates, the property’s owner after Lion Valley and before Compagno and his partner Gail Lizak took over in 2008). The grapes the team is collecting and de-stemming today will go into Ardiri’s first pinot noir vintage from this land, John says. He says he plans to blend wine from this vineyard with wine from their Napa property. That’s one way to make California and Oregon get along.

Kim and Alan show up with their dog Hilo in tow. The winery manager’s dog, Joshu, loves Lucy but Hilo’s not sure about Joshu. He is big!

Gail escorts Kim down into their wine cellar and hands over another 2006 Carneros Napa Valley Pinot Noir. We open the second bottle and nibble olives and some of Kim’s homemade jalapeno jelly on crackers, while soaking up what’s left of the sun and stunning scenery in all directions.

Before we go, we walk up the hill to take it all in. From that high ground, we see Mt. Hood, Mt. Adams and Mt. St. Helens. The afternoon light is skimming off the western hilltop and making everything we see a bit more beautiful than it was an hour ago. On our way out, we make a point to thank John for his lovely wine and hospitality and to wish him luck with his 2009 vintage.

How Portland am I? I’m underemployed, a fixture at the dog park and I wear a hoody. Plus I love micros, local pinot noir and dining at the city’s premier food carts. It’s this last bit I’d like to tell you more about.

Gourmet Magazine recently profiled eight of Portland’s not-to-miss carts, and I’ve enjoyed two of them this week (and it’s only Wednesday).

To me, dining out is partly about the adventure. If the restaurant or food cart serves ethnic food, I want to travel to that far away land, edibly speaking. Cora y Huichol Taqueria on SE 82nd and Holgate really delivers in the transport department. It’s a short journey down SE 82nd, but when you arrive at this concrete corner and eat the dishes made by skilled and caring ladies, you’re no longer in Portland at all.

image courtesy of Portland Food Carts blog

Marissa Robinson-Textor, writing for Gourmet, says:

the moment you taste the Nayarit and Jalisco specialties at this little white truck, you’ll be riding the waves with the best of them. In a city brimming with quality Mexican food, items like tacos al pastor certainly hold their own, but it’s the seafood dishes—a tangy, spicy “ceviche” and tostadas de camaron—that will hook, line, and sinker you.

I ordered two ceviche tostadas and lightly decorated them with salsa habanera. I’m always on the hunt for good ceviche and it is an elusive dish, indeed. But now I know who in Portland has their ceviche game together. The tostadas were filled to the brim with a shrimp and octopus (I think) mixture, drowning in lime juice. The shrimp was perfectly marinated, and the tostadas were thick enough to handle the generous toppings.

I can’t wait to return to try some other items from Cora y Huichol Taqueria. I’m thinking a torta might be my next call when I’m out that way again.

Alan D. Mutter writes Reflections of a Newsosaur, where, for the reader’s benefit, he combines his experience in Silicon Valley with that of his time spent at newspapers. As such, he’s a good person to consider how publishers can make money online, or if they can.

He offers this quick checklist:

1. You cannot charge for such commoditized content as world, national, business, sports and entertainment news.

2. You might be able to charge for local coverage, if it is sufficiently intensive, comprehensive and exclusive to make to make it required reading for residents of the targeted community.

3. In the business-to-business realm, you probably can charge users for exclusive information that helps them make money, avoid losing money or, ideally, both at the same time.

4. You probably can charge consumers for two things: (a) exclusive entertainment content and (b) authoritative information that helps them hang on to more of their money.

I think this is a pretty tight look at the topic. Exclusive content, especially in an area that others rely on to do their own jobs or manage their own money, is worth paying for/subscribing to, now as before. But such content is not common. It’s rare.

The online monetization conundrum isn’t about electrons versus print at all. The issue is the same as it ever was–the publisher with the best, most relevant and entertaining content wins. And that victory won’t be delivered by paid subscribers alone, but through a mix of revenue streams that might include semi-annual fund drives, selling merchandise like books or t-shirts, wise use of search and display advertising and sponsored events or conferences.

Books are like babies. They take time to conceive, develop and eventually stand on their own.

According to The New York Times, a star of the print media business–now deep into her first big digital project–thinks she can speed the incubation process up considerably.

In a joint venture with Perseus Books Group, The Daily Beast is forming a new imprint, Beast Books, that will focus on publishing timely titles by Daily Beast writers — first as e-books, and then as paperbacks on a much shorter schedule than traditional books.

“There is a real window of interest when people want to know something,” Ms. Brown said. “And that window slams shut pretty quickly in the media cycle.”

Perseus is paying The Daily Beast a five-figure management advance to cover the costs of editing and designing the books, and Perseus will distribute the titles through its existing sales force. The writers will receive low five-figure advances from Perseus, then split profits from the sale of both the e-books and paperbacks with Perseus and The Daily Beast.

The imprint’s first book, scheduled to be published as an e-book in December and a paperback in January, is “Attack of the Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe Is Hijacking America,” by John P. Avlon.