I haven’t the faintest idea what my royalties are. I haven’t the faintest idea how many copies of books sold, or how many books that I’ve written. I could look these things up; I have no interest in them. I don’t know how much money I have. There are a lot of things I just don’t care about.
Joyce Carol Oates
I’m surprised some here never heard of her. She’s been around–and selling and interviewed–for ages. And hugely prolific. It might be true she’s lost track of how many of her books are published, since it’s over 100. I suspect the reason she doesn’t pay attention to royalties, etc, is because she has people taking care of all that for her as a well-known, award-winning literary author. And she likely has millions.
The context for her comment was in response to how “big” or “successful” she was…
“Joyce Carol Oates is the rarest of commodities, an author modest about her work,” wrote Robert Phillips in The Paris Review in 1978. Though she has since won the National Humanities Medal, been nominated for a Pulitzer, and written dozens more books and short stories (including one published in the magazine this week), she remains unusually self-effacing. When we visited her earlier this month, at her home in New Jersey, she told us, “I haven’t the faintest idea what my royalties are. I haven’t the faintest idea how many copies of books sold, or how many books that I’ve written. I could look these things up; I have no interest in them. I don’t know how much money I have. There are a lot of things I just don’t care about.”
She cares deeply about the activity of writing itself. She told us she “can basically write almost all day long, with interruptions.”
JCO and her husband have been professors at unis for a very long time
They have had way substantial take home pay plus pensions, plus whatever inheritance from JCO’s late first husband. She appears to not need to know how much money her ‘books’ bring in, as her main sources of income have been her own university contracts, and her husbands’…
Dinner with the Hepburns, fast forward to 1:22.
“We don’t care about money here, Mr. Hughes.”
“That’s because you have it.”
So yeah, a humblebrag or obliviousness. It’s not something I’d say if I were her, just because as David said above, cultivating a reputation for not caring about money risks attracting people who think you won’t miss a hundred here, a thousand there, until pretty soon you’re talking about real money…
We would all do well to take lessons from JCO. If you haven’t heard of her and read any of her books, you should get out more. She sold her first novel in the mid-sixties and has turned them out regularly for forty years. She’s been criticized for being too popular and for being too literary. If she succeeded by paying attention to her work instead of business, more power to her. Wish I could say as much.
The main problem with that attitude is, it gives implicit permission for people around her to steal from her–agents, publishers, whatever. It sets a bad example for the whole community.
In my limited experience with people like JCO, they are smarter than that. They choose the people to whom they delegate responsibility for their income carefully, then monitor them, but they are freed from counting beans, which, if you don’t care for bean-counting, can kill you.
One of the secrets of success is careful and effective delegation. If you don’t like to do something, find someone you can trust to do it for you. Make them your partner, structure the relationship so that your loss is also their loss, and be equally careful to ensure that your gain is also their gain. As far as I can see, that is the way successful business relationships work.
I wonder what the context is for that quote. Seems like an odd thing to say just out of the blue. I’m guessing she has a money manager who takes care of all those pesky details involving numbers.
I’ll tell you something she does care about. I was in a small audience along with her during an MLA seminar. I coughed when one of the speakers was addressing the group. Just one little cough, but it caused JCO to spin around and glare at me. Dirtiest look I’ve ever gotten.
Wow. That sure does say a lot about a person, I think.
For a while, I “didn’t know” how much I weighed. That didn’t work out well.
LOL!
Oh, that’s very true. Ignoring the numbers doesn’t make the numbers not matter.
I don’t care that Joyce Carol Oates doesn’t care.
Spoken like someone with a wealthy spouse.
This lofty attitude towards money is invariably displayed by those who have never had to worry about it.
If Joyce Carol Oates fell on hard times, I think she’d find she does care about money after all, just like all the little people.
Exactly.
You may not care about how much money you have, but when it hits bottom, the bank will care about you.
Er. That can only work for a limited time and only if you, in fact, have plenty of money.
If you pay no attention to money over the long haul, you will eventually have less of it. And if you have enough less, such that you struggle to pay for food, medicine, or shelter, you will care.
Sounds more like a classic example of “humblebragging” to me.
Exactly. “I’m only interested in art. Mine.”
She’s published a lot of books and is connected with Princeton in some way, but I have no idea how much she sells.
Literary author, I believe.
It does strike me that her underlying point in most of that is, “I make so much money, who can keep track of it all?” Which, if true, I could understand. I mean, I can see how a lot of people would think that way (though they shouldn’t, of course, no matter how much money they make). But I don’t understand how she could have no idea how many books she’s written. That’s not something that happens away from you, which you’d have to intentionally keep track of–or something that happens in such high numbers that you could reasonably lose track quickly. If you’re the one actually writing them, how hard is it to keep a list?
Sounds like someone whose only/main goal was to get their stories out there; not a bad thing at all …
I haven’t the faintest idea who Joyce Carol Oates is. I haven’t the faintest idea what he’s written. I haven’t the faintest idea why I should care about his thoughts or opinions.
There are a lot of things I just don’t care about.
He’s a she. You might have guessed that from her first name.
Counterexample: Joyce Kilmer.
I’ve known at least one man named Carol, too, come to think of it.
I also knew a male-female couple in which both husband and wife were named Shirley.
I did not know Joyce had ever been a man’s name, but it figures. With people of a certain generation you just can’t assume. I made the mistake once of asking an older gentleman if his wife had authorized him to pick up something on her behalf, because his name was Gail, which I thought it was only a woman’s name. Sigh.
During WWII an amazing number of Allied generals were named “Evelyn.”
Oh yeah, I’m aware of the Evelyns (not the WWII ones specifically, just Evelyns-as-men in general). And the Stacys, Beverlys, Vivians, Shirleys, Carols, Dales and Marions (although I usually see that one spelled Marian when it’s a girl’s name). I just had no idea that Joyce belonged on that list. I won’t count the foreigners, Jean and Marie, or Jean-Marie 🙂
Marion Morrison opted for a less ambiguous stage name when he got into show business.
And Evelyn… That is the given of the protagonist in Heinlein’s quasi-fantasy, GLORY ROAD. He had some fun with that: war veteran Evelyn Gordon applies for what he thinks is a mercenary job. At the last moment he realizes it might help to provide a more conventional male name. In the rush, the best he comes up with is Oscar. Which gets interpreted as “Oh, Scar…” with approval. After that he was stuck.
A fun ride, notable for going where few fantasies go: what does the hero do after saving the world(s), marrying the princess (who wasn’t actually a princess), and all that?
That’s one big sign of the times. Less kids named after ancestors. 🙂
Just remembered: I got it backwards. He was aiming for the tough guy nickname and got stuck with Oscar. It was still better than Evelyn.
Dales? I never would have considered that a woman’s name. Huh. Names are so interesting.
John Wayne is the most famous of the Marions I know of, followed by the “b– set me up!” mayor of DC. I hadn’t heard of Glory Road, I think, but I’m adding it to my to-buy list. I like the premise.
@Anon — I first heard of “Dale” as a woman’s name when it was a source of a minor gag in a sitcom back in the 80’s. A man in that episode was named Dale, and everyone kept demanding to know why he had a woman’s name. In truth, the only Dale I knew of at that point was the gap-toothed brother of Chip, from the “Rescue Rangers” cartoon. I agree, names are very interesting. As a little hobby I like to study their etymologies.