Reading Isaac

The last few evenings I've ended my day by reading bits and pieces of Isaac Asimov's single-volume biography entitled: A Memoir. Here, Asimov--the lamb-chopped, bespeckled, Cro-Magnon renaissance writer of over 600 books--takes the reader through a dizzying array of experiences, mostly of the writing and publishing variety. (I wanted to paste a photo of Asimov in this blog, but his photos and images are carefully guarded, protected, and copy-righted by his estate, so I just pasted my own decade-old photo here .)

I read this little Asimov memoir at least once a year, just to remind myself that it's the act of writing, not necessarily the production of books, that must remain at the heart of a writer's choices and efforts. Asimov was always at the typewriter. He rarely traveled (never by air), rarely participated in book tours or marketing campaigns, and spoke only occasionally (usually at science fiction conventions).

Reading this memoir for perhaps a fifth time, I found some new nuggets. Early in Asimov's writing career (while he was still teaching Chemistry in college and had not yet made the jump to full-time writing status), he had already produced dozens of books. But in that first eleven year span, all of his royalties totaled $7,700. Breaking that down, he made $770 per year from all of his books, articles, essays and royalties combined. Chump change.

I also noted that, in the appendix, which lists all of Asimov's book titles by fiction/non-fiction and all things scientific--in 1988 Asimov wrote 14 books for one publisher. And that was just ONE publisher. Looking through the rest of his publishing history for that single year, I noted that he wrote a total of 33 books in 1988 alone, which may or may not have been his most productive year.

Astounding. Humbling.

Maybe I need to grow my sideburns!