Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Jordan
This reduces the role (and value) of the author to that of a typist. Thanks loads.
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That is not at all what I'm saying. The author still provides artistic value. Coming up with the stories is not trivial, and is not something that the average person can easily do with any degree of competency. That's where the author's value is (and in reality always has been). What an artist may not be able to do anymore is rely on a perpetual stream of revenue coming in based on the service of printing/distributing a digital work they created. In the physical world, that service is where the money is made. In the digital world, consumers don't need anybody to print/distribute (or at least there's not much value in it), so an author can't expect to make their money for that service. That's the specific role that has been reduced in value, not the role of the author in general.
Authors need to adapt their model so that they make profit off of the writing of the book, and then will need to start working on the next book if they want to continue making a living as an author (which is how it already works for everybody else). Realistically, they (or whoever they sell the rights to) no longer have a monopoly as the distributor once the digital work is released, so can't count on that service as their revenue source. Distribution is not where the money is anymore.