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Old 03-08-2014, 10:28 AM   #181
Catlady
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Originally Posted by mrscoach View Post
If I was at a party and someone said they were an author the thought that comes to my mind is "have you been published?" Does this negate them as an author? No, it does not, it asks if I have a chance of reading them.
We all know the jokes/stories of people being actors, but never having gotten a part in anything. If at a party and asked what they do, they answer that they are an actor. Then they are asked if they have been in anything or what they have been in.
If someone considered theirself an author it is not up to me to argue with their perception.
Really? No matter how deluded a person is, you'll just accept his self-perception? There's no objective standard to judge by?
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Old 03-08-2014, 10:43 AM   #182
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Originally Posted by Catlady View Post
Really? No matter how deluded a person is, you'll just accept his self-perception? There's no objective standard to judge by?
Sure. Especially when them "really" being an author or not has no bearing on me. There's no prize for "catching someone out." Why would I care if someone was deluding themselves? I have no need to judge someone's self-perception. It doesn't really gain me anything.

Provided I don't ever find myself in a life or death situation that only a "legitimate" author could bail me out of, I don't see any real need for the title to have its honor defended.

EDIT: but just to be clear... I'm perfectly fine with anyone having their own personal ideas about what the word "author" should (or should not) encompass. I just don't think there's any need to have any kind of socially dictated "standard" that everyone's expected to abide by. There'd be no advantage over the existing situation that's already working for everybody (unless you're only concerned with saving the poor unwashed masses--who don't know any better--from the evils of self-proclaimed authors. But that's another phenomenon entirely).

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Old 03-08-2014, 11:02 AM   #183
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Originally Posted by Catlady View Post
Really? No matter how deluded a person is, you'll just accept his self-perception? There's no objective standard to judge by?
Why not? No one appointed me judge and jury.
However, if I asked someone what their occupation was and they said 'Prime Minister' and you know full well they aren't Mr Cameron, I would smile and inch away....
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Old 03-08-2014, 11:35 AM   #184
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Originally Posted by Catlady View Post
But this is how you choose a book. I'm asking how you define an author. Are you really saying that the word is basically meaningless? That when you hear someone claim to be an author, it means nothing?

If you mean does the word 'author' have any prestige associated with it, no absolutely not. It never has and it never will.
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Old 03-08-2014, 12:29 PM   #185
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Originally Posted by Catlady View Post
But this is how you choose a book. I'm asking how you define an author. Are you really saying that the word is basically meaningless? That when you hear someone claim to be an author, it means nothing?
Yes, that's is exactly the case.

"I am an author" does not carry any meaning or status, because everybody can be an author whenever they want. There is no way to prevent someone from being an author.

If someone says to me "I am an author" without any other explanation, then I'm going to assume that he writes for work and makes money with it; that he is a professional author on the job, so to speak. If it then turns out that he isn't, and basically does cleaning for a day job, that person is still an author (an amateur), but he is inflating the designation.

To compare, anyone can reply: "I am a software engineer" or "I'm a singer", while the only software they write is used by themselves, and they only sing in the shower.

Yes, even if you do this stuff (writing, software engineering... anything, basically) for fun only, you're still an author/software engineer/anything, but you'd be wise not to mention it as your primary job or hint at it as your way of making a living if you cannot convincingly back it up. You'd be making a fool of yourself.
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Old 03-08-2014, 12:54 PM   #186
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Nowhere I know of has "author" as a protected occupation. In some places in the world you cannot call yourself and "engineer" if you do not have engineering qualifications, in other places you cannot call yourself a "psychologist" unless you have appropriate qualifications. However, it seems that being an "author" has no prerequisites anywhere...but perhaps you know different.
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Old 03-08-2014, 01:47 PM   #187
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Originally Posted by Catlady View Post
That when you hear someone claim to be an author, it means nothing?
To me it would mean they are unemployed.
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Old 03-08-2014, 02:24 PM   #188
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I think the differentiation we are seeking is between authors, and great authors. there are plenty of professionals who aren't very good, and just about everyone in the world is an author of some sort, maybe not of books though.
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Old 03-08-2014, 02:31 PM   #189
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Originally Posted by Catlady View Post
Really? No matter how deluded a person is, you'll just accept his self-perception? There's no objective standard to judge by?
I've only read this last page starting with your post as there are too many pages to catch up on, but I can answer that question:

The objective standard to judge if someone is an author by is if he's written anything. If he has, then he's an author.

If you want to discuss the standard to judge if someone is a good author, well, then that is an entirely different subject, and of course will be very subjective.
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Old 03-08-2014, 02:34 PM   #190
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This is quite possibly in the top 10 silliest threads on this forum. Though not surprised.
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Old 03-08-2014, 02:58 PM   #191
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This is quite possibly in the top 10 silliest threads on this forum. Though not surprised.

But actually, upon more careful examination, this thread brings up a subtle point which is that today there is no clear way to differentiate between the artists we should pay attention to and the more common fare. Companies like Amazon have sought to democratize literature and so promote the idea that everyone can be an author and stand side by side with greats, and the only differentiator is sales. Same is true for other arts too.
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Old 03-08-2014, 03:14 PM   #192
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Originally Posted by bigbadburninbush View Post
But actually, upon more careful examination, this thread brings up a subtle point which is that today there is no clear way to differentiate between the artists we should pay attention to and the more common fare.
... the artists that WHO says we should pay attention to?

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Old 03-08-2014, 03:20 PM   #193
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That WHO says we should pay attention to?
Well that's just it. Amazon says we should pay attention to Stephenie Meyer. A lot of attention! Even though amongst those who value the written word, it is well known that she can hardly write. Her books being full of mistakes and common prose. I believe that great voices shine through based on their intrinsic qualities, however in this time it seems that market interests can all but drown it out.

So we're talking about authors. And that used to imply some quality, but sadly now not really, hence the need to distinguish. I guess that used to be called 'taste'.
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Old 03-08-2014, 03:29 PM   #194
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So we're talking about authors. And that used to imply some quality, but sadly now not really, hence the need to distinguish. I guess that used to be called 'taste'.
But that's just it, it never DID imply quality. I read lots of authors that flat-out sucked before ebooks and indies ever hit the scene.

It seems to me that those who talk about a need to "distinguish", already have distinguished for themselves. But now they'd like to be able influence others to adopt their distinguished "tastes" through the use of some sort of arbitrary, scarlet-letter branding system.

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Old 03-08-2014, 03:36 PM   #195
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Originally Posted by bigbadburninbush View Post
Well that's just it. Amazon says we should pay attention to Stephenie Meyer. A lot of attention! Even though amongst those who value the written word, it is well known that she can hardly write. Her books being full of mistakes and common prose. I believe that great voices shine through based on their intrinsic qualities, however in this time it seems that market interests can all but drown it out.

So we're talking about authors. And that used to imply some quality, but sadly now not really, hence the need to distinguish. I guess that used to be called 'taste'.
I disagree with you on almost all points here. There have always been bad authors since there were authors, and there have always been badly published authors since there was publishing.

Meyer would've been a famous and best selling author with or without Amazon. Amazon did not make her famous. There have always been authors who sell well who aren't considered good by the more literary or more elite crowd.

And, by the way, there have always been people bemoaning the erosion of civilisation in any given time, and our present time in literature just happens to point to Amazon and self-publishing as some current scapegoats.

Not that there isn't loads and loads of rubbish in self-publishing. But it is democratising publishing and allowing less easily pigeonholed authors to be heard, and one can easily ignore self-published works if one wants. I rarely look at self published works unless it comes highly recommended, so I don't feel my choices, selection and percent of quality literature that I peruse today are any different than 10 or 20 years ago.
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