Quote:
Originally Posted by Kajti
Except that's not strictly true. Some people have always been driven to write, and have done so without regard to how widely they're read, if it all. As long as humans are human, this isn't likely to change. Vast amounts of fan fiction and original material exist online, that no one charges for. Also, some writers will manage to get enough return from tip jars or whatever that they will consider it monetarily worthwhile to write even if it's infeasible to charge for copies of their works.
Further, even if writers stop writing (and here I'm mostly considering for-pay fiction writers), does it matter? Yes, I have a list of future books I'll pick up when they come out, mostly continuing series and works by authors I like. But I survive when an author dies, and won't write any more. I'll survive if all fiction writers stop producing. Enough has already been produced that I could read a novel a day in the categories I like for many decades to come. The books are out there, easily available to download. Thousands of books sit on my hard drive, waiting to be read.
|
Listen--my favorite author is Jane Austen (who isn't producing any more books) and I'm currently glomming 18th century literature, the books that Jane Austen would have read, and enjoying them immensely. But I think it's a darned shame that many very good books wouldn't be written because the authors were busy doing something else to pay the bills--it's not greed that drives people to write for pay. We all have busy lives and have to set priorities, and for some people, work and family come before writing if they're not making a living at it. I write fan fiction, believe me, I'm not prejudiced against it at all, but so much of it is so bad, it's not really a matter of simple supply and demand. For-profit publication assumes that the work is good and someone will want to read it--and that more people want to read it than not. Most fan fiction is the other way around.