Quote:
Originally Posted by Giggleton
I am very interested in paying authors directly, indeed this promise has been with us since the dawn of the digital age, unfortunately realizing this brave new world has been hindered by the limitations of the network. I could go on but I won't.
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It has nothing to do with the limitations of the network. Authors have been able to offer their own works for pay ever since there's been a way to do it online, like any other business. And there's nothing stopping people from offering their works for free. Just look at the millions of fanfic stories and other free works out there, easily accessable and available completely free.
What's seemed to have stopped a lot of authors is that they have to learn a new system of selling their work. Many do want to be published the old fashioned way, because there is a sense that having a publisher publish your work and getting to say that you are published is the 'Holy Grail' of writing.
For others, it's having to learn how to get their own sites set up and how to receive payments, while worrying about people taking their work without permission. So they have to no only have day jobs, and write, but then find time to learn how to manage a web site.
So many have gone to middlemen to handle the on-line publishing, so they can devote their time to writing when they can. For them, it's worth paying the middleman to not have to deal with the on-line part of the business.
So the 'limitation's of the network isn't high up on the list of why most authors don't sell from their own web sites. I think it's very low on the list, since the network as it stands now has all the tools they need if they want to use it.