Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
If someone wants to write their memoirs, and cares about their family... why publish? Why publish something that dredges up old conflicts and might be shameful or hurtful to their friends & family members, if the family doesn't get any benefit from it?
Why bother working on the notes for the next novel, that you know you won't finish before you die, if you can't hand it off to your kids or your best friend who knows the world best, but instead it becomes open for anyone to reprint and exploit?
Or: you finished the novel. It's there in your hard drive. Your family gets hit by a bus; your spouse is killed, you are hospitalized, and aren't going to live more than a couple of weeks. Why should you send it off to the publisher if the proceeds aren't going to your kids?
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Because you like to publish books. And you write because you like to do it and so on. For the cases you mention I have never heard about anybody doing it for the money. I have heard about people doing it for a lot of other reasons.
The thought that somebodu wrote memoirs just before they dies to make money for the people surviving them have never occurred to me.