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Originally Posted by pdurrant
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Yes. It's amazing how suddenly, all authors are supposed to live on air. Scads of people on this thread have been going on about how the length of copyright won't affect whether or not writers write, but this type of thing absolutely affects my ideas, personally, on whether or not I'd ever bother to finish a manuscript I've had half-done for ages. Here's three short paragraphs from the article (for those of you that didn't read it):
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Hensher, who was shortlisted for the Man Booker prize in 2008 for his novel The Northern Clemency, a portrait of Britain's social landscape through the Thatcher era, wrote his first two novels while working a day job, but said: "I always had an eye to when I would make a living from it. If people who claim to respect literature – professors of literature at Cambridge University – expect it, then I see no future for young authors. Why would you start on a career if it's not just impossible, but improper, to expect payment?"
Author Guy Walters, this week vented his frustrations at a rising number of requests to work for free in an article for literary journal the Literary Review. In it, he cursed his own foolishness for having accepted an invitation to speak at Hay festival in return for six bottles of wine.
"The problem is not just festivals, it's across the lots and lots of different institutions, organisations, literary prizes and events who expect authors to do things for very little or no money, because it's an honour to do it," Walters said. "There's a romantic notion that authors work for the love of culture and high ideals, but it doesn't put food on the table. If you value culture, you must pay artists. It's a complete con and an absolute racket. There's a word for working for free: it's slavery." - from Guardian, Liz Bury, today's date: http://www.theguardian.com/books/201...-work-for-free
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Food for thought. I'm off to read the "whore" article--see more nice people who think artists should be grateful for being asked to work for free...
Hitch