Quote:
Originally Posted by CommonReader
Sometimes I do wonder if the people who are going all Ayn Rand about other peoples' jobs and existence take the same cold, hard look at their own jobs.
All the same, I do believe that major advances for authors who aren't in blockbuster territory were a rather recent phenomenon and couldn't be expected to last. Authors are caught in the same development that sees a widening gap between the super-rich and what used to be comfortably middle class.
I also wonder why an author who isn't that well known believed that he should be able to run a separate office in one of the world's most expensive cities.
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I can't speak for anyone else, but I simply view the authors' jobs though the very same, cold, hard Ayn Rand view that I use on my OWN business. Anyone who thinks that self-employment or having a small business is sitting around in your jammies eating bon-bons while other folks labor hasn't tried it. It isn't. (Or, if they try it, are doomed to fairly quick failure at it.)
Capitalism is, as I have said on these forums in other posts,
simply Darwinism played with money. Nobody wants to admit that, because it makes them uncomfortable, for a wide variety of reasons.
It's no different for authors who, even before, were self-employed, had they entered into contracts that gave the illusion of employment by someone else through advances and royalty checks. Like all self-employed/small businesses, they have to work hard for their ducats, budget for lean times, and have realistic expectations as to their future incomes. They have a massive advantage over we of the more plebeian working slobs; they may yet "get discovered" by the masses, sell zillions of books, and apotheose to financial freedom--unlike the rest of us who are not laboring over "creative" that may catch fire. I don't begrudge authors their monies; nor the publishers who stake them (or their own publishers' rewards if they stake themselves). I just have an issue with the tone of the article.
As I said: it's the same boat in which most of us find ourselves, and we are, generally, not so lucky as to have the luxury of doing something we love for those ducats. Everybody, generally, is having harder times. Period.
Hitch