[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by PKFFW

That is the same for any career that is not your run of the mill, swap money for time, type job. Only the "lucky few" make it in just about any endeavour. Stock trading, starting a business, being an artist, inventing a new product, being a sports person, whatever the case may be. Writing is no different.

Why does that mean one should not hope to make a living from it? Why should one not want to make money from it? If one enjoys it, is "good" at it and wants to do it full time rather than slaving away at a job 9-5 then who are you to rant and rave at them about it?

You proved my point. Anyone can HOPE to make a living, that's fine, but to EXPECT or DEMAND that living is another kettle of boiled monkeys altogether. And who am I to rant and rave, well, I'm that guy who writes for love, you know, the one who doesn't expect to make money and has no intentions of writing for any reason other than I love to write. I'm that guy who's looking at the future and seeing that writers better start shifting their expectations or they're in for a massive shock. I'm the guy arguing for love and not dollar bills. That's who I am.

You don't think Facebook and twitter are about making money? I saw an interview with someone involved in creating Twitter and he was saying the makers are disappointed they having found a way of making any real money from it yet. Next you will be saying Google was just a project to earn respect from the web community right?

There may be communities within the web, facebook, twitter or whatever that are doing their thing just for the fun and respect of it all but don't be fooled into thinking that if 99% of them could up and sell their community for a buckload of money they wouldn't jump at the chance.

Well both Twitter and Google were started with very little investment at all, by people just as interested then in the coding/intellectual aspects of their respective technologies as they ever were in the monetary gain. Google continues to show that same pioneering/inquistive spirit even now after earning ridiculous amounts of money with projects such as Google Summer of Code and the open-sourcing of API's to do with a lot of their respective IP. I'd actually defy you to find any of these startups that weren't initially thought of by people who wanted to push boundaries, who wanted to break with old traditional models and prove a point. That they can or can't make money means little to the end user on the web.

I nearly fell off my chair laughing at this one!!

You really believe the internet is where you find honest declarations of intent??

The net is more open to scams than anything else. It's biggest advantage is exactly what you are proclaiming as the biggest advantage to writers. The FREE or LOW COST scam! So easy to convince someone to part with a little bit of money, to give something a try, to take a punt on the unknown. There is a whole industry built around teaching people how to drive web traffic to their sites, how to market their sites and how to grab a few bucks from the unsuspecting.

Yes, I do believe that the web is the place for honest intent. The scams you talk about are seen through immediately by anybody with a brain, and by this I include most people who don't regularly watch American Idol. IDIOTS fall for these scams. I can't do anything to cure IDIOTS or argue that there aren't a lot of them. But by that token I would say that most people who like to read books are generally speaking not drooling-morons.

So in a way you are correct. Unpublished(and generally speaking, unpublishable) writers will make more money by going it alone on the net. However, they will generally do so by scamming people into taking a punt and parting with a small chunk of change to try something new.

Maybe I have a more kindly view of people, but I would put good money down that most writers who are offering their books for free are not 'scammers'. Trying something new for a low cost is no worse than the several billion publisher/bookstore sales we see all the time.

As is the vast majority of fan fic and other shite that people self publish on the net. What's the point?

Success can be measured in many ways. You may think these mass produced books are crap but obviously many disagree with you. If only "literary masterpieces" were ever allowed to be published there would be far fewer people reading today. Many people just want a bit of escapist fun. A bit of drivel that passes the time. Why should they not be catered for? Why should not someone who enjoys, and is good at, writing such stuff seek to earn a living from doing so?

I don't know about fan fiction, never read any and never been tempted so I can't comment on the quality or lack thereof. But I have read a lot of independently published material this year and all of it, at a higher ratio than actual pay-for-books, has been very good. In fact, Boyd Morrison's thriller 'The Ark' was better than all of the thrillers I read last year from the best seller list, and by a vast margin.

I don't recall ever saying I don't want 'escapist fun', but I certainly don't want drivel, and anybody who wants to make a living producing drivel, well, I'm not going to stop them. Have at it, I say. Produce your shite and let the idiots lap it up. If I wanted drivel I can turn on the TV at any time of the night and watch US imported dramas or some of our home-grown crap that plagues the box. If all you want is drivel then I can't argue with you. Although I can recommend a novel by a writer called Dan Brown.

Money is bad, mmmkay.

Sometimes, yes.