Quote:
Originally Posted by Moejoe
Comparisons between real-life and digital are always massively flawed because they don't work the same way. But you're right in a way, most authors now are 'employed' by a company (the publisher) because traditionally they would have no other way to gain an audience. The company pays the author an advance on what they think they can make profitably from the book (all other expenses considered). In this employer/employee relationship only the very few make big bucks, a tiny minority will make a living and the rest have to take second jobs to make ends meet. Culture isn't promoted under this model, its reduced to a profict incentive, a job where art is limited to only that which will make profits for the company.
Under a digital model there is a chance at equity. A chance to redress the balance of our creative endeavours. Under this model we'll see less and less 'big buck' writers, but we'll probably have more and more 'making a living writers' independently publishing their works. Writers supported by fans of their work. Take a long hard look at that word 'supported'. That word is inclusive, the reader isn't just buying a product anymore, they have vested interest in the life of the artist. A stake in the outcome.
Capitalism teaches us that everything is for sale, everything is a product, even our joyous time when we create.
But maybe we're moving away from that finally, into a realm where creator and audience aren't just in a traditional buy/sell relationship. Where the audience is closer than ever to the culture, able to freely derive their own works from that culture without fear of recriminations. Copywrong and the Big 5 Corps stand in the way of us building something worthwhile. They're the wall that we must dismantle brick by brick if we're to have any kind of culture worth a damn in the future.
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You are an idealist (and let us hope you turn out to be right!). A writer can have a relationship like that with his readers in a forum like this one. But to make a living you have to get the word out to a wide audience. You can publish yourself, but will enough people know about it? How many books will crowd the internet and how can readers choose? And with this emerging "everything on the internet is free" mentality I am afraid we will just wind up with ad-supported versions by the big corporations who in this way could very easily defeat the system you have in mind.
By the way, I was only talking about the "big bucks" because that was what seemed to anger member FormatC.