What everything is about or... literature as it is not.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

You, sir, are absolutely incorrigible (and I think you might be projecting—with regards to the OP's intentions—just a tad).

Don't incorrige him, DD .

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Don't incorrige him, DD .

Tell me you just didn't do that?

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I have an even more shameful confession. When I was a textbook author (about 15 years ago now) I wrote for (hangs his head in shame) MONEY. Yes, it's true. A publisher PAID me to write physics textbooks. It was a job. I didn't do it for love. I did it for the money. Shocking, huh?

Why do you think it is shocking? I edit nonfiction books because I can earn more editing them than I can editing fiction. And publishers (and sometimes authors) pay me to do the editing; it doesn't get done for free. Few people have the luxury of both doing a job because they love it and earning a sufficiently high income doing what they love. Most of us work at what we call jobs, not love affairs .

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Tell me you just didn't do that?

Somebody had to.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Penforhire

....

To the OP, you come across snobbish. I suppose that's fine if you want to be an artist rather than a craftsman. Others already pointed out that being a successful independent 'anything' is an impure occupation. You must sell yourself. You must account for your money. I admire the pure artists I know but I sure don't want to emulate their inability to figure out where their next meal is coming from. I agree with Maslow's heirarchy of needs. Take care of baser needs ahead of spiritual satisfaction. You want to perform mental masturbation? Go for it, right after the bills are paid.

If you can't possibly respond to everyone who posted in this thread then I suggest internet forums are not your cup of tea. There are hardly an insurmountable number of people posting in this thread so far. Your phrasing is condescending. The term that springs to mind, your tone, is "neckbeard."

But if you turn out to be our next Dickens, Hemingway, or Thompson I'll be sure to read your work... um, art.

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Is anyone else confused about what this thread is trying to get at. It's a conversation without a topic.


Writers of fiction, sure. A Masters of Imagination may not be required for technical manual writers, though.

EDIT: I just noticed the pronoun with which you chose to start each and every one of your paragraphs in the previous post. I think understand the thread now.

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

It's not nice to bait the pompous for they know not what they are and will totally miss the point.

Good one all the same

Helen

[DixieGal]

sales and business should be the goal. Unless you sell a lot of books, your world-rattling words go unnoticed. Just ask Dickens whether cash or art was more important to his young mind when his family was in the poorhouse.

So go write the best book that you can. Prove that you can change the world. Then come back and spit it in our faces. I honestly wish the best for you. Good luck!

[kennyc]

What? You mean MARKETING doesn't work?

How could it be, the entire economy is built on it.

And what of history?

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by kennyc

What? You mean MARKETING doesn't work?

How could it be, the entire economy is built on it.

And what of history?

The economy isn't built on art, which is notoriously difficult to quantify economically. History gives us numerous examples of art which has gone unappreciated for years-decades-centuries, artists who were forced to depend on rich patrons to survive (regardless of their talent or artistic quality), and great artists who quite literally starved for lack of money or support. Out of the hundreds of thousands (millions?) of artists of one sort or another down the ages, we only really remember a few hundred, and only a few of those lived comfortably.

That's the history of art.

Traditional marketing doesn't work on art, either, since it is such a personal subject; only exposure to the right people sells art, and that's basically a crap-shoot.

Literature has been largely divorced from Art for over a century now; it has been redesigned as Product. It is marketed as product, handled as product, and sold as product. Its evolution to digital files hasn't changed the public perception of Books As Product. People can read literature, but overall, they buy and read Product.

I suspect it's going to be a long time before people come to think of books as anything other than product; even now, as some ebook enthusiasts try to convince others that books are a "fundamental Human heritage" that ought to be available to all, with the only arsenal in their argument being the fact that they don't want to part with their hard-earned money to obtain things.

Of course, if you don't want to participate in the rendering of your work as Product, you have the right to do with your work whatever you want... no one's stopping you. The present (digital) landscape will probably make it easier for you to disseminate your work further than it could have gone 20 years ago, literally worldwide. Go for it... and ignore those who are only interested in literature as Product.

(Trust me: It'll only make you crazy otherwise.)

[elcreative]

Originally Posted by EWGB

I could not possibly respond to everyone personally and I do not think that is necessary. The number of you who have read and responded to this thread is indicative of the fact that it is of importance. I am not worried by the difference of opinions. To the contrary - I find it encouraging. The topic is neither social, nor political and I have no intention of pushing it in those directions regardless of the sarcastic or ironic comments about my political views. I simply pointed out some obvious facts and attempted to make sense of them. I do not expect everyone to share my opinion.

I in no way see myself as some sort of brick-maker or see my writing as a product. Literature -- whether entertaining or not -- implies the presence of talent. I am not sure, however, whether pounds or number of books sold are adequate measures of it. For me at least, quality literature should have a cleansing effect on its readers, should create new measures and systems of thinking, not overwhelm the reader with things fake or toxic. The world we have created and the relationships among us are fake and toxic enough. The publishing business, however, like any other business, does not follow such logic. For it, the determining factor is profit, not quality. As a result, morality as a categorical imperative has been pushed out of all social spheres and been replaced by the barbarism that is innate to humans. In that context, it is my personal belief that the writer should have a sense of mission.

I definitely prefer to present myself in this way rather than indiscriminately bolster my image through posting the cover of my book or its description. This is done in the same way and everywhere and, in the end, nobody is paying attention to authors stepping on each other's heads or elbowing each other. Instead of reading an author's book description, I would like to find out what is his or her way of thinking, how he or she perceives the world, what are the main points in his or her value system. The rest is more or less commonplace advertising where the apparent variety in fact conceals the total lack of imagination. Writers should be masters of imagination. Am I wrong?

Yes, you are wrong, if your writing matches your posts here then you may have the satisfaction of a few people of like mind reading your words whilst the rest of the world happily ignore them. A writer's primary responsibility is being read... if nobody reads your words then you may as well keep 'em in your head rather than wasting the world's limited resources on more unwanted material... get over yourself, if publishers don't want your work then self-publish through one of the many sites that allow self-ePubbing... don't worry, you won't have to soil your higher ethic with money, you can give your work away and see what happens...

[EWGB]

There is definitely something rotten but it can hardly be Shakespeare. Literature cannot be serious or entertaining. It either is literature or it is not. To entertain is also to write serious literature and this demands no smaller measure of talent. How could we possibly say that the writings of Jerome K. Jerome are not serious or have no literary merit?. Serious literature reflects talent. At the same time, we have to admit the fact that the publishing industry, like every industry (business) is not interested in the artistic qualities of literature but in the bottom line. What happens, however, when profit is the only or the most important criterion? If Shakespeare were alive today, he may have changed the central theme of Hamlet from "To be or not to be," to "To be or to have."

[DiapDealer]

That's heavy, man.

[EWGB]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

That's heavy, man.

It is heavy indeed. Even without any metal in it...

[kennyc]

Heavy as unleavened bread.

[TGS]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Heavy as unleavened bread.

Which can be very nourishing - and some people thrive on a diet in which all of their bread is unleavened.

[kennyc]

Never said otherwise, some thrive on a diet of fruit and NUTS as well.