This is mistaken. Writers write. It's their calling. Plenty of writers have been "insane enough" to write and publish without a business model for as long as written language has existed.
No, what's mistaken is not noticing that the world has changed. Websites exist, youtube exists, there are a myriad of ways a writer might "write" or create which does not involve book form. Books remain viable because there's a business model to support them, but take that away and people capable of writing could and would go to modern competing products that didn't exist in the past.
> Books remain viable because there's a business model to support them
If you mean "viable" business-wise, that's a tautology. If you mean "viable" as in "writers feel compelled to write books", that's simply false. Writers write. Many writers like writing books, and would do so even if it didn't put a single cent in their pockets.
Writing books can be turned into a business, but it's not inherently a business.
Also, a book is not its physical form. An electronic book is no less of a book than a paper book.
The business model has existed for centuries at this point. People write books, books are sold. Even those who are simply writing for the sake of writing KNOW that there is the potential to have their book picked up by a publisher and sold, take that away, take the hope of actually being able to support yourself by writing and no... even the most obsessive of obsessive writers will likely give up, from starvation if nothing else.
> take the hope of actually being able to support yourself by writing and no... even the most obsessive of obsessive writers will likely give up, from starvation if nothing else.
Millions of fanfiction writers would like to have a word with you... Not to mention all the authors of comments on this very site, some of which are, at least, good enough to be paid articles somewhere, or in cooperation with other commenters could be turned (as whole threads) into short books in their own right.
Put another way: the music industry could entirely vanish overnight, and people would still sing in the shower and when drinking with their buddies.
Some people tend to express themselves in some way, and they would do it regardless of literally anything. We've achieved high literacy rates, which gave a tool of expression that is writing to a correspondingly high number of people. It's not exactly surprising that we now have a flourishing environment of Web novels and all kinds of written content outside of the "market" and publishing industry as a whole.
But it's not something specific to our times. Plenty of writers in history did starve do death. One of "the three greatest" poets of my country did precisely that: he wasn't published, he wasn't even read much, and when he was, he was ridiculed for it. Yet he had been writing anyway; then, he died in extreme poverty, leaving just a lot of paper behind. It took some 40 years IIRC for someone to "rediscover" the stash of hand-written poems, and now his works are being taught in highschools.
In yet other words: no, not everything has to be related to money. Many things are, yes, but not all. Writing as a profession that published (and paid) authors do is all fine and good, but it's just one side of writing, not its definition.
> Norwid led a tragic and often poverty-stricken life (once he had to live in a cemetery crypt). He experienced increasing health problems, unrequited love, harsh critical reviews, and increasing social isolation.
...and yet his works are easily (IMO) the best among the three of them (the two others would be Mickiewicz and Słowacki).
cool, let's stop paying programmers then. You can write and maintain software for free. Because you'd do it without pay right? I mean, why are authors the ones who don't have to get paid?
I think you're arguing against a strawman. Nobody argued that writers (or programmers) shouldn't get paid; just that writing (and programming) also exist outside the realm of monetary compensation. People write (books and code) for many reasons: because they are passionate about it, for the recognition by their peers, because they want to enter a contest, because of vanity, and yes, because of money.
Getting paid is fine and dandy. What's false is that "without a business model", nobody would be "insane enough" to write books (or programs).
The conflation between doing a thing and getting paid for doing a thing -- or even worse, claiming that without monetary compensation said thing wouldn't exist -- is annoying and misleading.
That's not what I meant. Obviously someone who really likes developing software is likely to make it their job if it's possible, hence the current non-professional developers are not representative of those in a world where there were no software development jobs.
I meant the best software is written without expectation of remuneration.
The Mac was developed by salaried employees, so was Unix and C and all the Xerox PARC stuff. The internet and the web was developed by people getting paid for it. Knuth is a professor, he didn't have to do his work after hours for free.
My impression was that most successful open source projects (Linux, Mozilla etc) are driven by paid contributors.
I'm sure you can find some examples, but depending on your opinion on what the "best software" is, I doubt most of it is developed by people working for free.
I do, too. I also write software for money, as a way to finance my living expenses. When I write software for free and distribute it freely for others to use, I do it on my own volition. The day someone else decides for me that the development work I do for a living should also be free, I will have a serious problem.
Neither the_af nor I are saying that all the writing should be done without the authors being paid for it. We asserted, twice!, that professional authors and publishing industry are OK. What we say is that the published authors who earn a living by writing are not the only source of writing. If all the publishers, the whole industry, would go bankrupt tomorrow, the Web novels would still get new chapters, new fanfics would still get written, new essays would still be put on blogs, new comment threads would still appear, and so on.
Being paid for writing is great. It's just that the paid writing is not all writing - some people write simply to be read, without needing or wanting to be paid for it.
Writing code is different, because it's a means of self-expression only in small part.
> Plenty of writers in history did starve to death.
And you are using this as an argument why authors don't need income? Surely they didn't write anything after they starved, so it seem lack of income did affect the output.
I disagree. Plenty of people take up writing because it's in their blood. They write because writing is their passion and because they have something to tell. Maybe it's artistic, maybe it's political, maybe it's religious -- or a combination.
Getting paid by publishers for writing books is a powerful motivator, but not the only one. In a world without a way to sell books, writers would still write.
> Plenty of people take up writing because it's in their blood. They write because writing is their passion and because they have something to tell.
I can agree with that. We have stuff like fan fiction which people write and share for free. I guess 50 Shades of Grey is the preeminent example of writing as a passion and as a calling rather than a professional skill.
"Fanfiction" comes with a certain baggage and implications of quality. I don't agree that unless you're getting paid, your literary work is fanfiction or unprofessional.
There are authors whose main body of work was only published after their deaths and who are considered literary masters nonetheless, and not fanfiction writers.
All in all, I agree with a sibling comment: we must divorce the business of writing with the art of writing. They are related, of course, but the latter doesn't require the former. Once one understands this, one is less inclined to claim things such as "if writers don't get paid, books won't get written".
> I don't agree that unless you're getting paid, your literary work is fanfiction or unprofessional.
That is kind of the definition of professional though.
Writing, like any other skill, takes time and practice to master. If you can't dedicate yourself full time you will not reach your highest potential. And it requires some form of income to be able to dedicate yourself full time. Just like a professional pianist will be better than an amateur.
> Writing, like any other skill, takes time and practice to master. If you can't dedicate yourself full time you will not reach your highest potential.
The second sentence here doesn't really follow from the first. I mean, assuming that only time and practice are needed for mastery, then practicing less-than-full-time only makes it correspondingly longer to reach mastery - it doesn't make it impossible, like you claim.
In reality, time and practice are not the only factors, though. You have to account for talent, which not only sets the upper bound on the quality of your writing, but also influences the rate of improvement with practice. It's not exactly unheard of for a debutant's work to be "way better than the latest work of established master X", isn't it? Talent is hard to capture and define, but it's a real thing, especially in the arts, although it also plays a part in trades and crafts (that's where the "10x programmers" and similar concepts come from...)
Talent may be a multiplier but it is not a substitute for practice and learning and dedicated time. Mozart had an amazing talent which combined with intensive training from a young age and dedicated work made him create his masterpieces. If he had the same amount to talent but had to work full time as a cobbler to make ends meet, he would never have been able to produce the same oeuvre.
"Cushy jobs" is overstating it. People find the means to write with poor jobs too.
Yes, you need to be able to have a means of living in order to write. Selling your books is one such way, but not the only one. Lots of writers would still write without a business model.
That was my only point, really. It's false that one would have to be "insane" in order to write. We can argue about ifs and buts all day long, but that bit which I was replying to was hyperbolic and false.
I can do one better: I can mention a hugely popular and commercially successful writer -- whom you know of, at least by name-- who used to live from paycheck to paycheck, really struggling when he started (before succeeding enormously, of course) and who wrote in the introduction to one of his books:
"Painting. Sculpture. Composing. Singing. Acting. The playing of a musical instrument. Writing. Enough books have been written on these seven subjects alone to sink a fleet of luxury liners. And the only thing we seem to be able to agree upon about them is this: that those who practise these arts honestly would continue to practise them even if they were not paid for their efforts; even if their efforts were criticized or even reviled; even on pain of imprisonment or death."
He struck gold, of course, but note the sentiment he expressed. By his own admission, had he never been paid for it, he would have kept writing anyway, because that's what he does. And when he was starting he had other jobs -- and a family to support -- and really struggled with money, but kept going anyway.
All the greatest writers, painters, composers, sculptors etc. dedicated themselves full time to their art. You just can't reach a comparable level of mastery by dabbling in your spare time.
First, this is a secondary discussion. Mastery? That wasn't the argument. The argument was about whether writing books can exist separate from monetary compensation.
Second, as has been mentioned to you in another comment, mastery is not directly related to having been paid for your art. There are acknowledged poets whose work was published posthumously. They didn't live off it.
(The quote was by Stephen King, by the way. Regardless of what you think about his literary skill, the man sure can speak about writing).
I never said I didn't care about quality, just that the discussion you entered was about whether books would exist without payment and whether only the "insane" would still write. You seem to want to take the argument on a tangent, but please read again the post which sparked this thread. What the original comment asserted was patently false.
Writers are free to make their work public domain if they want. The question is for all the author who have not decided to do that, but prefer to get paid for their work.
> Plenty of writers have been "insane enough" to write and publish without a business model for as long as written language has existed.
Only in the case of independently wealthy authors, which historically typically means nobility. Most non-wealthy authors have been depending on patronage, which means some other wealthy person decide what you write.
Copyright was revolutionary because it meant an author could exist without catering to rich or powerful patrons.
> Only in the case of independently wealthy authors, which historically typically means nobility. Most non-wealthy authors have been depending on patronage, which means some other wealthy person decide what you write.
You're mistaking publishing for writing. You need money to publish, because publishing is selling decorated paper. Or rather, you did need money to publish. Now you don't, but instead we throw up artificial barriers in order to preserve the status quo.
> Only in the case of independently wealthy authors, which historically typically means nobility.
Not only that. Plenty of struggling people write because they like writing. Writing is a calling which some people happen to be able to turn into a business.
But do note the post I was replying to. I wasn't arguing about copyright. I was arguing about the hyperbole of "no writer would be insane enough [...]" which is simply untrue. And it's untrue by a lot, not by a little.
