THE IMPOSING GULF BETWEEN WRITING AND AUTHORING
I’m often asked if there is any difference between writing and authoring, especially in today’s roiling world of publishing, publicity, marketing and distribution. It is my experience that fundamentally, writing is what one records for oneself; authoring is what one records for “targeted” readers, or, in the most general sense, humanity at large. The latter includes the idea of recording content in an enduring manner that allows present and future readers a platform for investigation and intellectual growth. I equally include both non-fiction and fiction in this approach. Recently, I introduced a new genre, SCI-FU (science-based futuring) that is meant to provide a “mirror” into which readers can peer reflecting a plausible hypothetical world the result of future human decisions.
Another difference is that writing for oneself doesn’t necessarily require sales skills like public speaking, publicity, advertising or marketing, especially regarding both author and title, all key elements an author must acquire in order to “get the word out.”
Aside from futuring, hasn’t it always been this way? Good question. I’d like to think not, but everything I read suggests otherwise. If anything, that gulf between writing and authoring now has a “bridge:” self-publishing. True, we’ve always had vanity publishers to do the same, but I hold that they lie slightly more on the authoring side than the writer side; whereas self-publishing definitely leans more to the writing side.
Notice I haven’t included “professionalism,” though it can be another major element in authoring in two distinctly different ways: First, money. Enough to “live on,” whatever that means to the individual author. Second, quality of workmanship. The idea and practice of discipline whereby the product gains in quality with experiential maturity. For many amateur or pseudo-authors, the “honor” that accompanies “publication” of a single, first-published work is forever enough. For professional authors, whatever is published is never good enough.
The Edge of Madness
Total Meltdown: A Tripler and Clarke Adventure
Quantum Death
Another difference is that writing for oneself doesn’t necessarily require sales skills like public speaking, publicity, advertising or marketing, especially regarding both author and title, all key elements an author must acquire in order to “get the word out.”
Aside from futuring, hasn’t it always been this way? Good question. I’d like to think not, but everything I read suggests otherwise. If anything, that gulf between writing and authoring now has a “bridge:” self-publishing. True, we’ve always had vanity publishers to do the same, but I hold that they lie slightly more on the authoring side than the writer side; whereas self-publishing definitely leans more to the writing side.
Notice I haven’t included “professionalism,” though it can be another major element in authoring in two distinctly different ways: First, money. Enough to “live on,” whatever that means to the individual author. Second, quality of workmanship. The idea and practice of discipline whereby the product gains in quality with experiential maturity. For many amateur or pseudo-authors, the “honor” that accompanies “publication” of a single, first-published work is forever enough. For professional authors, whatever is published is never good enough.
The Edge of Madness
Total Meltdown: A Tripler and Clarke Adventure
Quantum Death
No comments have been added yet.
