Drowning in the Drought
Another thing that's gnawed at me is that I fear the idea of writing as a functional profession is slipping away from the lower classes, and will eventually settle as an amusement for the upper class, a situation that tracks with most of the fine arts.
As newspapers, magazines, and journals shrivel up, so do meaningful paying venues for writers, as well as areas where novelists might get exposure. Further, actual paying periodicals are fading. I've seen that in my years of navigating the publishing world -- now we see a preponderance of Kickstarters and Patreons by publishers desperate to attain financing, and with cost-of-living always outpacing pay (particularly, but not uniquely, in the States), the capacity of writers to make a living on their writing is evaporating.
On top of that, there's the specter of AI bots writing stories, which'll be the final nail in the coffin for fiction writers eventually.
Anyway, the combination of: 1) fewer good-paying writing venues; 2) fewer regular readers (and/or readers willing to actually *pay* for writing); 3) ongoing cost of living increases; 4) contraction and consolidation of the publishing industry as a whole; and 5) a proliferation of less-demanding forms of entertainment -- pretty soon, the only writers able to be able to afford writing and have any hope of visibility will be the ones who're already rich and/or famous.
Back in the early days of popular literature, it was the privileged who were the literary figures. They had access to the leisure time, the connections, and even the ability to travel and directly speak to a more exotic life than everyday folks could. The 20th century briefly saw a time when non-rich writers could actually get seen and read by wide audiences -- the rich and privileged still had a leg up (as always), but more were capable of participating from outside the elite circles.
These days, at least through self-publishing, hordes of people can get books out there, but getting books out there and getting them seen, read, and appreciated on any level? It's a huge lift that's far easier undertaken by the rich and already-famous, who have the name recognition and, again, the connections to get their work seen. For celebrities, the novelty (pun intended) of novel-writing is incidental to the ability of getting a book discovered and purchased -- it's something non-rich writers can't hope to match.
These millstones are going to grind up the non-rich writers out there vainly trying to compete with the already-successful (or, the fortunate writers who have a spouse/significant other who bankrolls their efforts).
And while we see that reading is moving into a narrower sort of lifestyle niche in people's lives, compared with previous decades, it'll increasingly be an area where only the already-rich and -successful go. They'll be the folks who are able to afford the education, the life experiences, the connections to ensure that their stories get told, discovered, and appreciated, with the majority of us reduced to the role of hapless spectators.
Part of me still presses on in the face of that economic reality, but truly few writers exist out there at a level that they're able to write full-time professionally, which is the dream, right? Who can afford that these days? Long gone are the days when a writer could actually support their family on short story sales (which seems incredible, but it was an attainable reality back in the 1960s). The cost of living, the existence of a hungry reading public, the breadth of publishing venue infrastructure, the existence of decent-paying venues -- it was all there, once, but it's fading away.
Writing professionally will be tied to those for whom it doesn't really need to matter, because the writers for whom it does matter won't be able to make a living doing it. Don't even get me started on things like Kindle Unlimited and piracy of copyrighted material -- that's another part of the withering literary landscape.
I'm not saying it's *impossible* for a writer to come from nowhere and succeed. But it's incredibly unlikely, and that writers who come from somewhere and/or who know the right people are far, far likelier to succeed professionally as writers. And, when you factor in just how hard it is to even get a bestseller in a convulsive and contracting publishing marketplace, those who're in yachts and ocean liners will find that rising, churning tide far more amenable than the ones in canoes and clutching floatation devices, trying to navigate those treacherous waters.
It's like what I often say of music -- It's hard to start a garage band if you don't have a garage, let alone any instruments.
As newspapers, magazines, and journals shrivel up, so do meaningful paying venues for writers, as well as areas where novelists might get exposure. Further, actual paying periodicals are fading. I've seen that in my years of navigating the publishing world -- now we see a preponderance of Kickstarters and Patreons by publishers desperate to attain financing, and with cost-of-living always outpacing pay (particularly, but not uniquely, in the States), the capacity of writers to make a living on their writing is evaporating.
On top of that, there's the specter of AI bots writing stories, which'll be the final nail in the coffin for fiction writers eventually.
Anyway, the combination of: 1) fewer good-paying writing venues; 2) fewer regular readers (and/or readers willing to actually *pay* for writing); 3) ongoing cost of living increases; 4) contraction and consolidation of the publishing industry as a whole; and 5) a proliferation of less-demanding forms of entertainment -- pretty soon, the only writers able to be able to afford writing and have any hope of visibility will be the ones who're already rich and/or famous.
Back in the early days of popular literature, it was the privileged who were the literary figures. They had access to the leisure time, the connections, and even the ability to travel and directly speak to a more exotic life than everyday folks could. The 20th century briefly saw a time when non-rich writers could actually get seen and read by wide audiences -- the rich and privileged still had a leg up (as always), but more were capable of participating from outside the elite circles.
These days, at least through self-publishing, hordes of people can get books out there, but getting books out there and getting them seen, read, and appreciated on any level? It's a huge lift that's far easier undertaken by the rich and already-famous, who have the name recognition and, again, the connections to get their work seen. For celebrities, the novelty (pun intended) of novel-writing is incidental to the ability of getting a book discovered and purchased -- it's something non-rich writers can't hope to match.
These millstones are going to grind up the non-rich writers out there vainly trying to compete with the already-successful (or, the fortunate writers who have a spouse/significant other who bankrolls their efforts).
And while we see that reading is moving into a narrower sort of lifestyle niche in people's lives, compared with previous decades, it'll increasingly be an area where only the already-rich and -successful go. They'll be the folks who are able to afford the education, the life experiences, the connections to ensure that their stories get told, discovered, and appreciated, with the majority of us reduced to the role of hapless spectators.
Part of me still presses on in the face of that economic reality, but truly few writers exist out there at a level that they're able to write full-time professionally, which is the dream, right? Who can afford that these days? Long gone are the days when a writer could actually support their family on short story sales (which seems incredible, but it was an attainable reality back in the 1960s). The cost of living, the existence of a hungry reading public, the breadth of publishing venue infrastructure, the existence of decent-paying venues -- it was all there, once, but it's fading away.
Writing professionally will be tied to those for whom it doesn't really need to matter, because the writers for whom it does matter won't be able to make a living doing it. Don't even get me started on things like Kindle Unlimited and piracy of copyrighted material -- that's another part of the withering literary landscape.
I'm not saying it's *impossible* for a writer to come from nowhere and succeed. But it's incredibly unlikely, and that writers who come from somewhere and/or who know the right people are far, far likelier to succeed professionally as writers. And, when you factor in just how hard it is to even get a bestseller in a convulsive and contracting publishing marketplace, those who're in yachts and ocean liners will find that rising, churning tide far more amenable than the ones in canoes and clutching floatation devices, trying to navigate those treacherous waters.
It's like what I often say of music -- It's hard to start a garage band if you don't have a garage, let alone any instruments.
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