Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
as usual, i'm with ed
  

    
Well, yeah, David, but you're atypical: at your age, the vast majority
of musicians aren't touring as much as you do. You're a one-man unit
most of the time, and you've got your fanbase built up by
non-traditional means and started doing so before everyone had a
MySpace or Facebook page. You can do it. Others can't -- it's too late
for them. 
  

    
I suppose that's true.  Damn.
  

    
Ed, I agree that copyright is essential for writers and other
creatives. I also agree (with Lessig et al) that creatives should have
alternatives to license their work for sharing if they so desire.

Another point Lessig et al. have made, that I agree with, is that a
copyright should have a reasonably limited duration, and that there
should be a public domain and a creative commons.

***
A housekeeping point: normally the conversation would end today, and
another Inkwell conversation would take its place. For the first time I
can remember, we don't have a next conversation scheduled... so this
conversation is good for two more weeks, if we want.
  

    
Woohoo, we want
  

    
Oh, I'm with you and Lessing about a creative commons and alternative
licensing, which, given the age of sampling we're in, could even be a
more lucrative alternative for musicians. What I'm not good with is
working for free, which is mostly what I do. 
  

    
When I was in my teens and was clear that my destiny was to write,
Nancy Jones (wife of Austin AP Bureau Chief at the time, Garth Jones)
asked me what I was going to do with my life, and I said I was going to
be a writer. She made a wan smile and asked, "Okay, but how are you
going to make a living?" I said again that I was going to write, and
she said good luck, but you can't make a living as a writer. An
informed comment - she knew a lot of writers and journalists.

I suppose because of that advice, though I write professionally, I
don't depend on writing for income. I suppose the question now, for
writers, is how to create sufficient value in the context we're in to
make real money from your writing. But Ariana Huffington's attitude is
telling: if I good writers will contribute to Huffington post for free,
why should she pay with anything but a chance at "exposure"? But those
of us who've been doing it a while know that exposure plus three
dollars will buy you a cup of coffee.
  

    
Yup, given the capitalist entrepreneurial society in which we live, we
all need day jobs to support our avocations.
  

    
People die of exposure. Unfortunately, that double meaning can become
a single meaning. I've supported myself -- not all that well, most of
the time -- by writing since I was 16. It's all I know how to do better
than the average person. 

And I gotta say, the panels I saw at SXSW in the Future of Journalism
track didn't make me very optimistic. The "how to get a book deal" one
was appallingly bad, in fact. The best one was the one on long-form
journalism's probably having a future, but the guy who ran it, um,
seems to have ageist issues. His site, The Atavist
<http://atavist.net/>, is interesting, but his attitude has kept me
from writing to him about it. 
  

    
Kind of think, well, acutally I do think that we are in one of those
Alvin Toffler vortexes....the times they are a changin...so while we
sort out whether or not the USA will have an economy at all, and what
it will actually look like, creatives are sort of struck looking into
the headlights of the oncoming train wreck that is American economics
at the moment....this probably extends to the global economy as
well....

So, there's a sense where we are, and should be, at a standstill, as
to how to distribute and market our wares in the bizarre bazaar that
exists at the moment...
  

    <scribbled by tcn Thu 14 Apr 11 07:44>
  

    <scribbled by tcn Thu 14 Apr 11 09:38>
  

    
Huh? I don't think that's a publicly-viewable page.
  

    
I like Cory Doctorow's last book, Makers, particularly in this
respect:
http://craphound.com/makers/download/

There, that's the correct link
  

    
Jeez, I've got more scribbles than posts on this convo....sorry guys,
trying to be succinct and slow down -- not a strength obviously