The word "should" shouldn't be applied to the question. Writing words is like writing code: some people are paid to do it, and some do it for fun. Both professi

The word "should" shouldn't be applied to the question. Writing words is like writing code: some people are paid to do it, and some do it for fun. Both professionals and hobbyists can create good or bad writing, and they have to be judged case by case. Like math or woodcarving, writing is a skill which on the most basic level accomplishes a workaday task, and with more sophistication may produce beauty. Maybe all arts are on that spectrum, which starts with necessity and ends with aesthetics. On the professional side: Writing is commercialized for various purposes. Journalists are paid to convey facts; columnists perform acts of middle-brow cleverness; and novelists arrange words to produce emotions. All of those products are substitutable goods. Radio, TV and the Internet have left the industries of the written word in ruins. Newspapers, publishing, you name it -- there are no barriers to entry any more. Writing has been largely commodified. This has a lot of consequences. One is a decline in marketing budgets for new books. Unless a novel is sure to sell, and even then, a publishing house will offload the task of promoting the book to the writer. So half a writer's life will be spent barnstorming from one book-signing to the next. This is compounded by the networking they must do to land a book deal in the first place. Like startup founders, authors need to make something that people want, and then find a way to distribute it. Networking is all about solving the distribution problem, getting noticed. Nobody else will do it for you...