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>essayists like Paul Graham pg doesn't get paid directly from the essays on his site (afaik), but he does gain reputation and credibility. How many more books
by loewenskind 16y ago
>essayists like Paul Graham
pg doesn't get paid directly from the essays on his site (afaik), but he does gain reputation and credibility. How many more books did he sell because of his essays (e.g. I bought On Lisp after reading "beating the averages")?
The market has been more sophisticated than "give me X and I'll give you money" for a very long time.
- _delirium 16y agoYeah, that's one reason I think selling content directly for money has a troubled future--- there are too many people who gain indirect benefits from giving away high-quality content for free. Add to that the people who do it just because they like to have people read their stuff, and there's a large free-content market competing with any attempt to charge.
- robryan 16y agoSure, the longer more in depth work most of the time must be support in a more financial way, contrast the number of people happy to give away essays of a few pages length for indirect or no benefit to those prepared to spend a year or more writing a well researched book for the same reasons.