4 ms·

I measure profundity of novels in ink expended, and the success of my parties in the amount of confetti cast. According to the spec this is the perfect procedur

• geofft 8y ago
  But writers actually do get paid by the word. Charles Dickens was famously paid by the page, and his novels ended up profound enough. I'd wager most professional writers are in the business to make a living, not to be profound.
  • cobbzilla 8y ago
    According to this scholar[1], Dickens was not paid per word or per page, but “per episode”, as many of his books were published a chapter at a time. [1] https://dickens.ucsc.edu/resources/faq/by-the-word.html https://dickens.ucsc.edu/resources/faq/by-the-word.html
    • geofft 8y ago
      That resource says he was paid for every 32 pages. In any case, it seems like for at least some of his early books like The Pickwick Papers, he was paid proportional to volume of output and not to sales/quality. (For some of his later works he earned a percentage of sales.) It's a perfectly fine model for people who aren't already as famous as late-career-Dickens and it can nonetheless produce profound work.
  • Sandman 8y ago
    I'd wager Dickens didn't have anybody stand over his shoulder, watching if he's delivering page after page at a fast enough rate.