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You couldn't make a living as a writer prior to the invention of the printing press--at least the only way you could do it was to get some individual or institu
by vajrabum 15y ago
You couldn't make a living as a writer prior to the invention of the printing press--at least the only way you could do it was to get some individual or institution to pay you to write a book. In that case books were so expensive that there wasn't a big enough market to do so. Now the cost of a book is asymptotically headed to 0. Maybe you can't make a living from selling books in that world either.
- cantankerous 15y agoBe that as it may, the invention of the printing press wasn't a watershed moment for writers everywhere. Getting a book published in print even now is quite an undertaking when you consider all the individuals, money, and infrastructure involved. The elimination of that infrastructure and closer coupling of content creators to their channels of distribution (i.e. fewer middlemen between them and publishing) will probably provide a bit more leverage to content creators, but it's still not clear how much, how fast, or what the cost will be to everybody else. It looks like we're still trying sorting that out, especially given the current suits around publishers and Apple.
- njharman 15y agoBecause they weren't writers back then as books/reading weren't a market. A writer would have to be a story tellers and you could certainly make money as a story teller. Also, if you could physically write, you could make comfortable living as a scribe.