Yup, we still hear too many folks, who should know better, saying, "I've got a book or two in me."
But that fantasy might only function to out those people as so pre-digital. Books in this era of the Net are no longer the path to decent earnings, name recognition, or even satisfaction. As Motoko Rich explains in THE NEW YORK TIMES, we're on the brink of an age "when there are more people who want to write books than there are people who want to read them." A sign of all this is that traditional publishing is imploding and self-publishing may be lucrative for the owners of the business but not for the writers themselves.
The extreme makeover for the book-writing fantasy is to create a digital site or community that brings in revenue and and anoints one a rock star. Nick Denton was there. Unfortunately, he allowed his digital kingdom Gawker.com to slip away. Sustaining success is digital is a whole lot harder than putting a book out there, collecting royalties and being invited to orate over High Tea.
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