Do words have value anymore?

I write. At one time, relatively few people wrote. In such times, words had value...and those who wrote them were viewed as special in some way. Indeed, there was once a time in which to be able to read and write would have been seen as almost magical. Now, however, everyone – well, almost everyone – can read and write. In fact, almost everyone seems to be doing so, simultaneously, on the Internet. Everyone seems to have a blog and everyone seems to be pouring their thoughts – such as they are – onto it. So, we have reached an age in which almost everyone is a “writer”...in the sense that they write. At this point, I am reminded of the line in the Incredibles cartoon, in which it is said something like: “When everyone is superhuman, no-one will be.” So it is today, with writing...when everyone writes, no-one is well regarded for doing so.

Yet, the ubiquity of writing is not my primary concern. The fact that so much of that writing is free, is. Blogs are free, in general. They are seen as something given away to the ether, for nothing. Do people value free writing in this way? It seems not. In an effort to defray my costs and input of time and energy into my blog, I urged people to make a donation...very few have done so. In fact, two people have. This does suggest that people, in general, do not place much value on that which they can get free (even if it cost someone something to put it out there.)

Some blogs are really well written. Some blogs are as well written as anything newspapers have to offer. This, again, is worrying for how it forms people’s attitudes to paying for writing: if they can get so much good writing for free, will they stop paying for good writing?

Then there is Amazon’s new promotion – the KDP Select programme. This is an initiative in which authors agree to offer their books on Amazon, exclusively, for 90 days, and then, in exchange Amazon will allow them to give their books away for...you guessed it...FREE...for five days each 90 day period. The idea is that by giving their books away for free, authors would be able to promote themselves. The theory is that, by doing this, authors will gain many new readers and will propel their other works higher in the rankings, as interested readers seek out their other works – and pay for them. Again, however, I am unsure of the wisdom of this. Writers who have participated in the KDP Select free giveaways, have seen their work massively pirated subsequent to give aways, as pirates pick up their work for free and load it up onto their torrent sites. Also some writers have seen relatively little change in the sales of their other works. Though, it must be said that some writers have seen significant sales of their works, subsequently.

My problem with KDP Select’s free books, is that it trains readers to believe that the real value of a book is zero. Readers, given access to a deluge of free books, will quickly come to value ALL books, at nothing. They will become people who believe that they have a right to access any book they wish, for precisely zero cents. This is already a problem with those who pirate books. They have a sense of entitlement to other people’s hard work, such that they feel they should never pay for it. In fact, some have an almost religious belief that it is “wrong” to charge for intellectual property. It never occurs to them that the creators of such property need to earn a living to allow them to continue to make such works. Without the possibility of a living from creative works, there will be no future creative works. The world’s supply of creative works will dry up. That, unfortunately, seems to be the destination of all present trends on price and remuneration for creative works. A world that does not pay for creative works, is a world that will not have any worth having – even for free.

The writing of a good book, often takes years, sometimes even decades to accomplish. Such books should not be given away for free, under any circumstances. Unfortunately, too many people are coming to value books at very little. They are willing to pay less and less for them. This is an act of massive collective stupidity, since it will destroy the very thing which they enjoy having (even though they don’t want to pay for it).

Blogging is dangerous. The KDP Select programme is dangerous. Piracy is dangerous. Each of these phenomena entrains people to believe that writing is free and not worth paying for. The cumulative effect of all of these influences, over time, may be a world in which there is no more shared culture. Many writers would choose not to share their work with the world, if there was no compensation for doing so. The question is: do we really want such a world? Do we really want a world in which creative people cannot make a living from their work? Do we want a world in which creative people fall silent? If not, then we should start paying creators for their works, on a consistent basis. They should be rewarded for the efforts they put into their work. So, I would urge you to ensure that you pay for the creative works you acquire – for not doing so, will usher in a future in which there are no more new such works. Is that really what you want?

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at:http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is athttp://www.genghiscan.com/This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

Does quality of writing matter, anymore?

There was a time, when the world appreciated quality in writing. I am not sure that that is so, anymore. In the modern world, the worse the writing, the larger the audience. To become rich as a writer, it is almost a truism, that you should be really quite bad at writing.

Let us look at the world's richest writers. Dan Brown, for instance...a most formulaic writer, given to adopting ideas wholesale from prior works and calling them his own. JK Rowling...hmm...a most formulaic writer, given to adopting ideas wholesale from prior works and calling them her own. You get the idea. There really isn't much need to continue. Today, the writers who sell best are not, necessarily, the writers who write best.

Think of a really interesting writer, one with a style of their own, ideas of their own, a unique spirit, unlike any other. Ask the question, then: how do they make their living? I look at the ingenious tale teller, Jorge Luis Borges - and what do I see, but that he was a librarian for most of his life. Thus, his short stories, jewels of the intellect, though they are, could not have been remunerative enough to support him, stably. I, look, too, at the recent career of Martin Amis (whose work I have never read, but of whom many others speak kindly enough) and see a Professor of Creative Writing at Manchester University. Again, it seems to me that if his books were selling well enough and consistently enough, he would not have resorted to securing an academic position (unless he has a particular wish to train another generation of writers, of course). I could go on, but there are endless examples of sophisticated writers, who do not seem to be able, or to have been able, to earn a decent living from their works.

At the other end of the scale, however, there are quite a few writers, of no originality, little talent, but much marketing prowesss, who become almost miraculously wealthy. Stephenie Meyer, for instance, is not a particularly good writer, in the sense of able to use words in apt and novel ways, embodying fresh ideas. There is nothing fresh about undead Vampires. Yet, she is a very wealthy woman.

It seems that what the people of the world, that is the masses, want, is more of the same, but slightly different, please. They don't want to have to think about something new. They don't want to have to pause to understand. They don't want to have to read carefully because each sentence is saying something that has never been said before. No. They want to be lulled by the familiar, the "tried and tested", the cliche.

So, in the modern world, getting rich as a writer, involves not being a writer. To become rich from the written word, one must throw out freshness, originality, style and substance and seek out imitation, repetition and convention. At least, that seems to be the tale told by the lives of those who have become rich from writing. Generally speaking, they invented nothing and retold everything, with just enough vestige of the individual to be able to give the work a new title and copyright it as their own.

However, a writer with thoughts all of their own and a vision that is alike no other, may find it hard to find much of an audience. The problem, quite simply, is that relatively few people, these days, seem to want to think, in any way that might challenge them. Yet, a writer who writes works that are original in any way - be they in style, content or theme - cannot do but challenge his or her readers - and so they shall find fewer such readers. We live, basically, in intellectually lazy times. People aspire to be amused, but they do not aspire to be amusing. They seek to be passive recipients of entertainment, but are not, in themselves, entertaining. They wish to imbibe the thoughts of another, without provoking any thoughts of their own.

In short, the modern world seems an unpromising one, for any intellectual, of any kind, to thrive. The more original their work - of whatever kind, not just of writing - and the more sophisticated it is, the less likely it is to be able to earn them a good living. At least, this seems to be the pattern, when one looks at who gets rich from "creating" and who can never give up their day jobs.

The same pattern is clear, too, in the world of blogging. My blog, for instance, has its regular readers. I have readers from all over the world. Yet, one thing cannot be denied: I have far fewer readers, than far less accomplished writers. In Singapore, for instance, there is a young lady called Xiaxue, who has around 50,000 readers per day for her blog (which seems an awful lot, considering that, at the time of this claim, Singapore only had 4.5 million people...with perhaps only 500,000 of them in her target age group, for readership...suggesting that perhaps one in ten possible readers, WERE readers). Now, what is striking about this is how little her blog offers in the way of any intellectual substance. It consists of gossip, tales of boyfriends, scantily clad photos, accounts of shopping trips, fashion and even, her own encounters with plastic surgery. It is unadulterated pap. Yet, it sells. It is the blogging world equivalent of the best selling authors I have mentioned above. I very much doubt whether there are many bloggers writing in an intellectual or thoughtful manner, who manage to secure 10% of their entire target market, as readers. Let me correct that: "many" should read "ANY".

Although, the more sophisticated a writer, the smaller will be the audience, in one's own time, there is a hidden consolation in this situation, I think, for the better writers: their footprint, in time, is likely to be greater than one might expect. By this, I mean, that their long-term readership, in the decades, centuries and even millenia ahead, will be far, far greater, than that of their more debased and populist rivals.

No-one reads the Ancient Greek equivalent of Stephanie Meyer, these days...but the leading thinkers of their day, Plato, Aristotle, Sophocles and Aristophanes, for instance...are still sought out, by some, and dwelt upon. So, too, will it be with our own more sophisticated thinkers, writers and creators: their works will linger on, long past the "never more to be read by date", of their presently more successful rivals. People like JK Rowling succeed in their own lifetimes...but I don't believe their reputations shall endure on the timescale of centuries and beyond. Their works propel them to riches and fame, during their lifetimes, but it is a kind of illusion, that gives them a present import, far greater than the one posterity shall accord them.

So, if you write and write well, or indeed, create in any medium at all, but your work is a little too sophisticated for the broadest audience - don't worry, for in the long term, your success may outshine that of any of your contemporaries, and your work might still be read, or enjoyed, a thousand years from today.

A final question for all readers, one which invites you to speak of your values and perspectives on what is important, in creative work: would you rather have great worldly success in your own lifetimes, for your creative work, but be forgotten a few decades after your passing - or would you rather modest worldly success in your own lifetime, but have your works, read and enjoyed thousands of years from today?

Answers, please, below. Thanks.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 6 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here: http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is at http://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)