Blacksmiths & blockheads? “Payment and reserved copyright are at bottom the ruin of literature”

“No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.”
  (reported by Boswell, in his Life of Johnson)

Attributed to Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), the renowned author and lexicographer, that’s one of the most famous writerly aphorisms in the English language.

Others have seen things differently.

Arthur Schopenhauer, for one (1788-1860), had this to say about the matter:

“There are above all two kinds of writer: those who write for the sake of what they have to say and Read more

Vanity, or Canny? Literary YouTube

The issue du jour in publishing: What’s happening to traditional controls on the industry? Digital technology has plunged us into an era where not only can anyone be a writer, you can be a “published author.” What does this forebode? Check out this video on the Wall Street Journal site and, for any actual readers out there, the story.

The lemmingesque rush to write and publish could well herald further social and cultural change to come. Soon there’ll be Read more