{"id":445,"date":"2009-01-22T23:00:28","date_gmt":"2009-01-23T04:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/mojo\/?p=445"},"modified":"2025-07-27T15:50:33","modified_gmt":"2025-07-27T20:50:33","slug":"sharing-knowledge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/blog\/sharing-knowledge\/","title":{"rendered":"Sharing knowledge"},"content":{"rendered":"

NOTE: This is the first in a series of several posts David Nygren of The Urban Elitist<\/a> and I will be cross-blogging concerning the issue of authors (whether traditionally published, e-published, or self-published) actually getting paid for their work.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019ve been thinking about this for a while; how, if the product you offer is free, can you make a living at it? Answer\u2019s simple: You can\u2019t. So why do we writers do this? Just be read? Really? I thought I might need therapy, which is when I began writing this post.<\/p>\n

In David\u2019s excellent post, How to Get Your E-book Read<\/a>, my overriding thought was that getting read<\/em> is not the problem. In the era of \u201cinformation wants to be free,\u201d getting paid<\/em> will be the problem. His article was serendipitous because then I knew I wasn\u2019t alone in my thinking and we began to talk. Since he and I started brainstorming last week about what facets of the money issue we could cover (and believe me, we\u2019ve uncovered more facets than a 2-carat marquis diamond), I\u2019ve seen three disparate conversations\/articles concerning this.<\/p>\n

First, this Dear Author thread<\/a> (almost 550! comments) wherein an author stated that she pulled a series because her work was pirated so heavily she couldn\u2019t make money on it and, further, that if a day came that she couldn\u2019t make money writing, she\u2019d just stop.<\/p>\n

Second, Ara13 in this Publishing Renaissance thread<\/a> says:<\/p>\n

I read last week how one of this blog\u2019s bloggers complimented a writer by saying she passed on her book to a friend. I winced. For me, that was a back-handed compliment. Sure, it\u2019s great that you like my work and want others to be exposed to it, but if you really want to help, you\u2019ll buy them a copy. Sorry, but being able to pay my rent and grocery bills allows me to pursue such a creative endeavor.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Third, this Time<\/em> article<\/a>, most of which is quotable, but this is the phrase that stuck out to me:<\/p>\n

From a modern capitalist marketplace, we\u2019ve moved to a postmodern, postcapitalist bazaar where money is increasingly optional.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Postcapitalist.<\/em><\/p>\n

Money optional.<\/em><\/p>\n

I nearly had a heart attack.<\/p>\n

When I was 18 and new to college, I had a teacher who told me, \u201cDon\u2019t give away your knowledge. You earned it, you paid for it in time, money, blood, sweat, and tears. Don\u2019t give it away for free.”<\/p>\n

I choked. It went against everything I\u2019d been taught both at home and at church (Mormons have no paid clergy; it\u2019s strictly volunteer), and I was horrified<\/em>. Then that teacher went on to prove himself an asshole, so I felt vindicated.<\/p>\n

\"\"But as I got on in life and saw that those who have knowledge and who teach for little or no money aren\u2019t very \u2026 respected. And I read books of philosophy that changed my thinking. Yeah, one of them was Atlas Shrugged<\/em><\/a>. Sue me.<\/p>\n

Then I got along farther in life and saw that sharing a little quality<\/em> knowledge is useful as well as generous. It\u2019s empowering to giver and taker. It at once gives the receiver a fish so that he doesn\u2019t keel over from hunger and<\/em> teaches him how to use a fishing pole. It\u2019s a personal choice in how to balance what to give, how much, and when. However.<\/p>\n

There is a price:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Expectation and entitlement<\/strong>. As in, some people will then feel entitled to more of the giver\u2019s knowledge, and possibly get upset when more is not forthcoming.<\/li>\n
  2. Devaluation<\/strong>. As in, whether it\u2019s taken or not, it will be seen as disposable because it\u2019s cheap or free. \u201cThis is advice is free, so it\u2019s worth what you paid for it\u201d takes on a whole new meaning in today\u2019s postcapitalist, money-optional bazaar.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I have fear for the future of information.<\/p>\n

    What I truly fear is that all content, all information, all written entertainment, will be free and thus, devalued. The consultant (knowledge) and artist and musician and author need to be rewarded monetarily for their work or else they can\u2019t eat.<\/p>\n

    Most consultants will find a way to monetize their knowledge. Chris Brogan<\/a> does. Ramit Sethi<\/a> does. Christine Comaford-Lynch<\/a> does. Suze Orman<\/a> does. No matter how much they give away.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

    Artists find ways to monetize their knowledge, from the elite<\/a> to the bourgeois<\/a> to the commercial<\/a> to the assembly line<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    Musicians<\/a> tour and sell merchandise. (I probably should\u2019ve used Radiohead for that example, but oh well.)<\/p>\n

    But most writers have no real avenue of residual earnings off their writing, except through direct sale of the work itself. Most writers will do whatever it is they do anyway without pay and continue to sling hash and throw themselves on the altar of \u201choning their craft\u201d in order to earn the approbation of agents and editors (if they continue to exist in any number). They\u2019ll take increasingly lower wages in order to be afforded the privilege of writing for money (i.e., \u201cbe a REAL writer”) for the cachet of having gotten The Call.<\/p>\n

    And then they\u2019ll be pirated one way (cutting a print book open and scanning it) or another (file sharing).<\/p>\n

    Because the consumer has been trained via a number of methods to feel entitled to intellectual property and will, in turn, slap down any writer egotistical enough to say, \u201cHey, the work product of my brain is worth money.\u201d They\u2019ll do this through two methods:<\/p>\n

    Refuse to pay and not<\/strong><\/em> consume, then find free (possibly inferior, probably equivalent, possibly superior) content elsewhere.<\/p>\n

    Refuse to pay and consume anyway<\/strong><\/em>. Piracy.<\/p>\n

    No, his mind is not for rent to any god or government.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Nor, I would add, a self-entitled public. It should<\/em> be for sale<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

    Aside: I needed the expertise of an editor to thoroughly go over my book. I paid her. I will not disclose how much because I don\u2019t want to think about it; however, she had expertise I did not and I felt \u2026 weird \u2026 about asking someone to do that much work for little to no money.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    What\u2019s the answer?<\/p>\n

    Hell, I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

    Rand had her architect and her musician and her novelist ride off into the sunset poverty-stricken for the sake of their art, taking their work with them.<\/p>\n

    The Internet drowns in pundits and theorists claiming, \u201cInformation wants to be freeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”<\/p>\n

    The writer in me, the one who was reared to give away knowledge, still hears the siren call of That One Person to whom what I have to say will make a difference in his life and possibly change it for the better\u2014whether I know it or not.<\/p>\n

    The entrepreneur in me wants to make a living doing what I love to do. Validation is gravy, but I gotta have the spuds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    NOTE: This is the first in a series of several posts David Nygren of The Urban Elitist and I will be cross-blogging concerning the issue of authors (whether traditionally published, e-published, or self-published) actually getting paid for their work. I\u2019ve been thinking about this for a while; how, if the product you offer is free, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[546,87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marketing","category-money"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15615,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions\/15615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}