1月2日
Talking About Reflections on How Writers Make a Living
My favorite film quote of the year happens to be from the Joker in the Dark Knight. After the Joker suggests to a group of mobsters that he simply kill Batman, one of the mobsters asks, "If it's so simple why haven't you done it already?" The Joker replies, "If you're good at something, never do it for free."
I love that quote and I think it in my head whenever anyone suggests content created by a community or whenever I ponder the future of publishing and other media industries. Actually, the Joker isn't the first person I heard this from. I also heard it from a college instructor teaching a class on writing magazine articles. This was a few years before blogging, YouTube, etc., but his point was that as a writer--value your work. Makes sense--if every one is giving it away for free, then free becomes the accepted price. But then, I'm not sure you can put content back in the box at this point.
Well, I'm sure we'll iron all this out eventually.
In the meantime here is an interesting discussion over at Narrative on How Writers Make a Living. This from a very good magazine that is itself pondering and experimenting with the price of content.