professional v amateur?
- From: Ellen Moody <Ellen2@[redacted]>
- Subject: professional v amateur?
- Date: Thu, 09 Feb 2006 23:10:35 CST
I wanted to support Michael's argument that
that the honorific inferences intended by
the contrast between the word "professional"
and "amateur" have no firm basis in history
at least when it comes to publication of
writing. A new important book by William
St Clair reveals that it was very rare for anyone
in the 19th century to support themselves
by writing. Most authors we think of as
professional supported themselves through
sinecures, niches, inheritances, day jobs;
many paid to publish their own books.
And before the 19th century Grub Street
was the place you starved. The way to
make money in the 18th was to be the
capitalist (theater owner like Garrick,
bookseller).
And it's not all that different today. Now with
POD and other kinds of publishing making
making books once again available to writers
and profitable to do for publishers, we are
returning to the 19th century situation except
that we have the Net and the people in the
19th century didn't.
The way to tell the difference between one person's
work and another is to look at its quality. Yes
it's very hard to find unbiased good judges so
"many a rose is born to blush unseen ..."
Ellen