Re: "The Elusive E-book"

From: "Bill Janssen""


>> Anybody could sit and listen to a wandering minstrel, but he
>> still had to be fed and clothed.
>
> Actually, no.  I'm sure many wandering minstrels starved, or 
> went into
> less colorful occupations better suited to keeping them alive.

I hope you are being intentionally funny here.   The wandering 
minstrel belongs to a far off time.   What brought him to it 
would be another matter, and probably the only route out would be 
to be good enough to be in service to a Lord, Prince or King, 
maybe as a jester.   Whether or not some starved is irrelevant to 
my point.

>
>> Bill, wriggle as you might ;-), if you want quality you have 
>> to
>> pay for it.   Wikipedia is not free at all, it is simply that
>> those designing, hosting, editing and contributing bear the
>> costs.
>
> Sure, but the contributors aren't being paid.  Like many famous
> authors throughout history (and more than a few modern-day 
> minstrels),
> they hold down "day jobs" to pay for the necessities, and write 
> for
> the fun of it, or because they cannot do otherwise.
>
> Bill
>

NO they are not being paid, they are donors who also do the work. 
When they don't have the time how do you keep it going?   i have 
been involved with enough voluntary things to know they have 
their own cycles whose length depends on factors peculiar to each 
one.   But they all either attract money or cease at the point 
where donors and volunteers get thin on the ground.

'Commercial' is open to enough hazards, but 'free' has the added 
limit of being dependent on someone giving.

As to your summary of writers it is extremely selective.   The 
point about most of the classics authors is that they did become 
famous enough to give up the day job.   That is how they were 
able to write more.    Just as with JK Rowling.

Joseph 


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