Re: Paul Krugman holds forth on the future of publishing

From: "Jon Jermey"
> Nothing esoteric about this; it's the kind of question wage
> tribunals deal with all the time. Basically, a 'fair wage'
> for writing is the minimum that an average person with the
> requisite skills and an alternative source of income would
> accept in return for the effort involved in producing a
> novel. But because all novels are different, let's be more
> flexible and say it's the minimum that _that person_ would
> accept in return for the effort. So if Steven King would
> produce a novel for $50,000, then paying him $1,000,000 for
> it is a gross misallocation of resources which could be
> better spent elsewhere, just as it is to pay someone $1,000
> for a novel when they would have written it for nothing. The
> degree of misallocation gives us an indication of how badly
> the market is malfunctioning due to artificial restrictions
> on trade and distribution.
>
> Jon.
>


Oh Jon, you are a giggle ;-).

So you are saying that you can hire a bunch of clerks, sit them 
in their cubicles and produce the great America, English, 
Canadian, French, Hidustani novel?

That payment for hire is the only way to go?

That the writer possesses nothing from the efforts of his brain?

It is clear you have no concept of the creative process, nor the 
incentive to go from creativity to polished novel.   Oh yes, I 
remeber now, the first draft may be useless, or even the second 
or...

But that doesn't matter, does it, in your Brave New World.   Slap 
it on paper print it and make people buy it.   Or is selling what 
comes not part of your planning?   Just the poor old writer.

It is not enough for you that the writer is already dumped on by 
employers, editors, all variants of publishers, legislators, 
lawyers and Google.   You want to add - oh but I asked that.

Jon, who pays?

Joseph Harris 


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