"Cry me a river, Endangered Midlist Author..."

So begins Neal Pollack's letter to the anonymous author of this Salon article, detailing the trials and tribulations of a mildly successful author who has found it more and more difficult to get her works published, at least, published with fair remuneration. As interesting as I found the article (for the insight into the publishing business from the author's point of view more than sympathy for the plight of the author herself) the letters in response to the article are even better, as less successful authors tear Ms. Doe a new one for complaining about receiving over $200K in advances over the past eight years.

One issue ignored in the letters section, however, is all the great writing you see on blogs (check out all the links on the right for a start) from people presumably doing it for nothing more than love of writing (not including myself, this is just ego-wanking). The point made by many of the letter-writers is that Ms. Doe misses the point, doing something out of love is its own award. The blogs I've seen are ample evidence of that...

Still, if you're going to buy the Richard Clarke book anyway, please click on my link! :)