Thoughts from thirty years ago.

Over here we have PLR, which is the money an author gets each time somebody takes a book out the library. There’s also the ALCS - the Authors’  Licensing and Collecting Society, ( it's also Advanced Cardio Vascular Life support but that does not concern us here, hopefully) and they pay authors when material has been used elsewhere.

 

Many years ago, it was their 30th anniversary, I think they might have had their 40th anniversary since then. ( They were set up in 1977 and it's now 2025, I think...) I came across a little book of quotes they had published to mark their 30^th birthday. Various industry professionals were asked  what they thought the challenges and the opportunities would be over the ‘next thirty years’. Which takes us up to this moment in time or thereabouts. 

As I skimmed through it, looking for good quotes or interesting thoughts, I did notice no comments about social media and none about AI specifically.

 

I thought you might like a look at some of their answers, in no particular order.

                                     

 

The advent of a viable e-book.

 

The challenges and opportunities of digital technology but hoping that it would introduce writing to more readers.

 

Will it be easier or more difficult to give up the day job, to become a full time

Writer?

                                 

 

Publishers and book shops are dominated by people who work in marketing. And

marketing people tend to assume that those with the purchasing power have

little brains and a lack of taste.

 

There will always be a need for stories but, the methods of telling that story will

probably change.

 

I’d like to be really optimistic but it’s really difficult.

 

There’s a constantly changing marketplace for writers so, if you’re not writing on

trend now you could be in a couple of years. And let’s face it it’s never been easy

to make a living as a writer.

 

Some writers despair at the decline of the picture book. If you think crime writing

is difficult to make a living, try working as a writer illustrator!

                                      

 

Most people say that the most important thing has been the advent of the

computer. But for every one that does, there’s another lamenting the loss of dog

eared photocopies with comments scribbled in hand in red pen in the margin.

 

Somebody comments that the crime novel is now regarded as serious fiction

whereas before maybe it was not. Other genre’s may rise and fall and rise again

but crime fiction always holds its place.

 

A few writers complain that increasingly their life orbits around the computer screen with

emails, websites and questionnaires.

                                       

One writer says that the obsession with celebrity books will soon pass. ( Errrr???)

 

One contributor in three expresses concern for the future of the author and the

author’s income.

 

But I think I will leave the last word with Stephen Fry who said there will be endless changes.  

Water may dry up, stories and language will not.

                                        

Caro