The future of writers is blurred. We see but hazily how future writers will have to cope with the age they will be in. Already now there are so many mediums of entertainments, and that literature will be able to survive against the invasion of other forms of medias is something we can figure out.

I am a writer not by profession but by choice. Today living off literary domains poses a great challenge indeed. I am a writer just because I have a passion for writing. But making a living by writing is a far cry, something we can not imagine of at this juncture unless you are a successful writer.

To be a successful writer you need two things: Either you must have literary acumen. Or you must stand out or outshine the rest the way Naipaul did or you must be able to use influence or else you can not leave a mark.

Now one can not survive taking up a career of writing unless you work on or write on commercials. Or unless you are a screen writer you can not live prolifically.
Writing is something that must go commercially if we want to grow proliferously at this competitive juncture. No doubt if we become too much readers or audiences centric art will face its sheen and will go shadowed. But everything in the world undergoes a great shift these days why should not literature or genres of creativity follow suit.

We must amalgamate creative writings with the commercials. It is a kind of conglomeration, the way industrial organizations do like mergers and acquisitions. Of course in partnership we must go ahead. Today management is undergoing sea change and there are elements of literature in faculties or genres of management. Or to put it differently when we merge literature with management it will be effective. We can try this with science. Social sciences have really something of literature, the same technique can be applied to physical science as well.

It is how literary genres or the careers of writers can survive against the sands of time.

Wait, what? I think you're saying that if a writer want's to live off his writing he needs to start writing television commercials. I'm confused, so by default I have to disagree. ;)

If anything, it would see a rise in self publishing which short term is far more expensive, but in the long run more profitable unless you're a huge name.

It seems to me, although I have not researched the statistics, that the volume of material going to print through traditional publishing venues is at close to the highest level it has ever been.

This is truly the Information Age, and with all the talk about the glut of other media, it has also sparked a great deal of curiosity in people that is still best satisfied through books and periodicals.

The future of writers is blurred. We see but hazily how future writers will have to cope with the age they will be in.


Change always provides opportunity. Writers have greater "opportunity" today than ever before in history. All around me, I see evidence of successful writers . . . television shows, radio commercials, advertising fliers, political speeches, tax guide booklets, directions on how to use my new GPS . . . writers are everywhere!

Even in the realm of traditional "literature", publishing companies have little room for "new" writers because they have so much material from experienced writers. And, these "new" writers can choose to wait their turn in slush piles or become entrepreneurial and self-publish. Admittedly, it is rare that self-publishing results in financial success, but it does happen, especially in nonfiction when the subject is controversial.

I think the bigger problem for "writers" is NOT a sagging industry, rather it's the proliferation of great "new" writers. There is a lot of talent out there! For you to succeed, you need to be the best of the best. That includes learning about marketing yourself, because your writing alone is not the complete "package" for a publisher. Writers today need speaking skills for talk radio promotions, presentation skills for book signings and book club visits, and they need to spend money on their own image promotion. It's not enough for the book to stand out, the author must stand out too.

IMHO - The future for writers is clear and bright. It is also a path requiring hard work, sacrifice, growing pains and persistence. These are the challenges that make writing so exciting!

no offense but have we paid attention to media in other forms. Hollywood seems to be going to different forms of print for source material. Comics and novels are making up a nice size of the industry. I am legend, No country for old men, Wanted, Dark Night the list goes on of comics and novels being turned into movies. There are more authors on shelves then I ever remember and they are good. My personal library has definitely started adding new authors to its shelves. Even video games have writter's creating there stories, and no offense but some of those are very good. and what about stories based of video games. I am actually liking where we are today. Where all media is mingling and leaving openings, for the talented and the dedicated who truly want to write, to be filled. I have Had stories in papers, and essay's published by schools and I am excited to enter into the realm of contests and hopefully publishing. Over night success does not happen over night. Realize that and maybe your attitude, as scattered as it seems, might change for the positive

I have no idea what your point it.. or what you are even trying to say.

With that in mind I am just going to sit back and watch this until I can figure out what it is you are seeking to put forth.

yeah... what, are you saying all other forms of media are taking over and that books/the written word is dying out? if so i disagree, every other form of media that i can think of needs to be in written form at some point. even these so-called "reality shows" are scripted. And though alot of these "shock jocks" on the radio seem to be flying by the seat of their pants, most of their routine is scripted.

Oh. You're talking about hugely commercially successful published writing, not writing in whole. You see, your post title mentioned just the future of "writers," so I thought you meant, you know, even people who like to write because they like to write, not necessarily because they want to make a living off of it. And I was wondering how the future of something somebody just likes to do could possibly be in trouble, as long as there's somebody who enjoys doing it.

Either way, I doubt the future of writers--both hugely commercially successful ones, and those who just love to write--is in much trouble.

Storytellers have been around since the dawn of time. They'll be around for a long time to come. Changing media (the plural of medium, BTW) don't mean writers are going to die out any time soon. Storytelling didn't die out when some people decided to stop telling things by mouth and write them down, did it?

To quote a friend of mine:

"Is English your first language?" Are you perhaps Russian?:confused:

no, he's nepalese... and needs to simplify and clarify his writing in english, so it will make sense to readers who are native english-speakers...

no, he's nepalese... and needs to simplify and clarify his writing in english, so it will make sense to readers who are native english-speakers...

That was my second guess.

Let's not make fun of someone, because he is a foreigner.

I understood perfectly what he was trying to get at, althought it may be flawed.

Let's not make fun of someone, because he is a foreigner.

I understood perfectly what he was trying to get at, althought it may be flawed.


I'm not trying to make serious fun of anyone. If you know what he's saying, explain it to me, because I don't understand a word.

i'm not sure, either, itan... too much reliance on inapt fancy word choices renders much of it incomprehensible...

Some writers have false pride over being native writers. They think they are good just it is their birth language. They are too purists and have narrow attitudes. Language is simply a medium of expression and too much obsession with grammatical quotients, syntactic structures limits / reduces the possibility of going across wider sections of people.

I agree I was rather incomprehensible and indeed I could prune my style of writing and improve where I made too many errors. One thing I can not claim to be is the vigor and vitality with which you native writers can write. I have learned it in a different set up. I learned mostly by reading books in English, not through communications at all. Reading is my obsession, or you can say a kind of addiction. I read all kinds of books, theology, economics, literature, environmental science etc. Indeed the repertoire of knowledge domains I orbit is really big and that is why I am not running short of vocabulalry.

You may come across so many errors, oddities, irrelevances, incongruities in my writings. However I claim that I have something to say, and I keep on saying notwithstanding how many arrows of criticism you shoot at me. I may sound at odds with your standards. Or you may have benchmarked the style of writing and I cannot prove to you by your standards. But you are not the only country in the world who could have edge over the rest of other nonnative speakers by dint of not being born in your countries.

Even if any books written in English do not reach the west they can have still a market in India, Shree Lanka and in other South Asian and Middle East countries. Please broaden your minds and think that the world is large enough for all too grow.

Now one can not survive taking up a career of writing unless you work on or write on commercials. Or unless you are a screen writer you can not live prolifically.

It's always been difficult to make a full-time career out of just writing without a spouse financial support. The existence of different mediums doesn't change that. Before TV and movies, the literacy rate simply was not what it is today (no, I'm not saying there is any relationship between the two), books were more expensive than they are now, and people made use of the library anyway. Not to mention now there are more literary awards that have financial prizes that didn't exist back then.

no offense but have we paid attention to media in other forms. Hollywood seems to be going to different forms of print for source material. Comics and novels are making up a nice size of the industry. I am legend, No country for old men, Wanted, Dark Night the list goes on of comics and novels being turned into movies. There are more authors on shelves then I ever remember and they are good. My personal library has definitely started adding new authors to its shelves. Even video games have writter's creating there stories, and no offense but some of those are very good. and what about stories based of video games.

Not to mention the fact that bookstores are huge these days. Until stores like Barns and Nobel in the US and Chapters/Indigo in Canada came into existence, bookstores were always very small stores. Now they're the biggest store in the mall sometimes.

It's true that there's a lot of competition in the entertainment world. But I don't think books are especially suffering. Today we have access to more possibilities than ever before.

1901 - farmer talking to his neighbor after a new Oldsmobile passed down the dirt road in front of his house.

"I love my horse and buggy. Them new horseless carriages are just a rich person's fad . . . noisy, smelly and unreliable . . . ain't no way they can compete with my horse and wagon. Can you imagine tryin to plow your field behind that thing?"

The farmer and his neighbor laughed at the absurdity of new technology.

Books, as we know them - they are here to stay. Hmmm . . . or are they???

"What in the world would anyone do with more than eight thousand words of memory?" - early computer designer.

It's often hard to see the advantages of new technologies until they are right there before you. Sometimes those advantages are do great they obsolete earlier technologies. Books have been a particularly durable technology. They obsoleted cave paintings and carved stone as means of recording knowldege, and have remained popular for centuries. Various improvements have made them more portable, more affordable, and more practical to produce large numbers of copies since their earliest forms. And yet they can break down due to environmental exposure (heat, light, moisture, oarganisms) and are bulkier than some of the emerging alternatives.

I'd like to believe they will be around forever, but I auapect the time will come when they will be museum curiosities, like the slide rule I was so dependent on in my early college years.

Still, the lifeteime of the book as the primary repository of knowledge will by itself make the slide into obsolescence a very slow one.

Some writers have false pride over being native writers. They think they are good just it is their birth language. They are too purists and have narrow attitudes. Language is simply a medium of expression and too much obsession with grammatical quotients, syntactic structures limits / reduces the possibility of going across wider sections of people. If you read this forum, the wide majority of posts are american/british/(possibly)australian english. That's not to say that there's anythng wrong with Indian English, or any other dialect. But if language is just a form of communication, it makes sense to use the language(in the most general sense) that is easiest to understand.

I agree I was rather incomprehensible and indeed I could prune my style of writing and improve where I made too many errors. One thing I can not claim to be is the vigor and vitality with which you native writers can write. I have learned it in a different set up. I learned mostly by reading books in English, not through communications at all. Reading is my obsession, or you can say a kind of addiction. I read all kinds of books, theology, economics, literature, environmental science etc. Indeed the repertoire of knowledge domains I orbit is really big and that is why I am not running short of vocabulalry.

You may come across so many errors, oddities, irrelevances, incongruities in my writings. However I claim that I have something to say, and I keep on saying notwithstanding how many arrows of criticism you shoot at me. I may sound at odds with your standards. Or you may have benchmarked the style of writing and I cannot prove to you by your standards. But you are not the only country in the world who could have edge over the rest of other nonnative speakers by dint of not being born in your countries.

I'd love to hear your opinions... It's your job to communicate them clearly. It's not my fault that you don't speak/write english as "well" as I do.

Even if any books written in English do not reach the west they can have still a market in India, Shree Lanka and in other South Asian and Middle East countries. Please broaden your minds and think that the world is large enough for all too grow.

Basically, no one is necessarily calling you out for not speaking a second language properly. It'd be nice if we could understand you, though. My Tibetan(for example) is certainly far worse than your English. That's why I avoid sites that communicate in Tibetan. You've chosen to use a site that communicates in english. I won't criticise, but I feel justified in asking for clarification.

[QUOTE= My Tibetan(for example) is certainly far worse than your English. That's why I avoid sites that communicate in Tibetan. [/QUOTE]

Nobody knows language by birth, it is learned, cultivated in due course of time. Children learn language faster than adults but it does not mean that adults can not learn a second language.

Besides, now English has so many varieties and dialects and still a few Englishmen become boastfuyl of their their English and deem the rest of other to be inferior. It is their arrogance. Literature is written in English by nonnatives also and they are highly acclaimed in the west also.

Language can be improved and it takes sometime indeed. No one and you too are not flawlless. You as a native speaker or writer suffer your own limitations and keep on honing your skills. It may for editing.

Now purists are getting on the margins and they are defied by liberals. Rather than accepting some minor lapses that can be collected / edited in the course of writing they discourage and at times to the extent that nonnatives choose to give up. I am not disheartened even if I get sharp arrows of criticism, for I have to communicate something to wider audiences across the world. Having said this I do not mean I will object criticism. I appreciate constructive criticism and learn from them. But if someone tries to dissuade me just because I am not as good as he is at using it I keep on writing in defiance of such persons rather than recoiling. I do not care if I can not satisfy the few purists who do not want to go beyond a world of their eccentricities woven out of their arrogance and self pride in point of fact. The world is too big for me and I can find plenty of liberals and people of broad perspectives and positive attitudes. I do not beg anyone to consider me and I will prove myself.

I apologize if I am too rude and offensive. This is just a reply when someone try to be overtly critical of me, of course outsmarting me.

Besides, now English has so many varieties and dialects and still a few Englishmen become boastfuyl of their their English and deem the rest of other to be inferior. It is their arrogance. Literature is written in English by nonnatives also and they are highly acclaimed in the west also.

Language can be improved and it takes sometime indeed. No one and you too are not flawlless. You as a native speaker or writer suffer your own limitations and keep on honing your skills. It may for editing.

I don't think English speaking people consider any other language to be inferior. In fact, all of the people I know that can only speak English admire others who speak different languages. And a lot of literature is written in English because English is the most widely spoken language in the world, so anything written in English will immediately be available to the greatest number of people.

I agree that language can be improved, but there are people out there who have mastered language. It's not impossible.

I don't think English speaking people consider any other language to be inferior. In fact, all of the people I know that can only speak English admire others who speak different languages. And a lot of literature is written in English because English is the most widely spoken language in the world, so anything written in English will immediately be available to the greatest number of people.

I agree that language can be improved, but there are people out there who have mastered language. It's not impossible.

That is why I am here to write in English. Indeed it has wider acceptance and of course it comes across so many different language communities all over the world.

Every language is learned and the main function of it is to communicate ideas across and if the purpose is served it is done. In due course of time people started taking it literally and they developed it to the extent writing in it from an artistic perspective. Now it has so many varieties, formal, informal, colloquial, causal and the like.

I do not care too much and I feel my main objective is to go across you and communicate with you in order that you understand what I really I want you too. I do not go beyond that extent. I do not want to use it arrogantly.

I am simply proud about the fact that I am reaching you across so many borders or frontiers through English or else I would never have communicated with you speaking so intensely.
I am now on several forums at the same time and communicate with so many people across the geographical limit.
Anyway, do not mind if my communications here are self centered and indeed I will try to do some other things rather than talking about just myself.

The fact that you wish to communicate through written english is ironic, because it was the advent of writing that really solidified the idea that there was a "correct" way to use language. Just a fun little note there. :D