Because it is their right as the creator. If you built your own house, created it from your own efforts, invested all that time and energy into it, wouldn't you be just a little pissed off if you found me sat on your toilet, reading one of your books and wearing your slippers? There's no difference. None. Period. Now if, for the good of mankind, you offered all that for free, and I was there whistling and reading, then I would think of you as a splendid host, and generous. But that would be YOUR CHOICE to offer that. I could not impose that upon you. You are imposing your lifestyle on others that have earned the right by their own efforts to call that creation "owned." If we didn't do this, then we'd be just as free to plagiarise each other's work, because you are suggesting no one should own works of art, and there should be no recognition of those efforts. In the end, unless the creator has entered into a covenant for magic beans, bit coins, or just a handshake and a smile, it IS their right to demand recognition on their terms, whether anyone believes society would benefit from it being more widely available or not. And if you want a better argument, try this: I drive a Renault Clio. It's a nice car, and I'm happy with it. But I'd rather drive a BMW. I also believe society would be improved if everyone drove BMWs. But for fcuk sake, I wouldn't steal one.
I'm skipping the house analogy, because I am struggling to wrap my head around how it is equatable. I've tried to set it up, so I could deconstruct it, but I can't seem to find the common ground that these things share. Unless you can connect the dots for me, I would say that I still don't agree with this idea of ownership over a work. I would agree with a free enterprise where people plagiarize other's works. I would call that a creative dialogue. I think it would spawn more art, which is all the better. This is how jazz started. I think it a good thing. With your BMW example, I would question why everyone's lives would be improved with a BMW. Why wouldn't a less expensive car suffice all the same? Stealing a BMW, as well, is stealing something that cost a fair amount of money to produce, as well. As well, I wouldn't list a BMW as something that is of societal benefit. So, I would challenge your belief. I would classify it as something less innate to human experience, something that is fabricated to be a need. Another car will just as well suffice. ETA: I am not trying to sound belittling when I say that I can't see this analogy as a good one. Maybe I'm misunderstanding its application, but I don't see its viability.
No difference? Except for the fact that you would prevent me from sitting on my toilet, reading my book, and wearing my slippers? Earlier in this thread, I found some of the misinterpretations and bad arguments amusing. Now I am just sad.
I see you as having two goals: - Making more art available to more people. - Making art free. I don't see any obvious way to make these goals compatible. In fact, I see them as thoroughly incompatible. Most art takes time, money, or in most cases, both. Most people need to spend their time and money on obtaining food, clothing, and shelter. Most people don't have a ton of either one to spare for creating art, and for making that art available. If you insist that art be created without any hope of compensation, then there will be far, far less art, and the art will be less long-lived. If an author has to spend his own money on research, and editing, and the software to create his book, and the servers to offer his book, and the usage fees for downloading the book (because, remember, in your scenario no one is making money from that book, so no one will be spending millions of dollars providing free software and servers), there will be very few authors. The few books that are released will be withdrawn fairly quickly, because an author can't afford to pay those server costs forever. If a movie maker has to spend his own tens or hundreds of millions of dollars making a big movie, there will be very few big movies. If a small-film maker has to spend his own tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars making a little movie, there will be very few small movies. If people won't pay for art, then people with artisitc ambitions will move to creative pursuits where it is permissible to be paid. The visual artist might become a clothing designer. The creative writer might become a textbook writer or newspaper writer. If we declare those things to be "art" and declare that they must be free, then those people will move to some other profession where they can exercise their creativity while still being able to eat and live in a home. Right now, art is very available to the rich, moderately available to the middle class, and somewhat available to the poor. In a world where art is free and the government doesn't pay the cost of art, it would probably be available only to the super-rich--to the people who can hop on a jet to go to one of the three cities where one of this year's six big movies is showing, and can hire someone to wait in the week-long lines to get into that movie. If, on the other hand, the government pays for all art, then the government will decide what art can be created. Since art is in large part about challenging expectations, and the government wants to regulate things to comply with expectations, much art will die in that scenario, too. So, do you want art to be free, or do you want art to flourish? I think that you have to pick one.
How many movies were made for free? How many sculptures? How many paintings? How many photographs? How many orchestras are organized, rehearse, and perform without any cost being incurred? How many theatrical productions? How many symphony-quality instruments are given away for free? How many concert halls and theaters are built for free? Sound systems, lights, costumes, carpenters, costume makers, how many of those are free? Yes, writing a fictional work that requires no research, no outside editing, no illustration, might be almost free--except for the millions of dollars that were spent on the software and infrastructure to turn that writing into a book and make it available, millions of dollars that would not have been spent if the person spending them didn't expect to make a profit out of the deal. Art costs money.
I'm going to respond to the same thing a second way. This doesn't override my previous response. It occurs to me that perhaps you're assuming that most art is incredibly profitable--that a corporation is making a gazillion dollars, and if they'd just give up those profits, the pennies that it took to create that art could easily be scrounged from somewhere. But much art is created at a loss. I live in a town with a very serious theater company. The tickets for the productions are moderately expensive. But those tickets don't even cover the costs of the productions. Much of those costs come from donations, grants, and various forms of fundraising. I go to an independent film festival every year. Most of those films are made at a loss, when you compare the cost of the movie to what it will make in ticket sales everywhere it's shown. Many books are published at a loss--not on purpose, but there's no assurance that a book will make a profit. Art costs money, and much art already makes very limited profit. If you want to go after the places where money is being bled away from the artists, where middlemen are bleeding a huge amount of money out of the consumer without benefitting the artistic process sufficiently in return, fine. But artists need to be paid.
Saying that the government would want to regulate art to comply with convention is an assumption. I don't think it is required. Of your other thoughts, good points. I would say, regarding public venues, that those would be paid for. I think government funding could possibly be applicable for these other more costly areas of art. Again, this is why I said that capitalism doesn't mesh well with what I'm trying (horribly) to get at. Well, I don't much know what I'm trying to get at. A vague alternative, I suppose. There are two obvious problems with government funding: availability of funding and decisions over who receives funding. This past motivation for profit is irrelevant. In our modern times, the software and infrastructure is present and this cost is null. I am not making such an assumption. I'll agree that when making points I am overlooking less-individualized and more costly forms of art, but I am not operating under an assumption that art is incredibly profitable. I think my biggest qualm will boil down to capitalism. It doesn't offer a reasonable solution. I would suggest that art, access to it, and artist payment could become a public service/good. I am conjecturing. You could have government run an art database. It would be paid for through taxation and donation. Similarly, artists could be paid through a similar method. Copyright would be abandoned, and there would be allowed a free and open exchange of creativity. Everyone could then access this database for free. Possibly, as well, there could be public equipment that could be lent to artist's (or certain studios, where producers could go to make a film) for these larger projects. Again, all conjecture. I don't have a clue as to if it is valid. If it were, though, I would think this to be a hell of a lot better than letting art be run by money. Sure, this government based system would still be "art ran by money," in a sense, but not quite in the same manner. Money wouldn't be the definition of success, and a shit-poor person could still culturally and limitlessly educate themselves. How's that bullshit conjecture sound? I don't mean to come off as "the douche who wants artist's to be poor." That was my starting point, and while I still hold suspicion for certain aspects of artist compensation, I don't want people to be fucking miserable. My concern over artist compensation (and, granted, it was focused on the individual based art forms) started with this question: If an artist would make their art if there wasn't ever hope of payment, then why should they be paid once the opportunity exists? My suspicion was and is furthered when this idea of ownership comes into play. I understand that this ownership of art makes sense from an economic and practical standpoint. I am attempting to question the capitalist industry of art, however. In my above government-based example, though, I think ownership of art would be utterly done away with. If there is no economic point to consider, then I think wanting to own one's art is something to be thought against. Again, my person bullshit perspective. Again, I do not mean to reduce others as I haphazardly articulate myself in public fashion. Simply, I don't think capitalism is good for art.
But if the government doesn't regulate, how do we control what goes into the database? When every mother with a child who scribbles pictures wants all six hundred of her child's masterpieces to be scanned, catalogued, and put in the database, do we assign a benefitted government employee to spend a week or two doing that work? What about people who want all of their semi-pornographic phone selfies included? How do we decide? We set up a board? One that decides what qualifies? If so, then how is that not the government regulating art? So the government will buy (seize?) every movie theater, concert hall, and other performing venue, and decide who gets to perform in which one, when? Or they just tell the owners of those venus who they'll allow to perform? How, again, is that not the government regulating art? And how do we decide who performs? Mothers who think that their children are artists don't stop with those children's drawings, after all. They'll want Little Suzy to have her own dancing program for two hours at Carnegie Hall. What happens when people get frustrated trying to get a slot in a government performance facility and set up performances in parks, or shopping malls, or garages--and charge admission? Will the police or National Guard be sent to break up this illegal fee-paid art? Will the artists go to jail? What if people get frustrated waiting for a performance by someone other than Little Suzy and her ilk and fly to other countries where paid-for art is still allowed, and where art is therefore plentiful? Will we embargo those countries, as if they're Cuba? Little Suzy's mom will also want a massive, CGI-packed, 3D animated movie celebrating Little Suzy's life. How do we turn her down without the government regulating art? Wha? Software, hardware, and networks have a substantial--very substantial--ongoing cost. I assume that you're not proposing that we will halt all computer and other technological development in order to keep these costs down--and that would just reduce them, not eliminate them. The cost won't be null, it will be huge. I assume that that cost will be taken over by the government. The government isn't known for stellar, flawless performance. What happens when someone wants to go outside the government system? Edited to add: This assumes that you're going to have the government seize the software and infrastructure from whoever currently owns it? Or will they just order those corporations to keep making and supporting and updating that software? I very much doubt that we could do that without either (1) having substantial government control over art or (2) costing the average citizen far, far more in taxes than he ever paid for art under capitalism. So instead of paying for art that we want to see, we will pay for art that we may not care about at all. What happens if someone with money gets tired of waiting for access to this equipment, and tries to buy their own, and create a film of their own, and sell it? Will they be arrested? Imprisoned? Edited to add: The more I think about this, the more I think that you can't eliminate payment for art without stringent government regulation of art. People want what they want, and they want to pay for what they want. You'd have to regulate art as if it's an illegal drug.
I never claimed that regulation wouldn't have to take place. I said that regulation wouldn't have to be restricted to following convention. However, this problem of regulation is something I don't have a solution for. I would certainly propose a system that could avoid allowing every mother with a child to submit "masterpieces." This is quite certainly a very problematic area of this whole deal. It is hard to organize such subjective things. I wouldn't say that the regulation in place is necessarily better, being "What can sell the most?" I would also suggest that an incomplete subjective regulative system would be better than one with profits on the horizon. I didn't intend to suggest that these venues couldn't be privately funded. The movie, in data, could be free on the database (without copyright) and the movie could be funded (privately) at a theater. I don't think these things are exclusive. I would stress: Just because a public database of art has been created, and just because copyright has been done away with, it doesn't mean that someone can't make art without being regulated. Simply, instead of someone trying to get their work out through a traditional publishing house, they'd upload it to this database. A person could buy their own equipment, if they wanted to own it. A person could distribute their own work and charge for it; they simply hold no legal authority of ownership over it. They simply cannot prevent someone else from using it, doing the same thing with it, or accessing it through the database on the basis of copyright. People can print their own shit, do whatever they want, they just don't own it. Regarding this private aspect. Let's say someone isn't getting the equipment to make a very small-budget film. Let's say it's budget is really low, like $100,000. So, they want to go private, and produce it with a small crew. Maybe, after they produce it and try to have it played at theaters, there could be a conditional copyright. For instance: the creator of this private production would own rights to the creation for two years or until their costs were covered and they could pay their staff a certain amount. Something of that nature. This way, if someone doesn't want to go the government-based route, they still have an option that isn't unfair. As well, the copyright is short-term, and soon the work would be in the public domain. I think the big problem with this would be regulation and payment. I do not know how this would occur. Surely, the canons of great works would just slide right in. Educational and philosophical works all as well. But new works, I do not know how these could be judged, accepted into the database, and then be compensated for. This is where (well, not the only place) my conjecture is demonstrated sort-sighted and bull. ETA: Maybe there could be local systems of government that could participate in this regulatory aspect, with more community emphasis.
So the government would decide what's art and what's not. If the government pays, and the government doesn't pay for every little napkin scrawl that someone calls art, then the government decides what qualifies as art. It's unavoidable. Art would not be defined by society, but by government. Do you really want a world where we never again have a major motion picture that is not approved by the government? You're trying to create a place where art can flower, and so far it sounds like you're creating a place where government censorship can flower instead. So without the law to protect artistic creations, it will be up to the creator. Movies will be released first in countries where copyright still has effect, and released late or never in our country; for many things we'll have to make do with bad pirated copies--bad because copy protection will also be made much, much more effective. Similarly, music and theater will come to us last or not at all. When an occasional new movie does open in our country, the lines will be hours long at the few theaters that have survived this situation. There might be patdown searches at the entry, to ensure that people don't come in with cameras and recorders. If you want something brand new, you'll have to send off to another country, if they'll even sell it to you. If you want something a few months old, you'll have to find it at the equivalent of torrent sites, and brave worms and viruses, because no one will be selling clean copies; there won't be any profit in it. So they won't go to jail, they just won't make any money. We didn't need to outlaw art; we starved it to death. And they might get paid, if the government eventually approves their application? Or are we still not paying artists? So, again, we didn't destroy art, we just starved it. But the theaters are dead, and people aren't used to paying for art anyway, so there's no real hope of that. Unfair in the sense that their art is just as dead as the art of artists who are languishing while they wait for their government grant applications to be evaluated. So, for example, we'll let the local government of a small conservative town decide whether to approve that documentary about LGBT teenagers.
I forgot to respond to this: How do we know that they would make their art if there was no hope of payment? Instead, they might selfishly like being able to eat. They might consider that it would be difficult to keep their sketchbooks dry while living in doorways and under bridges. They might want to be able to have children, and they might want to keep their children warm, dry, fed, and provided with medical care.
One more question: What do you really want? 1) More access to art by more people. 2) Eliminating payment for art. 3) The creation of more art. 4) More freedom for artists. You seem to think that (2) will accomplish (1), (3), and (4). I believe that it will reduce those things, and destroy art. Which of these things is your highest priority? Do you find payment for art so inherently distasteful that you're willing to destroy art to eliminate it? Or do you want to increase art and access to art, even to the extent that you can stomach art being paid for?
Regarding this first. I am trying to see if your proposed dichotomy is false. I'm wondering if all are attainable. I'm not trying to come in here like I've got government figured out. This is shit way over my head. I'm elaborating. Regarding everything you've said. You raise good points. On government regulating art, I think this is dicey, but I think it could be done in a reasonable way where art isn't ran through the mud. Government regulation is not inherently bad. Regardless, money regulates now. Is that really better? Earlier you proposed that I must be working from the assumption that art is highly profitable. I return that assumption to your point: >"How do we know that they would make their art if there was no hope of payment? Instead, they might selfishly like being able to eat. They might consider that it would >be difficult to keep their sketchbooks dry while living in doorways and under bridges. They might want to be able to have children, and they might want to keep their >children warm, dry, fed, and provided with medical care." You assume that the artist would profit in a measurable amount here. As well, in my staged question, I assumed that the artist would do their work without compensation. It was a conditional statement with "if." That was designed to imply what followed from it. I know I haven't addressed all your points, but I want to say something else. I get you are very opposed to what I am positing. I think you are so opposed that you are starting with the assumption that everything that I am saying is false, and then finding ways to demonstrate that it is. I am not saying that you have demonstrated incorrectly, but I would say that maybe you shouldn't be so vehemently opposed. I am not in power. I am not about to institute some plan of artist destruction. I am simply conjecturing to see if art could exist under a better system that isn't fueled by profit. It could be a vain wonder. It could not be. While I'd agree that I haven't presented much that is stable or sufficient for much besides a ramble, I'd say that the direction in which I am speaking isn't a direction required to be frivolous. I think, if possible, everyone should have total access to all art without cost. I think art expands the human mind and can create smarter people, who would serve better in a society, being more cautious of their actions, their perspectives, and being less apt to being convinced by corruptive agents. Is it possible? I am not sure, but it certainly isn't in our current system.
I'm returning to my question of whether you value the art, or value the elimination of payment for art, more. I live in a town with a very fine theater company. That company charges for its tickets--it couldn't exist without that. It needs to pay for the theaters, actors, directors, musicians, playwrights, stagehands, carpenters, costumers, light and sound equipment, and countless other costs. Those people aren't getting rich, but they are making a living, paying for food and housing and their kids. That theater company also has an educational program that supports sending actors out to schools, some of them a substantial distance away, to provide free theater workshops to students. Members of the company also support the drama program in the local high school and college. The company has a program that provides free theater tickets to students. They also have programs for low-cost tickets for locals, and volunteer programs that let locals earn free tickets for volunteer hours. The actors and other creative people brought together by the theater company also often engage in private projects, with the partial support of the company. One-man shows, informal plays, and so on, that make use of the resources and spaces of the company. These are often free to the audience. The company stages completely free musical and/or dance shows six nights a week for the summer months, in a stage in the center of the three-theater "campus", giving exposure to dozens of performing groups every year. And they host many, many free talks on the theater, the productions, and all sorts of related topics. Those programs provide free exposure to art to a whole lot of people. And those programs couldn't exist if the theater company didn't exist, and the theater company couldn't exist if people didn't have to pay for tickets. Oh, the theater company also gets plenty of donations, and does plenty of fundraising, but it couldn't survive without both of those income sources. What about the government paying for the company, with some local board deciding wehther they'll be funded? Well, the theater company doesn't exist just to show pretty little hearts-and-flowers plays that would easily pass a government grant panel. Some of its plays have some strong and controversial messages. And, its operation depends on its long, sustained existence, on the ability to plan several years ahead, and the ability to plan and stage several shows at once in a repertory format. It couldn't possibly exist in anything like the same form if it needed to go begging, hat in hand, to some government approval panel for every play, a panel that might whimsically turn down three out of the eleven shows planned for the year. So can you accept the idea that this theater charges for tickets? Can you tolerate the fact that artists who care heart and soul for their art are able to devote their entire time and attention to it? Can you stomach their joy in taking that art to its limit, and the joy of the audience, both paying and non-paying, in watching that process? Or would you rather see it all go away, and let all that free art and education go away, on the principle that it's wrong to charge a ticket price to experience some of what they create?
It is at this moment that I don't feel as though you've listened to me entirely. I have stated that a venue such as this is in the clear for charging. Again, as well, government regulation is not inherently bad. It is possible for it to do things efficiently. Also, I think the government could work out a long-term budget/payment system. This theater wouldn't have to beg every night. ETA: I suppose in that setup, I value art more. (This is a response to your first question in your most recent post.)
So you wouldn't shut the theater down, you would only deprive the playwrights of their copyrights, so that the theater wouldn't have new plays to show? And I assume you'd make it completely legal for other theaters to take the music, staging, and every other element of the production without payment, so that their current income stream from taking productions to other theaters would be entirely eliminated? Are you willing to risk the entire existence of many forms of art on the idea that it's possible that the government might be efficient? Unless the government guaranteed the theater its money several years in advance, with absolutely no conditional elements, the theater would have to fundamentally change. You keep saying that I'm not listening to you, that I keep thinking it won't work. But you have no workable suggestions as to how it can work.
It alarms me that you don't seem all that sure of this. If this is about art, surely it should be about art.
I said this here, because of the circumstance of the question. One is not required to choose one or the other. Since that was the stipulation of the question, I unsatisfyingly went with art. You said that I have provided no workable solution. I agree. I have stated this critic on myself several times. I am not setting up a government. I don't think I know all the nuances and consequences. I am suggesting the existence of an alternative and loosely investigating some vague possibilities. I appreciate the discourse, but I feel it is tail-spinning, and I am removing myself from it. ETA: Surety is the devil.
Considering less extreme copyright strategies: If you wanted to increase funding for the NEA, so that it provided grants to artists for the purpose of creating art that would then be copyright-free--sure. That sounds dandy. If it works, something has been created. If it fails, nothing has been destroyed, and nothing has been taken from any artist, because the artist would have volunteered for the deal. For all I know, that may actually exist already, but I suspect not. You wouldn't even need the government for that--a private or charitable organization could provide grants, on a contract that guaranteed that the resulting work would be public domain. Someone could start something similar to KickStarter, with this public-domain nuance. Someone could start a campaign to encourage copyright holders to voluntarily relinquish their copyrights. If we return to involving the government, the government could offer some sort of incentive--if you don't expect to make another penny from that work, and the government offers you a thousand-dollar tax deduction to release it, who knows, maybe you would? This one doesn't sound all that likely--I don't ever see Disney, for example, releasing one nanosecond of anything they own--but there may be categories where it could work. I would like to see Congress and/or the Supreme Court not only halt further copyright extension, but shrink copyright. I think that the vast majority of works would have earned out their potential in, oh, thirty years--really, a good deal less. I wouldn't advocate taking away from currently copyrighted works, but if I were king, works copyrighted tomorrow would fall out of copyright on 9/21/2029, with one optional renewal to 9/21/2044. And I'd like to see some sort of scheme that allows out-of-copyright works to be legally copied and paid for. If the publisher of that book is never going to republish it because it's just not worth it, I'd like to be able to photocopy the thing and send fifteen dollars to somebody. Now, this does affect situations where the work is made unavailable for the purpose of raising its value--like Disney putting movies in the vault for X years so that they can get a premium price for them. I don't feel much innate sympathy for this scheme (edited to clarify--for Disney's scheme, that is), but I'd have to think it over.
Thanks. But as much as I'd love to take credit for it, it's not my word. I wish I knew coined it though, because it's a great word and I love it. @shadowwalker, you do realize the the words we use today are here because someone coined them and enough people used them to make it a word. For example; Android, Floppy disk, scuba, megapixel, and prairie-dogging are all coined words you'll find in the dictionary. So why not 'authorpreneur?" Someday, it'll be in the dictionary too. After all, it fills a need that no other word does. Besides, lot of famous writers make up words.
Right now, there are 1,866,372 free books available at Barnes and Noble for the Nook. Why not read those and let the authors who want to charge for their efforts do so? I will say that I think a copyright should die with the creator of the work.
It is a matter of what a society values more and whether or not someone should restricted from art based on economic standing. (I acknowledge your referencing of free material. I'd suggest it'd be more ideal for everything to be as such.) Though, I didn't really answer your question.
There's kind of a parallel with the Olympics, isn't there? It's lovely to think of it as being a bastion of amateurs, a venue for people who love sport for its own sake rather than as a way to make money. But that approach is actually elitist, because only the wealthy are able to devote that much of their time to something that they do for love. The vast majority of people can't afford to spend that many hours striving for excellence in something that will never put food on their table or a roof over their head. So, yes, governments have stepped in and provided sponsorship to some athletes. But only some of them, and there is a governmental bias in what gets sponsored. The Canadian hockey teams get lots of money, the gymnastics team gets significantly less. In China, the situation seems to be reversed, so you could say it all balances out, globally. But if you're a Canadian who wants to be a world-class gymnast? Too bad. That doesn't seem fair to me. I guess Swiveltaffy is looking at this from the perspective of the consumer of art, while others are looking at it from the perspective of the producers of art. For me, honestly? The producers are more important. There's more than enough art available for free in this world. People who want to appreciate art can look at a sunset or listen to a child's pure laughter and get all the beauty their soul can hold, and if they want something more man made they can take advantage of an absolute glut of almost free art on the TV, internet, in public spaces, etc. But people who are producing all this? The vast majority of them are working hard for years or even decades, doing just about anything for an audience. I would say the vast majority of art created in the world today IS free, because it's created by people who are still learning their craft (or who have no actual talent to begin with) and who are happy to distribute their work to anyone who will pay attention to it. The art that has to be paid for? It's the art that's being produced by those near the top of the ladder of quality. (And lots of that is still available for free, in various venues). Do we have an actual example of a human being in the developed world who is lacking access to art? Can someone tell me who that person would be?
As an artist, I think it's downright tragic that anyone would try to tell me my time is not valuable (and that's what you do when you remove compensation from the picture). That my artist inventions aren't deserving of the same protections as patents. I spent my entire life honing my craft. Since the age of 3, I drew drew drew in my free time, knowing that I was going to be an artist when I grew up. The time, effort, and money involved were way more than most people think. My art education was not free. Every moment I'm doing art, I'm working towards putting food on the table. It's a profession, just like any other. Why should we treat it any different? We shouldn't. Heck no, I don't need no stinking entity over my shoulder controlling my every action simply because of the profession I chose. I paint book covers and do concept art for the commercial art industry. I'm not doing this for charity. Yes, I love my job. I do fanart when I have time just to share with the world out of the goodness of my heart, but that doesn't mean I don't have the right to be paid for my skills the rest of the time. There's no shame in an honest day's wage for an honest day's work. People have a disconnect with the reality that creating art IS work. Hard work.
I would add to this that no writer should ever edit their own work. Why? Because they can't. They are too close to it. If you can't afford an editor, get a second job and save. No writer should ever edit their own work.
