The Aloof Author is Dead, Long Live the Writer

Back in college I had an opportunity to hear William F.  Buckley Jr. speak and meet him afterward.  This was a big deal for me at the time. Buckley wasn't just the founder of National Review and political gadfly extraordinaire, he was also a prolific author of  nonfiction and fiction.  He was in the upper echelon of writers I regarded as set apart from the rest of us -- the epitome of the professional author.

Others breathing that rarefied air included Norman Mailer, John Updike, Saul Bellow,  and pretty much anyone writing for The Paris Review or who were fortunate enough to be included among the "New York Intellectuals." These weren't just authors, they were Authors, and the thought that they had any obligation to make themselves accessible to their readers would have seemed ridiculous if anyone had voiced it.

Fast forward 25 or so years and things are a bit different.  Technology has riddled the barriers between authors and readers full of holes.  Ignoring the multiple ways readers can interface with writers isn't an option -- but more to the point, why would anyone want to ignore them?  In the new economy, writers must build brands for themselves and maintain them over time.  Every mode of interaction with readers offers opportunities to strengthen the brand.

I realize many people bristle when they hear the word "brand" associated with writing, whether it's in the form of journalism, fiction or other. Some think it's irresponsible to couch the craft of writing in marketing terms, and I understand that concern. But "brand" in this sense doesn't have to connote commoditization of what a writer does; rather, it's shorthand for describing the undeniable reality that if writers want to build a readership, they must somehow differentiate their work from everyone else's. And they must find ways to reach readers who have so many options in front of them that no writer is above ignoring.

The authors of old could afford aloofness because they had a few cultural dynamics working for them that have all but disappeared.  For one, they benefited from a mystique surrounding authorship. The really great writers, like those I mentioned earlier, were considered paragons of a talent few could claim to have mastered so thoroughly. They also wrote in a semi-closed system that required an imprimatur of worthiness to enter.  Those who determined that worthiness were gatekeepers whose power was derived from the nature of the system -- a self-reinforcing edifice of who knows who.

Well, the edifice has crumbled and the gatekeepers have scattered.  In their place we have a massive open writing arena and an arena of vetted authorship. Both are affected by the same overriding reality that accessibility and transaction with the audience are necessary -- at least if you want to be read.

I have this belief that many of the authors of old, aloof though they may have seemed, understood that they could benefit from an ongoing transaction with their audience. Quoting Hemingway, "I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen."  I think if Twitter had been around when Hemingway was writing, he would have been a crazy tweeter. I bet he even would have answered some of his email and responded to comments on his Facebook page.

No doubt, others who enjoyed the mystique of authorship would feel threatened by all of these new ways for writers to reach readers, and readers to reach back.  Part of what made the mystique so compelling is that relatively few could hope to attain it.

In our world, however, just the opposite is true. What makes the writing scene so exciting these days is that talent can well up from virtually anywhere.  If someone writes well and is skillful about how to build his or her brand, incredible things can happen.

Where the discussion tends to go off the tracks is when some argue that since publishing has been democratized, we should abandon all of the traditional publishing elements wholesale.  This is wrongheaded for a few reasons.  First, even as individual writers' brands are built, large publishing brands serving up interesting content still command the vast majority of the global audience. Never before have they walked such a fine line between success and failure to be sure, but those that are doing the right things continue to attract readers.  (I'll go ahead and plug Forbes here with 30 million visitors to its website a month and growing -- a prime example of what I'm talking about.)

Second, just because anyone can get their thoughts out into the world doesn't mean professionalism is pointless.  When Apple made it possible for anyone to create cool designs on their Macintosh at home, it didn't logically follow that professional graphic designers were no longer needed, nor that art directors should all go find something else to do.

The arenas of open access writing and vetted authorship coexist, and so they should.  We still need people who understand the business of publishing, fact checkers who keep people honest, and editors who can make copy sing.  A billion blogs do not negate the value these and other professionals bring to the process.

What the open access world of publishing has really done is made it possible for talent to rise, and rise, and keep rising -- given that the writer is an astute participant in both the creation and delivery of quality content.  It's not enough to write well. Talent is rarely "discovered" as it used to be in the heady days of aloof authorship.  If you really want to write for as large an audience as will have you, then you have to learn the machinations of branding yourself and transacting with your readers.

None of what I've said should imply that I think authors of old didn't have to work for what they had.  Most of them had to work extremely hard, in some cases teetering on starvation to pursue their dreams. Charles Bukowski famously said that for most of the time he was trying to break into writing, he survived on one candy bar a day (Bukowski could never be accused of not transacting with his audience, even if he was hammered when he did).

Aloofness is less a description of the authors of old, and more a comment on the system they worked within once they were established. It didn't demand that authors transact with their readers, and the technologies that would eventually compel authors to do so weren't invented yet.  Book tours were probably as close as anyone could come to transaction, or the occasional lecture, both of which were largely unilateral forms of communication.

In our world, aloof authorship is dead because the system that nurtured it is no longer relevant.  Writers and readers are forevermore engaged in a continuous interplay of ideas, and Hemingway's comment about the importance of listening is more relevant now than ever.

Follow me on Twitter @neuronarrative and visit my website, The Daily Brain.