Literary Authorship in the Digital Age

Abstract

Throughout the history of text technology, the impetus of innovation has always been the faster production of more texts, to be consumed by more readers. But the effects have never been confined to merely quantitative change. The introduction of new technologies has also inspired new writers to take up the pen, writing about new subjects, inventing new genres and reaching new social strata of readers. This happened after Gutenberg’s invention of printing with movable type, when entrepreneurial printers started to cast around for fresh writing to print and sell. It happened again in the nineteenth century after a quick succession of printing innovations made books cheaper and more widely available, leading to such new genres as detective fiction and popular romance. The mass education revolution of the second half of the nineteenth century enabled large groups of the population to emancipate themselves socially and intellectually. Everyone who had a mind to do so could turn to reading for knowledge, culture and entertainment. Thanks to the growing size of the print economy, authorship could become a profession. Today there is a screen revolution underway, and once again more texts are being produced, to be distributed still faster, to be consumed by yet more readers. And once again more people are writing than ever before in history – writing about new subjects, inventing new genres and reaching new social strata of readers. One of the most fascinating and bestdocumented cases in recent times to illustrate this is that of E. L. James. Having started her Fifty Shades trilogy as web-based fan fiction, James went on in 2011 to self-publish it as an e-book and print-on-demand paperback after there had been complaints about its sexually explicit nature. Snapped up by a commercial publisher, it subsequently turned into one of the greatest publishing successes ever. In August 2013, the trilogy’s earnings of $95million brought James to the top of the Forbes list of highest-earning authors. By June 2015 she had sold over 125 million copies worldwide.