Digital Authorship: Publishing in the Attention Economy [Paperback]

Explores contemporary authorship through three key authorial roles: indie publisher, hybrid author, and fanfiction writer.Explores contemporary authorship via three key authorial roles: indie publisher, hybrid author, and fanfiction writer. Examines how digital and networked media allow writers to distribute their work directly to - and often in collaboration with - their readers. These writers tend to favor publishing platforms that generate attention capital.Explores contemporary authorship via three key authorial roles: indie publisher, hybrid author, and fanfiction writer. Examines how digital and networked media allow writers to distribute their work directly to - and often in collaboration with - their readers. These writers tend to favor publishing platforms that generate attention capital.This Element looks at contemporary authorship via three key authorial roles: indie publisher, hybrid author, and fanfiction writer. The twenty-first century's digital and networked media allows writers to disintermediate the established structures of royalty publishing, and to distribute their work directly to - and often in collaboration with - their readers. This demotic author, one who is 'of the people', often works in genres considered 'popular' or 'derivative'. The demotic author eschews the top-down communication flow of author >text >reader, in favor of publishing platforms that generate attention capital, such as blogs, fanfiction communities, and social media.Introduction; 1. The new digital author; 2. The power of the demotic author; 3. The rising underclass of the fanfic author; Discussion and conclusions.