Writer or Author: What is the difference?

I came across a blog about self-publishing today and found it very interesting and informative. The blog is called: A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing. I highly recommend visiting the blog if you are interested in e-publishing.

What made the blog such a riveting read was not such much the posts but the comments posted by visitors to the blog. I was particularly interested in the running debate between the blogger and an anonymous visitor over what constitutes a published author and what does not.

As a writer myself, not a novelist, I’ve always been intrigued by the traditionalists who insist on pursuing a pedantic view of authorship, and I thought I would share my opinions on the subject here.

The argument which was being put forward by the anonymous visitor was that you cannot be considered an author until you have had a book published in print and sold through a bookstore. If you are a writer of e-books only, then you cannot be considered a published author.

The reality is that the monopoly once exercised by traditional publishers has been broken by advances in publishing technology. Not since the days of William Caxton has the publishing world seen such a major revolution in how the written word is packaged and sold. We can either accept this revolutionary change, or we can deny it and go the way of the Luddite.

My personal feeling is that traditionalists are hanging onto some elitist notion that an author is someone who has had his or her work put into print and sold through a bookstore. Accordingly, a writer who falls outside this definition is not an author. This is something that I find hard to stomach since it smacks of pure snobbery, a defensive line followed by those who feel threatened by change.

We should not forget that before the Gutenberg Revolution, and the introduction of the movable type printing press, most of the known world was illiterate. The Gutenberg Revolution was the single most significant contributor to an improvement in literacy levels during the fifteenth century, which in turn led to substantial changes in the laws that had held men and women in medieval bondage for centuries. In effect, the Gutenberg Revolution was directly responsible for many of the freedoms which we now take for granted.

Before the onset of the Gutenberg Revolution, writers had to content themselves with handwritten manuscripts or woodblock press copies of their work. If we follow the line of reasoning advanced by the aforementioned anonymous visitor, then Homer (The Iliad), Virgil (Aeneid), Aurelius (Meditations) and countless others who wrote and published their handwritten work on vellum, papyrus, slate or stone are not authors but writers who have little to contribute to the world of literature. (Wow! I suppose that is one way of trashing a whole class of authorship. However, I wouldn’t recommend the anonymous visitor take his or her argument to an academic level. He or she might find themselves on the wrong end of a losing battle.)

Thanks to the Gutenberg Revolution mankind was able to enter a period of learning and enlightenment. Did the world benefit from this revolution? On the balance of historical evidence, I would have to say yes.

Perhaps we should also give thanks to this current revolution taking place in the publishing arena too, as it is pushing the envelope on how we communicate with each other. It is also forcing us towards a better understanding of the world in which we live.

Thanks to e-publishing, Joe and Jane Public have been given a platform through which they can express their thoughts, their opinions, and their ideas. In the same way that the Gutenberg Revolution broke the shackles of ignorance, e-publishing is breaking the notion that authorship is the reserve of an elitist few.

It matters little to me whether someone calls me an author or a writer. (I like the idea of being put in the same class as a Homer or a Virgil, if only!) The fact remains – I can write and publish my work on the Internet without validation or restriction from traditionalists who would keep the majority of us chained to the Dark Ages. Now that is what I call real freedom! The anonymous visitor can, therefore, retain the title of author. I’ll settle for the freedom to express myself as a writer through e-publishing.