On Sat, 10 Jul 1999, Stevan Harnad wrote: > (2) Unlike all other literature, their authors write these papers to > report their ideas and findings, not to make money on their texts. All > they want is to reach the eyes and minds of a maximum of fellow > researchers, present and future, once their findings have passed peer > review. > > http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/nature2.html
I think that this point is wrong. I would claim that most authors write to present their ideas and visions, not to make money. The evidence is the highly skewed distribution of income from writing. Like artists and actors, only a very, very small fraction of trade authors make money from their writing. I conjecture that their motivation is more often glory or recognition, just like academics. By way of evidence, let me point you towards the US Dept of Labor Occupational Outlook Handbook, writers and editors section, where it is asserted that the average starting salary for writers and editorial assistants in 1996 was $21,000. Writers with more than 5 years of experience make more than "more than $30,000". These are not substantial sums for highly educated workers! Freelance writers earn much, much less on average than professional authors; they can't be in it for the money. However, I don't think that this claim has any impact on the rest of your argument. After all, all you need to assert is that academic authors aren't in it for the money---whether other authors are or not is irrelevant to your claims. It does suggest that if the rest of your argument is right it will apply more broadly than just to academic authors. Hal Varian, Dean voice: 510-642-9980 SIMS, 102 South Hall fax: 510-642-5814 University of California h...@sims.berkeley.edu Berkeley, CA 94720-4600 http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~hal
