Many years ago, my wife and I made a fairly significant decision to buy books. Less and less books were being sold at the time, and that is even more true today. We did it as a “purposefully purchase.” I felt it was important to support authors and she agreed, so we made an extra effort to buy books to support authors.
It seems to me that effort is important then and now for multiple reasons. As almost everyone faces a limited budget in their lives, you have to decide where you want to put any side money. Do you want to plan for vacations and save for years to take a long, exotic get-away? Do you decide to explore a nice new restaurant once a month?
You can save your money to put into fun ventures. Or you can save your money and put it into a purposeful purchase to support something you believe in.
Many of us contribute to a cause. It might be supporting land restoration or preventing a historic national landmark from being torn down. You could decide to help others by giving money to a food bank or local charity to rescue animals.
Purposeful purchasing is a bit of a different animal. You believe in the product or what stands behind the product. In the case for my wife and I, we believe writers, as an increasingly endangered species due to the lack of reading and low pay, can use additional support.
No, we are not changing the world. Authors aren’t going to survive because we bought 73 books between the two of us last year. They’ll still be slogging away working as waitresses and waiters, bartenders and ski lift operators so that in their spare time they can tickle the keyboard with an idea that may germinate into something bigger to entertain and enlighten those who flip the pages, whether the book is on paper or an electronic version.
You’ll send a message – we believe the effort you’ve invested in becoming a writer deserves some reward in terms of a reasonable living wage. And even with our contributions, that will not be realized by the huge majority of writers. They will continue to toil, with a small audience at best, writing in their spare time because it is an act of love.
As a creative endeavor, writing requires not only an idea generation mode, but also a LOT of hard work and discipline to bring a novel, collection of essays, nonfiction book, or an assortment of poems to the finish line. You start with a concept, write thoughts down, do an outline, dig into research, interview others, as necessary. You write and edit. You have others look at your work provide comments and insights. And you revise and revise before any semblance of a final product arrives.
There are a lot of people who think they are writers today who are not. They slam a few words down and click a button and think they’ve emitted something profound, when generally speaking the more profound statements come after tediously working through a process to come to a conclusion worth sharing.
It’s important to support writers. They are a unique breed, humans who take extra time to think through how the world turns. We need them now more than ever.
It seems to me that effort is important then and now for multiple reasons. As almost everyone faces a limited budget in their lives, you have to decide where you want to put any side money. Do you want to plan for vacations and save for years to take a long, exotic get-away? Do you decide to explore a nice new restaurant once a month?
You can save your money to put into fun ventures. Or you can save your money and put it into a purposeful purchase to support something you believe in.
Many of us contribute to a cause. It might be supporting land restoration or preventing a historic national landmark from being torn down. You could decide to help others by giving money to a food bank or local charity to rescue animals.
Purposeful purchasing is a bit of a different animal. You believe in the product or what stands behind the product. In the case for my wife and I, we believe writers, as an increasingly endangered species due to the lack of reading and low pay, can use additional support.
No, we are not changing the world. Authors aren’t going to survive because we bought 73 books between the two of us last year. They’ll still be slogging away working as waitresses and waiters, bartenders and ski lift operators so that in their spare time they can tickle the keyboard with an idea that may germinate into something bigger to entertain and enlighten those who flip the pages, whether the book is on paper or an electronic version.
You’ll send a message – we believe the effort you’ve invested in becoming a writer deserves some reward in terms of a reasonable living wage. And even with our contributions, that will not be realized by the huge majority of writers. They will continue to toil, with a small audience at best, writing in their spare time because it is an act of love.
As a creative endeavor, writing requires not only an idea generation mode, but also a LOT of hard work and discipline to bring a novel, collection of essays, nonfiction book, or an assortment of poems to the finish line. You start with a concept, write thoughts down, do an outline, dig into research, interview others, as necessary. You write and edit. You have others look at your work provide comments and insights. And you revise and revise before any semblance of a final product arrives.
There are a lot of people who think they are writers today who are not. They slam a few words down and click a button and think they’ve emitted something profound, when generally speaking the more profound statements come after tediously working through a process to come to a conclusion worth sharing.
It’s important to support writers. They are a unique breed, humans who take extra time to think through how the world turns. We need them now more than ever.
