Digital Authorship
Publishing in the Attention Economy

Explores contemporary authorship through three key authorial roles: indie publisher, hybrid author, and fanfiction writer.

R. Lyle Skains (Author)

9781108444484, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 7 February 2019

75 pages
17.8 x 12.6 x 0.8 cm, 0.3 kg

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.

Subject Areas: Modern & contemporary fiction [post c 1945 FA], Fiction & related items [F], Literature & literary studies [D]