This is a guest post by Jo Ann LeQuang
For centuries, writers have done more or less the same thing: sold their work to publishers who printed and distributed it. The Internet has changed all that. Instead of depending on publishers to take the risk and reap the reward of publication, writers can publish their own work online. This is different than being a "content provider," an underpaid writer who furnishes verbiage to existing sites. This is being an entrepreneur. The writer becomes the publisher. It's not only possible today, it's already happening.
A lot of writers struggle to cope. Traditional publishing opportunities are drying up at the same time that Internet writing assignments, though plentiful, are paying even less than the peanuts writers used to earn.
Some writers give up, others move on to different careers, and a few others hack their way as best they can through the new jungle of low-paying, fast turnaround gigs.
This might sound glum, and, indeed, many writers have taken it so. But rather than seeing the new content provider role as a demotion, what if writers peeked behind the curtain? The fact is that the world, for writers at least, has changed.
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