Clay Shirky writes:
Publishers have been telling each other for years that eventually people will tire of being able to produce and share amateur content, rather than just consuming professional content, but the users don’t seem to have gotten that memo.
True. I have never heard a book publisher or editor notice that almost all important books have been written by amateurs. Charles Darwin didn’t write books for a living. Nor did Thomas Paine. Nor did Betty Friedan. I think this is why books have been so influential.
Writing is an odd profession, if one can call it that. It’s like calling driving a car a profession. Sure there are professional car drivers (racing, taxi drivers I suppose, etc.), but a great majority of people in modern civilization can drive. It’s a part of many of our daily lives. The same with writing. Darwin may not have been a prolific book publisher (though he published more than just “On the Origin of Species…” But, he corresponded with people all his life through letter writing, he kept extensive journals and documentation of his observations (these are quite fascinating by the way), etc. So do many of us. I am not a professional writer, but I publish lots of professional writing. So although I can see how the Clay is directing his commentary to the book publishing industry, I think the amateur-professional division is not very meaningful when applied to writing. Cooking may be another example. There are many, many wonderful amateur cooks in the sense that they cook very well, even if it’s just for themselves, friends, and family. The amateur-professional distinction is more important when applied to fields that involve lots of training (or on-the-job learning) like engineering, medicine, science, law, carpentry, architecture, perhaps pro-sports–though of course there are always exceptions even here.
I think you’re missing the point. Darwin was a scientist, and what he wrote had value not because of his writing skills, but because of the content. Betty Friedan of course was a housewife, but could have been a professional writer, which was kind of the point.
“No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.”
-Samuel Johnson