Jade: Writers are adapting; publishers are not. If you’re writing online, the ad sales aren’t profitable enough to support the kind of salaries that working writers/journalists/copy slaves used to make back when books were printed on paper. The lower cost of distribution makes up for *some* of that difference, but not all of it. The issue, as I said above, is that you *can* get something *similar* for free, and in most cases that’s good enough for the average consumer. Hell, in a lot of cases, I can get as good or better online for free.

Holly: I don’t think having a blog is going to cause you not to become a Writer, if that’s what you want to do. It might satisfy that itch to string words together for a few readers, but it won’t satisfy that itch to be paid to do something you love. Even if it’s pennies, money helps a LOT, but it’s a whole different word from telling stories just for the love.

Ironically, as close as I’m probably ever going to get is the very type of medium that you’re talking about, and that is my silly little blog. It brought me out of my shell and helped me write for a meager audience and thus turned me into a writer of sorts, but it could be the very thing that keeps me from being a (capital-W) Writer as I’d always dreamed of being.

Great post.

Of all people, writers should be able to handle this shift in mediums the easiest. There will always be a need for good writers, especially these days when they do indeed seem so few and far-between. Is it really all that hard to write for an online source instead of a newspaper or magazine? I doubt it–more like some people don’t understand or don’t want to understand the change in medium, like the grizzled old vet who still wants to use his typewriter to write a column instead of typing it into a computer.

However, I haven’t really gotten on the digital book bandwagon yet. I still like my paperbacks. I am sure one day soon, I’ll be holding a Kindle or a Nook in my hand, though.