In Rebecca Jennings’s Vox long read on the necessity of authorly self-promotion, she interviews William Deresiewicz, whose book The Death of the Artist breaks down the harsh conditions for artists seeking an income in the digital economy. Deresiewicz used to think “selling out”—using the most sacred parts of your life and values to shill for a bran... See more

If you take nothing else away from this article, remember this idea: In a capitalist economy, artificial scarcity creates the conditions for discovering culture’s true market value.

But it doesn’t feel too early to ask what might happen in a world where artists keep more or even most of the value that they create. This is personally relevant to me, of course, as a creative type who also stepped away from a “major” — a staff job at a big publication — in favor of selling my work directly to readers. But the larger cultural cons... See more