So, I flat-out failed to publish the rest of my interview with Ronnie Scott over Easter. Frankly: I was indulging in too much pot all weekend, so I pretty much hybernated in my flat and tried to finish reading Power Without Glory, which I also failed at.

Power Without Glory is really long, and dense, and written in this painfully stuttering style, like listening to Grandpa Simpson. I have all sorts of theories about this, but for now it’s enough to say it is nonetheless an interesting snapshot into an era, and I’m eager to finish the bastard so I can start reading about the controversy it stirred up – a libel case, no less.

The other (subliminal) reason I failed is that I’m just, frankly, over blogging. As I just wrote to a friend:

I’m going quiet on SIB, and have all but ceased my Facebook and Twitter activity, because I want to go back to the headspace where, as a teenager, I used to sit in the backshed smoking bongs and reading books until the sun came up. I just don’t seem to be able to immerse myself in literature anymore, and I’m sure it has to do with the easy-grab information I can access online.

This was in response to an essay draft he sent me about why online communication needn’t, necessarily, be about all-inclusive commenting, the democratisation of commentary, yada yada yada, and, well, flinging the essay my way came at a time (the same day, in fact) I changed my Twitter by to, simply, ‘internet apostate’. That’s right, I’m forsaking my church: the internet will not set us free, because the internet does not have free will. (If I say that enough times someone might read it.)

I have also spent my entire adult life working in publishing, and much of that time working as an editor (to the aspiring: working as an editor is 5% editing, 150% admin), so maybe I’ve succumbed to the old mechanics’ syndrome: I nearly dropped out of high school to start an apprenticeship as a mechanic, but decided not to because I was worried it would impinge on my hobbyist passion for restoring vintage cars. That passion has since been usurped by a passion for literature and, whattaya know, I’m working in literature and my work is impinging on my passion. Woe! #firstworldproblems

Anyway. I’m going to publish the rest of the interview today and tomorrow. After that I’ve got some guest content lined up, a post from Gram about the rhetoric of the eBook industry, and a post from myself about whether books are actually underpriced in Australia, and then I’m going to hang up my hat for awhile, spend some more time in the carport I have cunningly crafted into a semblance of my adolescent backshed. (If you’re interested in book pricing, Matthia Dempsey wrote about it for Kill Your Darlings. Felice and I are also debating with a neo-con about it here.)

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An exciting opportunity has come up for young writers at one of Australia’s most prestigious platforms for the discussion of literature, ABC Radio National’s The Book Show. They are looking for five young bloggers to write about book culture on their new blog. I will certainly be applying, and I encourage other young book lovers to do so as well.

The gig is unpaid – advertised as ‘the best unpaid gig in town’ – and a discussion was brought up by Lisa Dempster about whether this is because blogging is not a legitimate form of publishing. The discussion of blogging legitimacy baffles me, especially attempts to articulate support for the medium, and the cries of outrage when another media outlets ‘exploit writers to leverage their online presence’: if the writers didn’t consider it worth their while, they wouldn’t do it.

The debate also reminds me of the equally superfluous debate about the life expectancy of the novel as a medium. Debating the legitimacy of blogging or the longevity of novel publishing is less important than simply blogging well and publishing good novels.

Reading the post highlighted a division that I think is worth exploring further. For these purposes, legitimacy might be arrived at through payment or publication of writers. I think there is much more at stake here than the meagre incomes of a couple of writers – embracing this opportunity, paid or unpaid, will yield far greater cultural capital than the alternatives proposed by its detractors.

Legitimacy through Payment

If the legitimacy-through-payment debate is to be had, it could be easily applied to many art forms that people practise without remuneration: graffiti, long-stitching, or writing books themselves – Lisa herself has done a lot to reveal the appalling financial conditions under which Australian authors labour.

Brian from Fitzroyalty mentions – with some exasperation – legitimising blogging by paying bloggers is difficult in a medium that barely has a functioning economic model. Instead, another idea of legitimacy needs to be considered when evaluating blogging.

Legitimacy comes from other sources in the blogosphere – sources that traditionally legitimate mediums are lacking, such as the amount of conversation generated by your writing, which is inhibited in most print mediums. And the inclusion of young voices on the ABC is worth more than the validation a young writer might get from being paid by any other institution. The prospects arising out of a gig with the ABC far outweigh the likelihood that they’ll never pay for blogging.

Legitimacy by Publication

Young writers are apprentices pushing their way into an industry with an abundance of suppliers (writers) and a dearth of distributors (editors/publishers). The under-representation of young writers’ voices in our traditional outlets makes this even harder. These positions at the ABC will help young writers to advance their position in this pursuit, by teaching them the ropes and getting their name out there. These are legitimate means for the development and promotion of youth literature.

They could choose not to publish them, which is the model alluded to by Mel Campbell, editor of The Enthusiast. In the comments to Lisa’s post, Mel criticised the ABC and Express Media¹ for not paying young contributors, and stated their alternative policy of restricting the number of contributors and writing a lot of the content themselves instead of ‘exploiting inexperienced workers’.

Not only does Express Media have an honourable tradition of paying its contributors, the organisation also works extensively at legitimising young writers in other ways, such as by providing professional development and experience in the industry. As with the ABC publishing youth literature on this blog, this constitutes a greater contribution to the legitimacy of their careers than paying them ever could.

I would rather see a million young writers working for free than a handful of writers dominating the industry because the market found a way to pay for their time. These young writers are producing content for free anyway, on their own blogs – that the ABC is leveraging some of their resources and infrastructure to endorse this content is legitimising enough.

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1. Disclaimer: I am a former employee of Express Media, and I have been paid to write book reviews for The Book Show, so maybe it’s easy to go into bat for these guys, but in reality I’ve seen the value in providing professional development for young writers, and I’ve experienced the same writing for the ABC; I certainly would have written for the ABC for free if it meant getting my name out there the way it did.