出版与作家生涯2017newrepublic.com编辑精选
为钱写作：稿酬写作简史
Cash for Words: A Brief History of Writing for Money
导读
文章从历史角度梳理“为钱写作”的演变，讨论稿酬如何影响创作动机与作品质量，并延伸到互联网自出版能否让“为爱写作”复兴。对写作者来说，它值得读，因为稿酬、市场筛选和自我驱动正是持续写作绕不开的问题。文中观点未必被评论者全盘接受，但恰好提供了反思“为钱还是为爱”的切口。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
把稿酬看作创作条件而不是质量天敌：经济激励通常能带来更稳定的产出，别用“为爱写作”掩盖缺少纪律。
- 02
高质量写作要消耗大量时间和精力，哪怕只是副业，也要为它安排固定投入和专注时间。
- 03
投稿市场里糟糕作品远多于好作品，好作品不会自动“涌现”；主动打磨并寻找编辑、读者反馈，比等待被发现更实际。
- 04
“为钱”与“为爱”不必对立：可持续的写作往往既需要经济支持，也需要内在热爱，别把金钱简单道德化。
HN 评论精选
付酬通常能激励更好的作品；但网络自出版里坏作品太多，读者不愿筛选，所以高质量小说不会自然“涌现”。
我按字数付酬，所以作者和我视角互补（我办一本小型科幻杂志）。首先，我完全不认为付酬会降低内容质量。我听过反对给作者付酬的论证都很含糊；而且普遍认为，从统计上看，在任何人类领域，给人们经济激励通常会得到更好的工作成果。其次，这句话让我很感兴趣：“到目前为止，网络自出版一直是同人小说和情色的保留地，但高质量小说开始出现应该不会太久。”思考整个生态后，我的结论是这句话很可能完全错误。主要问题是，与好写作相比，糟糕写作的数量实在太多。我每月收到300—400份投稿，大多数无法发表（我当编辑的朋友说这些数字还偏低）。由于比例严重倾斜，“高质量小说”“开始涌现”极不可能，主要因为互联网读者不愿筛掉所有谷壳。伟大写作要“涌现”，既需要有人读它，也需要此人对朋友有足够影响力让朋友也读。我不确定这两个条件能否足够满足，成为有效筛选系统。
mojoe查看英文原文
I pay by the word, so this author and I have complementary perspectives (I publish a small science fiction magazine, http://compellingsciencefiction.com). First, I certainly don't think that paying for content decreases quality in any way. Every argument I've heard against paying authors is incredibly nebulous, and it's generally accepted that statistically you'll get better work (in any field of human endeavor) when you economically incentivize people. Second, this quote was very interesting to me: “So far online self-publishing has been the preserve of fan fiction and erotica but it can’t be long before high-quality fiction starts to emerge.” After thinking about the entire ecosystem for a bit, my conclusion is that the above quote is probably completely wrong. The main issue is that there is SO MUCH bad writing produced compared to good writing. I receive 300-400 submissions a month for my magazine and most of them are not publishable (and my editor friends tell me that these numbers are low). Because of this hugely skewed ratio, it is very unlikely that "high-quality fiction" will "start to emerge", mainly because readers on the internet are unwilling to sift through all the chaff. For great writing to 'emerge', it requires both someone to read it, and for that someone to have enough influence over their friends for their friends to read it. I'm not sure that those two conditions will ever be satisfied well enough to be an effective screening system. It will be interesting to see how the ecosystem evolves, though.
为爱写作需要时间、精力与纪律，经济独立是前提；金钱也可能让人疏远创作本身。
“不靠书作为主要收入来源，可能反而对作家有益。”前提是仍有足够精力和时间只为热爱而写。虽然我可能不觉得像工作，但产出高质量作品确实需要大量时间精力。没有纪律和专注，副业项目甚至很难完成。“金钱模糊了一个人与工作的关系；它使我们与自己以及我们所造之物疏远。”这让我想起相关讨论。
brachi查看英文原文
> it might actually benefit a writer not to rely on books as their main source of income. As long and energy and time left is enough to work just for the love of it. Although I might not feel like work, producing quality work certainly takes considerable amounts of time and energy. Side projects are hard to even complete without discipline and focus. > Money obscures one’s relationship to work; it distances us from ourselves and the things we make Reminds me of the discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13326792
为钱与为爱并不互斥；质量差就难获得像样报酬，低稿酬平台除外。
文章引用“互联网的自由提供了让‘为爱写作、不为钱写作’复兴的机会”，并说网络自出版目前多是同人小说和情色，但高质量小说不久就会出现；又说两千年后我们仍没远离品达的抱怨：“人们过去只为爱写作，现在为钱写作。”评论者回应：是啊，但两者并不互斥。如果你的质量很烂，就无法靠写作赚钱，因为没人会付你可观的报酬（我不算 oDesk 那种500字1美元的情况）。
paulpauper查看英文原文
“Luckily, the freedom offered by the Internet offers a chance to resurrect the idea of writing for love, not money,” waxes Rahim. “So far online self-publishing has been the preserve of fan fiction and erotica but it can’t be long before high-quality fiction starts to emerge.” In two thousand years, we have not strayed far from Pindar’s long-ago complaint: “Men used to write for love alone; now they write for money.” Yeah but they are not mutually exclusive. You cannot write for money if your quality is total crap, because no one will pay you a respectable amount of money (and I'm not counting o-desk where you get paid $1 for 500 words).
反对把“金钱必然玷污创作”普遍化；个人经验不能代表所有人。
金钱并不会污染我的一切。因此，文章从这一初始断言泛化成普遍结论后，其余部分我无法认同。
tomcam查看英文原文
Money doesn't taint everything for me. Therefore the rest of the article was impossible to agree with as the generalization it became by that initial declaration.
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