Author
- For other uses, see Author (disambiguation).
An author is the person who creates a written work, such as a book, story, article, or the like, whether short or long, fiction or nonfiction, poetry or prose, technical or literary. Within copyright law the term "author" is often used for the creator of any work, be it written, painted, sculptured, music, a photograph or a film, and may be a corporation as well an individual.
Contents |
Role in critical theory
One key issue in literary theory is the relationship between the meaning of a literary text and its author's conscious intent.
- The phrase "Death of the Author" was popularized by Roland Barthes in his 1968 essay with the same name. It is used to convey the idea that texts have meaning and an independent existence outside that intended by the author, depending on the context and reader. The death of the author is in self-conscious opposition to the New Criticism, a literary critical movement popular in England and America in the first half of the 20th century. According to this movement, the author's intent is assumed to be quite clear to the author and it becomes the critic's task to understand this intent.
- Michel Foucault's 1969 essay "What is an Author?" responds in part to Barthes and characterizes the author-function in four main ways. He claims that the author-function is linked to the juridical and institutional system of the discourse, that it is not the same for all discourses, that it is not spontaneous attribution, and that it might not refer to a real individual.
Some historical financial arrangements between authors and publishers
- Publishers could purchase a copyright from the author. They would then assume all the risk of publication, and the author would lose complete control. This was common in the UK in the 19th century.
- Publishers could commission writing from an author for a fixed fee. The agreement may or may not have included the possibility of further payment if the work was reprinted or reissued.
- Shared- or Half-Profits: Publishers and authors would share profits (not necessarily in a half-half division) after production expenses had been paid off. This occurred in British publishing in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; they were widespread in the US, beginning in the 1830s.
- Royalties: Publishers covered all expenses of publications, and the author was paid a percentage (calculated on a wholesale or a retail price) or fixed amount, on each book sold. Publishers, at times, reduced the risk of this type of arrangement, by agreeing only to pay this after a certain amount of copies had sold. In Canada this practice occurred during the 1890s, but was not commonplace until the 1920s.
- Commissioned: Publishers made publication arrangements, and authors covered all expenses (today the practice of authors paying for their publications is often called vanity publishing, and is looked down upon by many publishers, even though it may have been a common and accepted practice in the past). Publishers would receive a percentage on the sale of every copy of a book, and the author would receive the rest of the money made.
See also
<span class="FA" id="nl" style="display:none;" />
Categories
Writing occupations | Literary criticism