Your mastery of intricate analysis is far beyond anything I can hope to match—your framing razor-sharp and intellectually generous. But still, I wonder whether the contrast between “literary author” and “publicly traded brand” overstates what may be a repackaging of an old tension. Haven’t writers always had to balance artistic ambition with public performance, even if the mediums have changed? The stakes feel timely—not entirely new, but brought into sharper focus by the clarity of your rendition here.
You’ve sharpened the terms of the debate in a way I recognize every time I myself write—even this response, which I want to be both honest and compelling to someone other than me.
I totally agree re: the longstanding balance b/w artistic ambition and public performance (and financial success)--but here I'm contrasting this balance itself to the corporate one between innovation vs. quarterly returns, and saying they evolve over time in analogous ways.
That’s a helpful distinction I should have acknowledged. By aligning the artistic/public tension with the corporate tug-of-war between innovation and quarterly returns, you’re not just revisiting an old dilemma—you’re showing how it scales. What once felt like a personal balancing act now starts to look like structural fate. Appreciate the reframing—though I’m not sure whether to feel seen or audited.
We are selling ourselves in everything that we do. Im working very hard to focus on connecting with people rather than merely extracting money from them.
"Corporations are stories written by lawyers" is spot on. The analysis makes me think two things:
1. We are living in a time where the entities (authors/corporations) are undergoing reconfiguration. One is gaining personhood and the other seems to be losing that claim. Rather than lament either the loss of some essence or express shock at the weirdly zombie nature of a thing that lives forever without flesh, your analysis draws attention to the structures and reworkings of cultural production as a process, indeed one that may have historical changes as drivers and conditions.
2. Stories really matter. The precious work of long-term invention is something we need to protect if we want cultures of innovation. If the incentives, whether for people or organizations, push to the short term, then there is never enough abundance or fallow terrain to give new things the energy required. This seems truly a loss and a shrinking of the forms, no matter the domain, and we are poorer for it.
I’m so glad you brought this up because I probably under-billed the citizens united angle here—and is there something Aunt Hillarian going on with this reconfiguration?
It really resonates with something I’ve noticed in non fiction writing. Almost all the “best” online writers have either self published or never really attempted books. The blog / essay / newsletter form is where they’ve remained or they monetized elsewhere and kept writing. Sort of a shame.
In an age of LLMs I’m not quite sure what the metaphor is. I’ve been thinking a lot about this but it’s hard to really grok even knowing it’s coming.
Yeah that may be part of the cause too. Newsletter writers focus more on current events to appeal to audiences. You have to be a bit disconnected from that to write the best books
It's funny I've been talking with a friend about how the patronage models that enable works without short term ROI to get made depend on donors/patrons who understand that art escapes the logic of the market. You could look at the quarterly returnification problem as a symptom of the way libertarian economic logic has "extended the domain of the struggle" into every sphere. I was citing to my friend this quote from the donor who funded the film Wildcat about Flannery O'Connor:
"Culture and art do not work by the rules of the market, because of the incalculability of the factor of time,” Frank explained. “Really fine art doesn’t pay for itself because the significant audience for it may be spread very thinly over many years. Michelangelo couldn’t collect the fee the Vatican Museum takes from seeing the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo needed a patron.”
The patronage model can be great—provided the patron is. Otherwise you’re merely trading stifling bureaucracy for individual caprice. Alas, my personal preference would be independent wealth!
I share your preference! I think the ideal is that there is exposure to the marketplace, so you don't get self-indulgence and insularity, but also some kind of more solid sponsorship that keeps you from having to pander. (A day job could fill that function I suppose)
This is a really smart take that's not 100% on the specifics they're guessing at, but rightly points to the new way of running a business that this opens up:
Your mastery of intricate analysis is far beyond anything I can hope to match—your framing razor-sharp and intellectually generous. But still, I wonder whether the contrast between “literary author” and “publicly traded brand” overstates what may be a repackaging of an old tension. Haven’t writers always had to balance artistic ambition with public performance, even if the mediums have changed? The stakes feel timely—not entirely new, but brought into sharper focus by the clarity of your rendition here.
You’ve sharpened the terms of the debate in a way I recognize every time I myself write—even this response, which I want to be both honest and compelling to someone other than me.
I totally agree re: the longstanding balance b/w artistic ambition and public performance (and financial success)--but here I'm contrasting this balance itself to the corporate one between innovation vs. quarterly returns, and saying they evolve over time in analogous ways.
That’s a helpful distinction I should have acknowledged. By aligning the artistic/public tension with the corporate tug-of-war between innovation and quarterly returns, you’re not just revisiting an old dilemma—you’re showing how it scales. What once felt like a personal balancing act now starts to look like structural fate. Appreciate the reframing—though I’m not sure whether to feel seen or audited.
Exactly. Let's go with "seen"!
We are selling ourselves in everything that we do. Im working very hard to focus on connecting with people rather than merely extracting money from them.
"Corporations are stories written by lawyers" is spot on. The analysis makes me think two things:
1. We are living in a time where the entities (authors/corporations) are undergoing reconfiguration. One is gaining personhood and the other seems to be losing that claim. Rather than lament either the loss of some essence or express shock at the weirdly zombie nature of a thing that lives forever without flesh, your analysis draws attention to the structures and reworkings of cultural production as a process, indeed one that may have historical changes as drivers and conditions.
2. Stories really matter. The precious work of long-term invention is something we need to protect if we want cultures of innovation. If the incentives, whether for people or organizations, push to the short term, then there is never enough abundance or fallow terrain to give new things the energy required. This seems truly a loss and a shrinking of the forms, no matter the domain, and we are poorer for it.
I’m so glad you brought this up because I probably under-billed the citizens united angle here—and is there something Aunt Hillarian going on with this reconfiguration?
It really resonates with something I’ve noticed in non fiction writing. Almost all the “best” online writers have either self published or never really attempted books. The blog / essay / newsletter form is where they’ve remained or they monetized elsewhere and kept writing. Sort of a shame.
In an age of LLMs I’m not quite sure what the metaphor is. I’ve been thinking a lot about this but it’s hard to really grok even knowing it’s coming.
You’re right it’s also relevant to nonfiction & perhaps even more pronounced in concert with much of nonfiction’s journalistic shorter shelf life
Yeah that may be part of the cause too. Newsletter writers focus more on current events to appeal to audiences. You have to be a bit disconnected from that to write the best books
It's funny I've been talking with a friend about how the patronage models that enable works without short term ROI to get made depend on donors/patrons who understand that art escapes the logic of the market. You could look at the quarterly returnification problem as a symptom of the way libertarian economic logic has "extended the domain of the struggle" into every sphere. I was citing to my friend this quote from the donor who funded the film Wildcat about Flannery O'Connor:
"Culture and art do not work by the rules of the market, because of the incalculability of the factor of time,” Frank explained. “Really fine art doesn’t pay for itself because the significant audience for it may be spread very thinly over many years. Michelangelo couldn’t collect the fee the Vatican Museum takes from seeing the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo needed a patron.”
The patronage model can be great—provided the patron is. Otherwise you’re merely trading stifling bureaucracy for individual caprice. Alas, my personal preference would be independent wealth!
I share your preference! I think the ideal is that there is exposure to the marketplace, so you don't get self-indulgence and insularity, but also some kind of more solid sponsorship that keeps you from having to pander. (A day job could fill that function I suppose)
This is exactly what I’ve tried to do—a side benefit being the day job actually supports the art more than just financially
ok but how do i get rich as artist corporation?
Ha ha you are reading the wrong newsletter for that, my friend
shit but ok wait actually have you seen the artist corporation thing Yancey Strickler is doing? https://www.artistcorporations.com/
I hadn’t see this! Fascinating. Are you doing it?
i think so i mean why not?? @Yancey Strickler i assume if I tag you that auto-starts an artist corp for me yes??
Hell yeah sign me up for the big A
We can put an A on that
Wow that is one enormous letter A
Going for the record
In time I think so, yes.
This is a really smart take that's not 100% on the specifics they're guessing at, but rightly points to the new way of running a business that this opens up:
https://cultishcreative.com/p/the-creative-economy-s-structural-problem-has-a-potential-solution-7883