kory "your highness" anders

art imitating art:

Truth Coming Out of Her Well To Shame Mankind (Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1896) 

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There is no shortage of posts discussing how undervalued visual art is by society at large, how to fairly price commissions, how to properly tip visual artists, how much work goes into visual art, why visual artists deserve more recognition, higher pay, and more respect.

And this is good!! It’s true! Society and the professional field notoriously underappreciates, dismisses, and underpays visual artists.

However, the reason these types of posts don’t really make it around about writing, is because, well, writing is so dismissed in general, even by other artists and fans, that charging for writing isn’t even on most writers’ radars.

Go to an artist alley at a convention, visual fanart abounds. There are beautiful prints, models, keychains, stickers, etc. And yes, notoriously artists have to undercharge for these things, but there is a space to sell them.

Imagine seeing a  fanfic booth in an artist alley. Imagine a fanfic author charging for and successfully selling a written product. Imagine them being able to advertise their original work along with it, which sometimes gets appreciated and purchased.

I’m a writer, and even I catch myself thinking “well, that just wouldn’t make sense.”

Why not?

Why have we formed a culture in which visual art can be sold, but we expect and even demand writing for free or else we’re not interested?

Visual artists work hard, and they post countless pieces for free on their blogs, and they deserve any support they get. But given the opportunity, they can take that product to a space designed specifically for them to profit from it.

Writers work hard, post countless poems, fanfics, and original works for free on their blogs. And it ends there.

The difference between writing and visual media is the mythology of “there’s no way I could ever do something like that.” But now anyone with a keyboard subconsciously or consciously thinks “huh, I could probably do that. It’s just a bunch of words in the right order.”

I think it has a lot to do with how quickly we can experience it though . Especially with things like cons. Ppl spare things 1 glance and make a choice right away and you can’t do that with writing

This is Definitely a factor to consider. You can glance at a print and think “nice,” where you can’t do that with writing. However, I do think about how many people I know, including myself, who will take a chance on a random book based on the back description.

I also think about how many people I know who tell me they’re going to a con or artist alley Specifically because a specific artist is there. They’re not even sure what pieces will be for sale, but they know they’ll get something.

It’s much harder for writers to build that sort of audience online, because of how often writing is dismissed, passed around without credit, etc., as compared to visual art.

I’m not saying people should start buying fics and original works Or Else.

this is SUPER late but here’s the batfam for batman day