On some of the reasons why the economic crisis is commodifying creative writing

Hemingway on Not Writing for Free and How to Run a First-Rate Publication

by Maria Popova

Find the best writers, pay them to write, and avoid typos at all costs.

Recent discussions of why writing for free commodifies creative work reminded me of an old letter Ernest Hemingway sent to his friends Ernest Walsh and Ethel Moorhead when they were about to launch This Quarter — the influential experimental Paris-based literary journal that would go on to publish work by such greats as James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Kay Boyle, William Carlos Williams, Marcel Duchamp, Rainer Maria Rilke, Herman Hesse, Thomas Mann, and Hemingway himself over the course of its run between 1925 and 1932.

Dated January 7, 1925 and found in The Letters of Ernest Hemingway: Volume 2, 1923–1925(public library) — the impressive sequel to the first volume, which also gave us young Papa’s thoughts on how New York can drive you to insanity — the letter rings with remarkable prescience in today’s publishing microcosm where major publications expect writers to work for free in exchange for “exposure.” The result, unsurprisingly, is mediocre writing at best — not because good writing is motivated by money, but because nothing demotivates a writer more than feeling like her writing is vacant filler for pages meant not to delight or enrich the reader but to sell advertising.

Hemingway counsels Walsh and Moorhead:

One of the most important things I believe is to get the very best work that people are doing so you do not make the mistake the Double Dealer and such magazine made of printing 2nd rate stuff by 1st rate writers.

I see by your prospectus that you are paying for [manuscripts] on acceptance and think that is the absolute secret of getting the first rate stuff. It is not a question of competing with the big money advertizing magazines but of giving the artist a definite return for his work. For his best work can never get into the purely commercially run magazines anyway but he will always hold on to it hoping to get something for it and will only give away stuff that has no value to any magazine or review.

Before closing the letter, he adds a timeless admonition that, despite his own meta-violation, stands all the timelier in today’s age of rapid-fire publishing:

And watch proof reading and typography — there is nothing can spoil a persons appreciation of good stuff like typographical errors.

The Letters of Ernest Hemingway is full of such evergreen wisdom from one of the most celebrated writers in modern history. Complement it with Hemingway on how to become a good writer and his pithy Nobel Prize acceptance speech, then revisit the collected advice of great writers.