This is Samuel Johnson, a British lexicographer and writer who lived long ago but once said that none but a blockhead (that's how they talked in merry old England back in the 18th century) ever wrote anything except for money.

 

This was back before the days of Twitter and the blogosphere when learned people observed the world around them and made wry remarks. In this case, Johnson was both wry and canny. He had observed that writing was work, and hard work at that, and there was really no inherent reward in doing that sort of mind-numbing, hand-cramping, difficult endeavor without some type of reward. Furthermore, Johnson observed that there was no reward in mere praise or attack or whatever other response one's writing earned in the marketplace. No, Johnson saw that writing was not the sort of thing that one would do for pleasure like singing, perhaps, or tap dancing. A person might sing or dance for the sheer enjoyment of it.

 

But what Johnson meant was that nobody every had enough fun writing to make it worth doing for nothing. It is the sort of thing–like ditch digging–that deserves to be compensated. In fact, if we as a society did not pay people to dig the ditches necessary for our communities, it is highly unlikely that a ditch-digging club might be formed to undertake these tasks for us.

 

However, a great many people think that writing ought to be done for free, that is, they want to turn writers from the hard-working, unappreciated souls we truly are into blockheads who work for nothing.

 

First of all, there are those who want to underpay writers to the point that pay is almost nonexistent. These are perplexing people. I see ads on the Internet seeking blog posters and web article writers where the client fully expects to get a 500-word article for $5 and sometimes less. I've seen ads seeking 100 articles (usually due quickly) for about $300. What perplexes me about these ads is not that people do not want to pay writers, but that they are usually for "get-rich-quick" types of websites, obviously run by people who are not quite so rich yet.

 

You'd have to be a blockhead or live in an economy where $5 is a day's pay to make that work.

 

Second, there are medical journals. Do you know that doctors who contribute to these journals do not get paid by the journals (which, by the way, generally sell advertising, subscriptions, and downloads of individual articles that can cost upward of $50). That's right, a medical journal might want to tap you for $65 to download Dr. Jones' article, but Dr. Jones never saw a nickel from the journal. The intriguing thing is that many doctors for their own reasons have hired medical writers to assist them in their publishing efforts, fees that are mainly paid by the doctor. The doctor probably figures he is getting some prestige by being published and the convenience of a medical writer is worth the expense. But the journals expect them to write for nothing.

 

No wonder most medical studies never hit print. Imagine how much really important medical information is not shared in the literature because a great many doctors refuse to be blockheads.

 

Third, there are those who assume that writing is no big deal. A newbie writer once wanted me to read and critique her book because she had been a blockhead and written a book but was quite unhappy with how it turned out. So she figured I must be an even bigger blockhead than she and would read it and critique it, ideally teaching her how to write, for no money.

 

Writers like to be paid.

 

The nice lady who waited on my table for Sunday lunch expected not only to be paid by her employer, but she expected me to–of my own volition–throw a few bills on the table for her besides. I did so. People expect that carrying a glass of ice tea and a plate of food twenty feet deserves compensation. Why not writing?