always like that

And this very brief blog's answer, is that no, there was a time before e-books, and so this particular method of fleecing the writer, or any artist, is relatively new, but there have always been meaner fish out to gobble the innocent artists among us.

 

I'm thinking of Jack Kerouac and plenty of other famous writers (indeed, I don't have a list, but I'd assume many female writers had their financial winnings gobbled up by their husbands and fathers long before capitalist strangers could feast on their literature), along with Motown singers, who sold plenty of books or records in their lifetimes, even into the hundreds of thousands or more, and yet died broker than broke. On Mom's couch or Uncle Sam's bill or a combination thereof or worse.

So, yeah, no e-books, no e-scams from amazon, the publishing world, or anywhere else, but there have always been ways to screw the writer. And screwing the artist, is as American as apple pie, or at least as capitalistic as Christmas, or as full of cinemagic as the bright lights over Hollywood, or something like that.