No More Author Advances?

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The state of this country doesn't seem so good if you're judging by this morning's leading news: 80,000 jobs lost in the month of March, 81% of Americans think the nation is on the "wrong track," and foreign correspondents are being arrested (in places you don't want to be arrested in) for reporting without accreditation.

And then to top it all off, there's a new publishing group at HarperCollins that is proposing to nix the author advance-in exchange for profit sharing-in order to cut costs. Not that writer's livelihoods are on par with, say, the recession or the war. It's just that the pay-for-performance model-a significant departure from the standard of author advances-is yet another indication of the mix-up occurring in so many sectors of American society.

As the previously mentioned poll would put it: "Right direction" or "wrong track?"

Via The Huffington Post