I confess to never having read Harlan Ellison’s novels but he has just become my hero — and a hero to all professional writers everywhere — since I watched this A-plus rant of his against all those who expect writers to offer their work gratis. This has happened to me a few times in the past few weeks — I have gotten inquiries from websites (both run by massive media corporations!) asking me to write up my thoughts on some subject. I asked how much they were paying and the answer was: nothing. My reply was that if you pay nothing you will get nothing from me; I don’t work for free. But Harlan Ellison has said it much more eloquently than I can. In the future, if anyone asks me to write for free I think I will just share with them a link to his video. Best line: “I sell my soul but at the highest rates.”

(h/t Elizabeth Eaves of Forbes)

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This entry was posted on Friday, June 5th, 2009 at 6:29 PM and is filed under Contentions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.