BookBrunch - Shaping the twenty-first century writing life

And writers can no longer abdicate responsibility for their rights. In his opening keynote, the journalist and science fiction author Cory Doctorow delivered a brilliant polemic about the evils of DRM (Digital Rights Management) and the companies that promote it, declaring that he would rather give up his right to tell stories than publish using a system that threatens freedom of speech. Later, Ross sounded a warning note about unscrupulous agent-assisted self-publishing services, and when Polly Courtney talked about her defection from HarperCollins for insisting on branding her novels as chick-lit, the point was reiterated: whether operating in print or digital, trade or indie, authors need to educate themselves about the credentials of their collaborators and develop their own ethical codes. In the words of Granta's Senior Editor, Max Porter: "Read the way you want to read, write the way you want to write, and weatherproof your value system."