Author vs Writer

You are a writer.
You are the author of _______________.

That is my 2 cents.

I call myself a writer, but won't feel comfortable using the author title until I've sold a book.

Does one look up the WRITER of a book or the AUTHOR?
Does one look up the WRITER of an article or the AUTHOR?

In those questions may lie the answers.

"How many writers can dance on the jot of a courrier font 'i'?"

Usage as suggested, helps to deliniate why one word is chosen over another. I submit that the Copyright Office defines the "Author" of the work as the one who originates it. So in films, the Production company is considered the "Author" of the film, rather than the Screenwriter or the Director.

Not all "Authors" are writers in the strictest sense of the word.

In common usage, most people will use the word "Author" when speaking of someone who has written a published work.

Don't lose any sleep over it.

There's speculation about the term "author" in literary theory and the tentative conclusion is that it's an honorific, a term we apply to the writers of texts we classify in some special way. So bill boards have writers but we don't usually call them authors. In other words, it's a cultural judgment, and one that's probably questionable.

C.M. Daniels said:

This may sound like a dumb question, but what's the difference between them?

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One of them starts with an 'A'?

Seriously: There is no difference.

C.M. Daniels said:

. . .

So, what's your opinion?

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My view, FWIW, is that writer is an occupation and author is a status.

Lots of folks get credit as authors without having written what they are credited with. That happens a lot with legislation, where the "author" is more of a sponsor, but usually not the person who actually wrote the words. It also happens when books are ghost-written. The celebrity-author or business executive often has not written the book. A writer did that.

As an occupation, the term is writer. One can write for a living or as a profession. But for writers whose work has been published, the status of author is entirely appropriate.

You get your books or articles published and you are entitled to describe yourself as an author.

--Ken

I have a habit of perusing the Publish America board, where the members are never mere writers but invariably "published authors". I haven't been able to look at the word "author" the same way since; it now sounds pretentious to me - which is a shame, because it's a good word. Still, being a writer is a very good thing.

I've always felt an author is a known writer, whether novel, non-fic, shorts or articles. That's just a personal thing; they're interchangeable depending on your own quirks.

C.M. Daniels said:

I don't even think about PA's "23,999,837,874[sup]3[/sup] happy authors".

You're right, a lot of them do come off as snots.

I think I'm just going to keep telling people that I'm a writer with some published stories. It feels right for me.

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And there you have it.

Love that 3rd power you added up there! lol

Honestly, it's up to however you want to define the differences, if any. For me, I consider an "author" to be associated with books, whereas a "writer" is associated with articles, but everyone who puts pen to paper may have different ideas.

You're a writer because you write. You're an author of something that people actually read. That's my definition.

You can be a writer on a TV show, for example, but you can't call yourself an author. You may have authored a book, but you don't have to have "written" it yourself. Does it make sense?

I write. I don't auth.

If what I've written is good, other people can call me an author. It's not a title I give myself--mostly because I don't think it makes a bit of difference.

Darn...when I saw the thread title, I thought it was a link to an MTV Celebrity Death Match on Youtube to answer the age-old question once and for all.

I'm a writer. Author just sounds too... out there... for me.

Writer is good - it's kind of gritty, with visions of smoke-choked studies and a rickety old typewriter, and me - huddled behind it like some sort of little troll, tapping away at the keys while the stack of wrinkled typing paper grows and the floor is littered with crushed up wads of paper because there's no backspace key and I'm a lousy typist...

Yeah - I'm a writer.

Mayntz said:

Honestly, it's up to however you want to define the differences, if any. For me, I consider an "author" to be associated with books, whereas a "writer" is associated with articles, but everyone who puts pen to paper may have different ideas.

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That might be why some folks put "Author" on their business cards -- because they see themselves as writers of books, and they share your interpretation. Books have authors, and authors write books.

My (limited, direct) observations mostly suggest that people who describe themselves as "authors" want the status but do not necessarily want the hard slogging of writing as an occupation, or might settle for one (perhaps self-published or badly published) book to establish that status once and for all. But writers keep on writing.

--Ken

Author wins it by 1.05 billion to 191 million.

There's that great quote from Mickey Spilliane where he forcefully tells this interviewer that he is not an "Author," in his opinion authors were college professors who wrote literary novels they hoped would gain academic popularity after their death. He was a writer, he gets paid for his work.

C.M. Daniels said:

I like that.

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I don't. That quote is not so subtle in its "jab" at the academic types who "wrote literary novels they hoped would gain academic popularity after their death." That's not very respectful.

maestrowork said:

I don't. That quote is not so subtle in its "jab" at the academic types who "wrote literary novels they hoped would gain academic popularity after their death." That's not very respectful.

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It's not very respectful, but that type of writer is out there. I think Author is an appropriate term for that kind of writer who isn't looking at commercial success, but rather a creative and academic success.

I recently looked at getting a Masters in Professional Writing at a fairly respected university and I was told quiet flatly, that there would be little I could learn if I wanted help writing commercial fiction because they don't understand how to do that. I looked at the books they've published and most of them were academic, literary fiction published by university presses and likely sold less than 2,000 copies.

C.M. Daniels said:

I like that.

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Nonetheless, Mickey Spillane was the author of scores (hundreds?) of novels. As a writer, he wrote them. He was their author. We just don't ordinarily express it as, "Spillane was the writer of countless popular novels." No, notwithstanding that the statement is true. It is simply not correct (that is, generally accepted and preferred) idiomatic usage. The word there is "author." But he wrote them--he did not "author" them. (No one, I think, would quibble with "Spillane wrote countless popular novels.")

Where matters become more difficult is the self-description as "author" vs. "writer." And that gets back to status vs. occupation. Which does the speaker wish to emphasize, status or occupation?

But there is no clear line. Consider T. E. (Tom) Watson, whose business cards describe him as "Children's Author T. E. Watson." Yes, he writes the books (a lot of them, legitimately published), and makes a living from his books and related activities. But somehow, "Children's Writer" does not sound right, and he wishes to allude to the fact that many of his books have been published and that is his profession (personal appearances as author being part of the whole picture). On the other hand, I know some folks who put "Author" on their business cards while either being aspiring (unpublished) writers or having a very limited (micro-press, one or two books) record. The word there seems pretentious, or at least premature.

My views, FWIW.

--Ken