The Industrial Complex of Words: A Treatise on the Commodification of Literature
Remember when books were written by - people who actually wrote them? Those halcyon days before every C-list celebrity with a publicist suddenly became a "New York Times bestselling author"? Welcome to the golden age of Commodification of Literature, where the actual writing of literature has become perhaps the least important aspect of "being an author." In 2022, Penguin Random House India reportedly paid Bollywood star Kareena Kapoor Khan ₹5 crore for her pregnancy memoir "Kareena Kapoor Khan's Pregnancy Bible"—a book almost certainly polished, if not substantially written, by a professional ghostwriter. The ghostwriter, meanwhile, likely received a flat fee amounting to pennies on the rupee compared to the celebrity advance. This isn't an anomaly; it's the business model. The Ghost Economy and Class Warfare in Publishing Let us begin with the most damning evidence of literature's complete surrender to market forces: the normalization of ...