The Fate of the Unread Writer in the Digital Age

I suppose that down to the '90s the problem of the unread author was little different from that of Jack London's Martin Eden. They toiled at their work, toiled at sending it out--and they collected form rejection letters from people as they went unread.

I imagine that many still follow this routine. But now they have the option of self-publishing. Thus they toil at their work, toil at publishing it themselves--and as the counters indicating page views and downloads and sales fail to tick up, still goes unread.

After all the sound and fury of technological change, the evolution of the Market and the effort to capitalize on it, where it really counted--finding an audience, making a living--the "aspiring" writer of today is no better off than they were before, and maybe even worse off, because collecting form rejection letters was a cheaper activity than producing a publishable book, because the wages for all writers are crashing in a world where PEOPLE DON'T READ, and now, we are told, the chatbots are coming for what little opportunity was left to them, eliminating the hope that they might make it someday because it looks as if there will no someday for anyone.