Written Communication Oct 2010

Sustained Authorship: Digital Writing, Self-Publishing, and the Ebook

Tim Laquintano Lafayette College

Abstract

This article reports on a digital ethnography that examines writing, authorship, and self-publication in an online niche market. Drawing on interview and web data collected over 3 years, it focuses on the writing practices that have supported the production, distribution, and sanction of 13 ebooks self-published by online poker players. The article advances an understanding of authorship as sustained interaction among writers and readers as the work of publishing becomes absorbed into online networks as literate activity. In lieu of the capital investment of publishers that produces the materiality of the book, participants in these spaces have manufactured valued texts through collective literacy practices, coming to a loose consensus on what constitutes a book, and working together to enable proprietorship over texts, even amid environments of mass collaboration.

Journal
Written Communication
Published
2010-10-01
DOI
10.1177/0741088310377863
Open Access
Closed
Topics
qualitative research digital rhetoric

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (2)

  1. Miller (2019)
    Negotiating Communicative Access in Practice: A Study of a Memoir Group for Peo…
    Written Communication
  2. Gallagher (2015)
    Five Strategies Internet Writers Use to “Continue the Conversation”
    Written Communication

Cites in this index (1)

  1. DeVoss et al. (2008)
    Media Convergence: Grand Theft Audio: Negotiating Copyright as Composers
    Computers and Composition
Also cites 13 works outside this index ↓
  1. Baron, D. (2009)
    A better pencil: Readers, writers, and the digital revolution
     ↗
  2. 10.1017/CBO9780511810237
     ↗
  3. 10.1016/j.lisr.2006.03.003
     ↗
  4. 10.4135/9780857020277
     ↗
  5. 10.5210/fm.v6i10.891
     ↗
  6. 10.5210/fm.v12i9.2012
     ↗
  7. 10.4324/9780203164754
     ↗
  8. 10.5040/9781849662505
     ↗
  9. 10.5210/fm.v6i6.864
     ↗
  10. 10.3138/9781442657250
     ↗
  11. 10.1017/CBO9780511557842
     ↗
  12. Williams, R.J. (2007)
    10.1177/1461444807076987
    New Media & Society  ↗
  13. 10.2307/2738129
     ↗
CrossRef global citation count: 13 View in citation network →

Related Articles

  1. Written Communication Feb 2026
    Precarious Participation: Chinese International Students’ Transnational Digital Literacies ↗
    Zhaozhe Wang
    literacy studies qualitative research digital rhetoric multilingual writers
  2. Written Communication Apr 2020
    Inventing Others in Digital Written Communication: Intercultural Encounters on the U.S.-Mexico Border ↗
    Beau Pihlaja
    genre theory qualitative research digital rhetoric online writing instruction multilingual writers
  3. Written Communication Apr 2020
    Multimodal Language of Attitude in Digital Composition ↗
    Kathy A. Mills; Bessie G. Stone; Len Unsworth; Lesley Friend
    qualitative research digital rhetoric multimodality affect and writing
  4. Pedagogy Oct 2019
    Frustration Is a Feature ↗
    Brandon Walsh
    qualitative research digital rhetoric multilingual writers
  5. Written Communication Jan 2019
    Compressing, Expanding, and Attending to Scientific Meaning: Writing the Semiotic Hybrid of Science for Professional and Citizen Scientists ↗
    Gwendolynne Reid
    writing across the curriculum qualitative research digital rhetoric multimodality multilingual writers