The document discusses how publishing has changed in the digital age. It notes that everyone can now be a published author due to easy distribution online and personalized recommendations. This has led to an "attention economy" where attention has become scarce. There are now many types of authors, such as hybrid and indie authors, as well as fanfiction writers. The attention economy challenges ideas of literary merit and value, and raises questions around how attention can be converted into currency. More research is needed on the types of content circulating in this new digital attention economy.

1. Attention Economy
of the Digital
Publishing Sphere
By: Prakruti Bhatt

2. Publication in the Digital Age
● A democratic phenomenon
● “Thanks to easy replicability of the digital content, the power of search
engines and the continual development of personalized product
recommendation algorithms, the difficulties of publishing are no longer
in creating and distributing but in discoverability in an age of
hyperabundance.”
● Everyone is a published author with a potential audience
● Accessibility, Updatability, Searchability, Portability, Flexibility,
Affordability, Intertextuality and Multimedia- key terms to understand
the literary publication scenario in the digital age

3. Changes in the role of the Writer/Author
● End of the romanticized notion of the human genius
● Rise of the Demotic Author
● Self Publishing leads to Mass Authorship
● Writing becomes an everyday practice
● The book transforms from the read-only medium to read-write
medium
● Writer as a coder
● Sharing the space with AI
● Collaborative writing practice

4. Types of authors in the Digital Publishing
Age
Authors in the Digital Publishing Age can be broadly categorized into
the following types:
❖ Hybrid Authors
❖ Indie Authors
❖ Fanfiction Authors

5. Attention Economy
“When everyone becomes a publisher, attention becomes the
scarcest resource; and those who can gather and create attention are
the new bankers of an Attention Economy.”
● Converting attention into currency
● However, not all demotic authors would want attention to convert
into currency
● The Illusory Attention of the Indie and Hybrid Authors
● The notion of the Best Seller

6. So What?
● A need to redefine ideas about authorship, readership and processes of
literary production
● The attention economy challenges the notion of literary merit/value
● Literature as a means of earning
● Scope for research into the kind of content being circulated through the
texts published in and for the Attention Economy

7. References
● Goldhaber, Michael H. "The Attention Economy and the Net."
First Monday 2.4 (1997): 4. web. 31 August 2022.
<https://firstmonday.org/article/view/519/440>.
● Skains, R. Lyle. Digital Authorship: Publishing in the Attention
Economy. Cambridge University Press, 2019. Web. 31 August
2022.
<https://www.google.co.in/books/edition/Digital_Authorship/7Z
CFDwAAQBAJ?hl=en>.

8. ● Warner, Brooke. What is Hybrid Publishing? Here Are 4 Things All
Writers Should Know. 11 August 2016. Writer's Digest University.
web. 31 August 20222. <https://www.writersdigest.com/self-
publishing-by-writing-goal/what-is-hybrid-publishing-here-are-
4-things-you-should-know>
● What is Indie Publishing? Comparing Self-Publishing. 2 April 2021.
Gatekeeper Press. web. 31 August 2022.
<https://gatekeeperpress.com/indie-publishing/>