Author
[5] More recently, questions have arisen as to whether images or text created by a generative artificial intelligence have an author.
The Statute of Anne in 1710 set a legal precedent which laid the foundations of copyright, further establishing an author as the sole creator of a literary work.
[9]In literary theory, critics find complications in the term author beyond what constitutes authorship in a legal setting.
In the wake of postmodern literature, critics such as Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault have examined the role and relevance of authorship to the meaning or interpretation of a literary text.
"[10] The words and language of a text itself determine and expose meaning for Barthes, and not someone possessing legal responsibility for the process of its production.
[10] With this, the perspective of the author is removed from the text, and the limits formerly imposed by the idea of one authorial voice, one ultimate and universal meaning, are destroyed.
The explanation and meaning of a work does not have to be sought in the one who produced it, "as if it were always in the end, through the more or less transparent allegory of the fiction, the voice of a single person, the author 'confiding' in us.
"[10] The psyche, culture, fanaticism of an author can be disregarded when interpreting a text, because the words are rich enough themselves with all of the traditions of language.
The author's name "indicates the status of the discourse within a society and culture," and at one time was used as an anchor for interpreting a text, a practice which Barthes would argue is not a particularly relevant or valid endeavor.
Literary critics Barthes and Foucault suggest that readers should not rely on or look for the notion of one overarching voice when interpreting a written work, because of the complications inherent with a writer's title of "author."
They warn of the dangers interpretations could suffer from when associating the subject of inherently meaningful words and language with the personality of one authorial voice.
Self-publishing is a model where the author takes full responsibility and control of arranging financing, editing, printing, and distribution of their own work.
The author of a work may receive a percentage calculated on a wholesale or a specific price or a fixed amount on each book sold.
Publishers, at times, reduced the risk of this type of arrangement, by agreeing only to pay this after a certain number of copies had sold.
Established and successful authors may receive advance payments, set against future royalties, but this is no longer common practice.
[13] Vanity publishers normally charge a flat fee for arranging publication, offer a platform for selling, and then take a percentage of the sale of every copy of a book.
The idea of the author as the sole meaning-maker of necessity changes to include the influences of the editor and the publisher to engage the audience in writing as a social act.
Under these schemes, authors are paid a fee for the number of copies of their books in educational and/or public libraries.
These days, many authors supplement their income from book sales with public speaking engagements, school visits, residencies, grants, and teaching positions.
