Millions Millions • This practice is changing everything: in the same...

This practice is changing everything: in the same way that writers select their own authorized biographers, they are now often inclined to sell their own estates, deciding for themselves what does and does not get published or meet the eye of the scholarly establishment.

No doubt there will always be ample work for archivists, historians, and biographers. But absent unexpected deaths, writers will likely see to their posthumous reputations themselves: selling off whatever will remain after their deaths long before they die. As unsentimental and straightforward a transaction as checking a box on a license.

Casey N. Cep, ”Books and Bodies: On Organs and Literary Estates”