One thing I wouldn't like to be right now is an agent. Or a record label. Or even a publisher. Because the time when you needed any of these people to become famous has passed. Take Zedd, for example. He's a 22-year-old DJ - real name Anton Zaslavski - who became famous by remixing tracks on an online platform called Beatport. This is typical of the way the internet can provide a short cut to stardom. As the International Herald Tribune put it, « a hot new track...can instantly turn up on playlists and ricochet through social media », before rapidly achieving mainstream success. And it doesn't matter whether you're « a brand-name producer or a 16-year-old with a laptop ».
The digital era is destroying the notion of a creative elite - the happy few artists who have been selected by large corporations to provide content to the rest of us. Today, we can easily bypass Random House and EMI to find a fan base for our quirky creative output, whatever that might be. The fantasy writer Amanda Hocking had already sold over a million self-published e-books - and earned millions of dollars - before she was offered a contract by the publisher St Martin's Press. And some fans accused her of selling out, which should reassure those of us who need the endorsement of « a real publisher » before we accept that our work has any merit. Forget the middle men. Go create.
