Difference between Terminologies

Difference between Writer and Author

Most of the times when we talk about any book or novel we use terms “author” or “writer” without realizing that there may be any difference between them. We always took both words as synonyms but let’s take another deeper look on both words from and researcher’s perspective to know whether these words are same or they refer to different phenomenon.

Writer
The literary means of the writer are “A person who has written a particular text”.
“A person who writes books, stories, or articles as a job or regular”

The writer is a person who has writing job. He is required to write something, it could be a book, a story, or just some of the words written on to be used for the benefit of a job. For example, writing an article in a magazine or newspaper column. Writers can be anyone who is clever in writing. According to Robert Louis Stevenson (1962) “The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean”. He can get any information from many sources. The writer is the one whose work consists of penning down someone else’s ideas or stories. Being a writer is at times easier than being an author. But a write must have the capability to understand and convey an idea correctly to the readers.
"Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader—not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon."
E.L. Doctorow

Author:

A person who writes a novel, poem, essay, etc.; the composer of a literary work, as distinguished from a compiler, translator, editor, or copyist.
“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.”
John C. Maxwell

Same is the case with an author. He behaved like a leader who knows what is in his mind and he conveys his ideas and thoughts clearly to others. Through the power of his words he takes us to the world where the characters in his mind actually live and we can visualize them.

An author is in charge of creation. Although an author does the same job as writing, but the results of his writings is a creation that is not usual, it could be unique, and perhaps even a new thing with a new topic that is not the same as other writings. . If you are writing a novel or short story based on a plot developed by self, you get to be known as the author of the novel. For example Harry Potter is the creation of J.K Rowling; she conceived that idea and consequently became the author of the Harry Potter Series.

An author can get the work copyrighted under the copyright laws. This ensures that nobody else steals or uses the original idea as it is. So only the author is always associated with that particular idea or work. To be an author one must have the capability to think and express the thoughts. For instance Paulo Coelho is a well known and widely recognized author of many famous novels like The Alchemist, The Pilgrimage, and Warrior of the Light etc or Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who wrote One Hundred Years of Solitude which is the bestseller have the ability to convey their ideas in a captivating manner. Writing skills include the command over the language and the expressiveness with the play of words.

An author can get the work copyrighted under the copyright laws. This ensures that nobody else steals or uses the original idea as it is. So only the author is always associated with that particular idea or work. To be an author one must have the capability to think and express the thoughts. And a write must have the capability to understand and convey an idea correctly to the readers (Manisha, 2009).

When a writer can be an author?

But in reality, a writer will be known as author after taken the effort to create something out of creative ideas to be able to own the copyright. When it comes to writing books, a person becomes an author only when the book is published. If your work is unpublished, and even if the idea is purely your own, you will still be considered as the person who wrote the work. And when your work is published you get to be known as the author of the work. So if you write a lot, but never get them published and out to the public, you remain a writer. By doing his job as a writer, then he publishes his writing, that’s when he is called as author. An ordinary writer would not be famous if he does not publish his writings with all rights reserved.

Difference between Author and Editor

Author
An originator or creator, as of a theory or plan.

Editor
A person who edits written material for publication.

Author vs Editor


The relationship between the author and the editor, often the author’s only liaison to the publishing company, is often characterized as the site of tension. For the author to reach his or her audience, the work usually must attract the attention of the editor. The idea of the author as the sole meaning-maker of necessity changes to include the influences of the editor and the publisher in order to engage the audience in writing as a social act. The researcher’s essay “The Field of Cultural Production” depicts the publishing industry as a “space of literary or artistic position-takings,” also called the “field of struggles,” which is defined by the tension and movement inherent among the various positions in the field. Bourdieu claims that the “field of position-takings [...] is not the product of coherence-seeking intention or objective consensus,” meaning that an industry characterized by position-takings is not one of harmony and neutrality. In particular for the writer, their authorship in their work makes their work part of their identity, and there is much at stake personally over the negotiation of authority over that identity. However, it is the editor who has “the power to impose the dominant definition of the writer and therefore to delimit the population of those entitled to take part in the struggle to define the writer. As “cultural investors,” publishers rely on the editor position to identify a good investment in “cultural capital” which may grow to yield economic capital across all positions (Pierre Bourdieu, 1993). Good relationships between authors and editors are largely found to be the product of an awareness of writing as a social act, and an effort to create a balance wherein the authority over the text is negotiated among all of the positions in the industry, so that the meaning is effectively carried from the meaning-maker to the readership.

Difference between Edition and Volume

Edition

The whole number of copies published at one time.

Volume

A series of issues of a periodical.

Edition vs Volume

The bibliographical definition of an edition includes all copies of a book printed “from substantially the same setting of type,” including all minor typographical variants.According to the definition of edition above, a book printed today, by the same publisher, and from the same type as when it was first published, is still the first edition of that book to a bibliographer. However, book collectors generally use the term first edition to mean specifically the first print run of the first edition (aka "first edition, first impression"). Since World War II, books often include a number line (printers key) that indicates the print run. A popular work may be published and reprinted over time by many publishers, and in a variety of formats. There will be a first edition of each, which the publisher may cite on the copyright page, such as: "First mass market paperback edition". The first edition of a facsimile reprint is the reprint publisher's first edition, but not the first edition of the work itself. A volume is one book within a set or group of books, or a book of bound sheets. It is also used to represent a period of publication, usually one year. A volume is a single book that is part of a collection; also a bibliographic identifier for a sequence periodicals.