Crossposted from wyrdsmiths.blogspot.com with edits.
Free Science Fiction.
As has been mentioned elsewhere in the blogosphere, there is some gentle* debate among the professional community of fantasy and science fiction writers about the utility and advisibility of allowing some of one’s work to appear online for free.
This has parallels to the blogger/mainstream media kerfuffle that made me think it might be of interest to folks here in the political part of the blogosphere. The threat that electronic media poses to the old style content models and to writers and publishers who can’t learn to adapt in the fiction world is almost a perfect mirror for what’s going on here on the political side.
The most recent round of the debate started when the outgoing vice-president of SFWA** posted this screed in which he called those who give away content on the web both “webscabs” and “Pixel-stained Technopeasant Wretch.” For some strange reason this did not sit well with the more technologically liberal-minded among us.
In particular, it set off Jo Walton to declare “Monday 23rd April is International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day” and to propose that a bunch of us who write professionally should post some item of our work for free viewing.
I am gleefully adding my name to the list of writers giving it a whirl by posting electronic reprints of the two stories listed below on my personal website:
The Uncola is a near future snarky science fiction piece about the ungoing cola wars between the big brands. Originally appeared in Cosmic SF Vol #4
When Jabberwocks Attack is a humorous contemporary fantasy piece that gives a college his chance to break into the newly booming field of magical reality TV. Originally appeared in TOTU #22
I hope that you enjoy them.
The links are also posted at the wyrdsmiths blog (my writers group) along with links to other works by some of our members, including Namoi Kritzer and Sean Murphy.
Oh, and if you feel like buying some of my work as well, my novel WebMage is out from Ace with three sequels forthcoming, one each in ’07, ’08, and ’09 and can be picked up from Amazon or most bookstores. The stories linked here are similar in general flavor to the novel length work.
For a complete list of all the stories and other bits added to the list, please look at Jo Walton’s master post here. Or go to the livejournal community set up for the effort here. I will also endeavor to post a copy of the inevitable master list over at the Wyrdsmiths blog in a day or two.
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*i.e. Pistols or swords.
**Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.
There’s a debate?
Why is there a debate?
I read BoingBoing regularly. Cory Doctorow posts everything he publishes online as well as in book form, and licenses it under a Creative Commons license. For the version of the license he uses, that means that anyone who wants to can make derivative works from the piece so long as it’s properly attributed and not done commercially. Podcasts of his novels have appeared. You can download his stuff and read it on your PDA. And contrary to some schools of thought, it hasn’t hurt his sales one iota. In fact it seems to have bolstered and maybe even increased them.
My wife has a CD that came in a novel she checked out of the library. It’s from a hardback published by Baen Books. The CD contains electronic versions of a number of novels published by Baen. You can also go to baen.com to get more book samples and free novels (which hopefully will whet your appetite for more, and convince you to buy the paper-and-ink versions).
Honestly, it always surprises me when someone who is flexible enough in their thinking to be able to imagine new worlds, new societies, new futures and new pasts, and to make them real enough for someone else to appreciate and enjoy, can be so calcified in their thinking when the future finally arrives. Having read the rant in question, I think the SFWA VP made the right decision. The old saying is “lead, follow, or get out of the way.” This fellow sounds like speculative fiction is going someplace where he can neither lead nor follow.
I just wish I had some published output to contribute. But alas, I am only a wannabee-usedtabee, someone who published a few books a few years ago (that I don’t have the rights to) and would like to do so again if it weren’t for such mundane tasks as earning a living, a lack of stick-to-it-iveness when it comes to writing, and the fact that pretty much everything worthwhile I’ve done in the past ten years is already online anyway.
Yeah, I’m right there with you on there being any serious debate. I’m not yet as far over on the issue as Cory is–I think his results are distorted by having had a pretty big platform to start with and he doesn’t seem to acknowledge that those of us with smaller megaphones are going to have very different milage–but Hendrix’s rant pushed me over the edge to doing something I’d been meaning to do for a while. Perhaps I’ll even go on and post a whole novel at some point, but for the moment I’m only dipping my toes.
To be fair Baen says they’ll only post one book in a series for their writers, which I think is fine. It’s a good loss leader and will let you know if the series is for you. If for instance I’m reading a book and it turns into a gore-splattered slashfest, I won’t bother investing money in it, no matter how good it is.
Good point about Cory’s bully pulpit, and it certainly helps to have a publisher who Gets It to help you along if you decide this is for you. But honestly, I don’t see any real difference between publishing a novel online and selling a copy to a library. Libraries are ubiquitous, and they only help book sales. (Although I hear tell there are neocons out there who would just as soon defund our libraries and make sure everyone buys every single book they read. </shudder>)
I posted a bit about this on my LiveJournal page. I’ll link if anyone’s interested.
I’d be interested in the link, though I won’t get to it until later. I’m going offline for a couple of hours to get some work done on the current book. I’ll check back around 6:30.
I do think the library argument is a good one. I also think publishers are going to have come up with a realistic model for e-publishing that involves as little drm as possible and ideally an open platform. It’s that are become ex-publishers at some point.
My LiveJournal page
Maybe I should have just crossposted it here, but what the hey.
Thanks, Omir. I’ll go check it out.
Too many guys have been taking that on-line course–you know how it goes:
!!!YOU TO CAN BE A BIG SCI-FI RITER AND ERN BIG BUCKS!!!
–and having spent their money have bought the entertainment industry line that squeezing cash out of the readers to fill the industry coffers will somehow make the writers rich.
Well, re-read your contracts, guys! You ain’t gonna get rich.
So: Do you want people to actually READ your stuff?
Debate over.
I don’t think it’s quite that simple, though I’ve certainly come pretty close to phrasing it that way from time-to-time myself.
An awful lot of the debate within SFWA is more generational*. Since SFWA only admits professional writers, most of us know at this point that rich isn’t likely in the cards and that just making a living is a very lucky place to be. Those of on the younger end of things also see the internet and electronic publishing as an opportunity, one that could potentially lead to much larger audiences and even a few more bucks here and there, though it’s an opportunity with risks. Some of the older writers see this as new technology that may take their (admittedly limited) livelihood away. It’s a bit like the craftspeople who saw the industrial revolution bearing down on them. I don’t agree with that view, and even if I did I’d want to figure out a way to roll with it, but I can sympathize.
Of course, as is so often the case with problems here in the US socialized medicine and a real social safety net would go a long way toward making the idea of writing for pennies on electronic street corners a whole lot more palatable.
*This isn’t true in an absolute sense. There are some very old futurists in SFWA who have done a great job adapting and some young technophobes who haven’t, but it loosly maps.
I’m not sure how much interest there would be here, but anyone wishing to download and read any of my published academic papers can go here.
Cool, thanks for posting.
to get some more of your stuff to read. (And I just got a book of Eleanor Arnason’s from Aqueduct Press that I hadn’t know existed so it’s a non-embarrassment of riches.)
Hey Andi,
Thanks. Also on the Eleanor front, she posted a note on this over at our blog so it’s official enough that I can talk about it finally. The sequel to Ring of Swords should be coming out from Aqueduct in a bit too–though I’m not sure exactly how long that will be because it involves Eleanor doing rewrite and she has very exacting standards. When it becomes real, I’ll make sure to let you know.
Great news. Thanks for sharing it.
When not writing Greens political opinion or feminist screeds, I’ve been known to write a poem or two. Here’s a freebee.
Feral Heart
Love is the Heart
–a domestic beast–
turned loose to prowl
Running swiftly, wildly
within my chest
crashing against my ribs
sinking its teeth and claws
into my lungs
Bringing me down
laying me open
–and I surrender to its
primal resurgence–
Even recklessly invite its
escape
Leaving the gate
ajar
the leash lightly
tethered
Seducing
–and seduced–
by that which
I cannot tame
Cool, thanks for posting it.
You’re welcome.
Any hints on how to get the pixel-stains off my fingers?
I’m not sure, though I’ve heard a term that sounded like pixelaided once or twice, so perhap pixel-aid? Or do you think that’s more like kool-aid?
Hmmm. I’m not sure Pixel Aid is avaliable in Australia. But then neither is Kool-aid.
Unfortunately, as someone who sometimes works as a graphic designer, I’m all too familiar with the term “pixelated” – which is what happens when I forget to change the 72dpi resolution of an image on my computer screen to 300dpi before it goes to print [oops!].
“Pixelaided”, OTOH, is when people who cannot draw or write by hand are able to do so with the help of a computer.
Which is not to be confused with “Pixieled”. Which is when you are lulled by a false sense of security in high tech devices into not saving you work for hours at a time and then an impish force within your computer causes the program to crash and lose everything.
As for the stains, I guess I’ll do what I usually do, wait for the top layer of skin to wear off. A fine grained sand paper works well if you are in a hurry.
Okay, I surrender;) It was reaching, but I couldn’t quite resist. I particularly like your pixelaided take here. I hadn’t heard that one before.