Reading, Writing and Moolah
There's been a bit of a discussion going on among some Dreamspinner authors lately about people who find ways to read our stuff for free, either by downloading it from P2P filesharing sites or by visiting mainstream sites that make a significant portion of the books available online prior to purchase. To be honest, neither of these phenomena have ever bothered me as much as they seem to bother others, and I've been pondering why that is. Because I suffer from chronic can't-shut-up-itis, I thought I'd go ahead and articulate where I am on all this.
2. Karmically speaking, I probably owe the universe a couple of free books. At least. I was a college kid during Napster's heydey, and yes, I made use of it. I even recall indulging in a few self-righteous rants about big money bands like Metallica who essentially sued their own fans for downloading their music. I still think that sucks. It would be pretty hypocritical of me to turn around now and be horrified that anyone would want to do the same thing to me.
3. Filesharing may actually benefit the creator of the thing being shared, in the long run. Maybe somebody downloads one book (or reads the majority of it on a site that makes it possible to do so without buying), likes it, and then decides to look up what else that author has written. Or they mention it to a friend, who goes and buys it. It's free advertising. And it's another way to get my work into the hands of more readers, and I'm pretty much always going to look at that as a good thing.
4. I am conscious of the fact that some people who find free ways to get LGBT-themed books do so because they are not in a position to have such a charge show up on a credit card bill. Because it wouldn't be safe for them for that to happen. I'm not saying that's the situation of every person who's using a filesharing site, but I do think it's an important aspect of this to remember.
5. Frankly? For me, this whole thing has never been about the money. I like writing. I like having readers. I like talking to people about writing and stories and M/M romance. But I come from the world of fanfic, where we do all that for free anyway. It honestly hadn't occurred to me until relatively recently that a person could be paid for that stuff, and while it's nice whipped cream on the sundae for me, it's never been the main point. When I first got a manuscript accepted, my excitement was primarily about the stamp of approval that comes from a publisher telling you they find your work worthy of publishing, and that they want to invest time and money in it to make that happen. Well, that and the idea of reaching a whole new group of readers. The money was a distant third. So the idea of missing out on my cut of a particular reader's purchase just doesn't seem like something worth getting that worked up over. Now, I realize that I'm in a different position from some authors on this point, because writing is not my main source of income and I never intended for it to be. I would never criticize someone for trying to protect their ability to make a living. But from my particular perspective, in my particular situation, yeah, I'm not losing much sleep over the $2 a book I miss out on when somebody finds a free way to get their hands on my stuff.
To be clear: I'm not jumping up and down over the fact that filesharing sites are out there. If you are considering reading something of mine, I would prefer you pay for it, for obvious reasons. I'm not going to make it easy for people to find other ways, like by posting links to these sites. But I'm not going to go around sending out take down notices either. Basically this: you know better than I do whether you can pay for this or not. I'd rather trust you than be that guy.
I don't know. That's just where I am. What do you guys think?
2. Karmically speaking, I probably owe the universe a couple of free books. At least. I was a college kid during Napster's heydey, and yes, I made use of it. I even recall indulging in a few self-righteous rants about big money bands like Metallica who essentially sued their own fans for downloading their music. I still think that sucks. It would be pretty hypocritical of me to turn around now and be horrified that anyone would want to do the same thing to me.
3. Filesharing may actually benefit the creator of the thing being shared, in the long run. Maybe somebody downloads one book (or reads the majority of it on a site that makes it possible to do so without buying), likes it, and then decides to look up what else that author has written. Or they mention it to a friend, who goes and buys it. It's free advertising. And it's another way to get my work into the hands of more readers, and I'm pretty much always going to look at that as a good thing.
4. I am conscious of the fact that some people who find free ways to get LGBT-themed books do so because they are not in a position to have such a charge show up on a credit card bill. Because it wouldn't be safe for them for that to happen. I'm not saying that's the situation of every person who's using a filesharing site, but I do think it's an important aspect of this to remember.
5. Frankly? For me, this whole thing has never been about the money. I like writing. I like having readers. I like talking to people about writing and stories and M/M romance. But I come from the world of fanfic, where we do all that for free anyway. It honestly hadn't occurred to me until relatively recently that a person could be paid for that stuff, and while it's nice whipped cream on the sundae for me, it's never been the main point. When I first got a manuscript accepted, my excitement was primarily about the stamp of approval that comes from a publisher telling you they find your work worthy of publishing, and that they want to invest time and money in it to make that happen. Well, that and the idea of reaching a whole new group of readers. The money was a distant third. So the idea of missing out on my cut of a particular reader's purchase just doesn't seem like something worth getting that worked up over. Now, I realize that I'm in a different position from some authors on this point, because writing is not my main source of income and I never intended for it to be. I would never criticize someone for trying to protect their ability to make a living. But from my particular perspective, in my particular situation, yeah, I'm not losing much sleep over the $2 a book I miss out on when somebody finds a free way to get their hands on my stuff.
To be clear: I'm not jumping up and down over the fact that filesharing sites are out there. If you are considering reading something of mine, I would prefer you pay for it, for obvious reasons. I'm not going to make it easy for people to find other ways, like by posting links to these sites. But I'm not going to go around sending out take down notices either. Basically this: you know better than I do whether you can pay for this or not. I'd rather trust you than be that guy.
I don't know. That's just where I am. What do you guys think?
date
newest »
newest »
S. B. (Sidney) wrote: "I'm learning myself how and what it takes for an author to put their brain and sweat into creating a book in hopes that everyone or the majority of people will like what they've written after all t..."Thanks for your thoughts! I agree that it takes a lot of blood, sweat and tears to put out a book, and I'm certainly not trying to talk anyone out of paying for them.
I found your book list here at GR via this post of yours via several searches regarding opinions on ebooks (pros and cons). This post is what made me check out your oeuvre thus far. I am delighted by your fresh, insightful, open-minded, and mature personal outlook on this issue of "reading, writing, and moolah." Thank you for sharing your thoughts!
Personally I think it belittles the author's talents to not reward them by not 'purchasing' their books and instead going to one of these sites to get it for free. If you're too cheap to buy the books that time, money and hard work was spent by the authors to provide those interested with their books then you shouldn't be reading them.
Getting them for free cheats authors, I see it as theft and there's no fairness to those of us that will spend our hard earned dollar which so that by buying the books we also show appreciation.
I know authors that writing books is their full time job, it pays the bills. Is it fair to deprive authors of this? In my opinion, no it doesn't. That's where I'm at in my opinion on this.