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May You Live in Interesting Times

Ordinarily this is called the “Chinese Curse” and is looked on as a bad thing. As artists we do indeed live in interesting times and I suppose it can be good or bad. Let me ‘splain.

No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

On the writing side of the house royalties are going down as are advances. Slush piles are going up, up, up. It can be difficult to cut through all the noise and make yourself heard. I can only assume based on what I’m hearing that the same is true in the other disciplines. So it may be tempting to say that it’s more difficult to “make it”, all of course depending on what you mean by that.

However, interesting times such as these often separate the adults from the children (to update the adage). I can point to a few people in my sphere that are coming down squarely on the former side of the knife.

Ed Talbot – He had joined the growing number of folks using Smashwords to publish some of his content. To that end he had a “Mayday” promotion (that I missed participating in) to launch two collections of short stories. While using Smashwords isn’t particularly new, he’s the first author I’m aware of to promote publishing there in the way he did. I’ve read a few of those stories and can highly recommend dropping at least $.99 on one or the other if not both.

Jennifer Hudock – Jenny is another author I’m aware of using Smashwords to get her stuff out there. She’s building a short story collection there called Dark Journeys. She’s also putting together an anthology called The Dark Side, releasing a podcast novel called Goblin Market and she and future hubby James Melzer (no stranger to self publishing and soon to be published by Simon and Schuster) have put together The Creative Alliance.

Zach Ricks – The Mad Poet himself has self published his Mad Poet Files short stories through the Amazon Kindle store. This collection is certainly one for you to buy. It’s got great science fiction and fantasy stories and while I haven’t read them all, I can say that “Blood Red Sand” is my favorite Martian short since Bradbury’s Chronicles and that plus a fantasy story where the main characters are inspired by the A-Team earns my seal of approval. He and a few other forward thinkers are also jawing about a new way of delivering content that, if it all works out, will blow your doors off.

Seth Harwood – While I haven’t waxed poetic about him here, Seth’s crime novel Young Junius is coming to print very soon. Taking an idea from the FDO himself, Seth is releasing the novel in a beautiful, limited edition print, which he and his publisher will then use to kick off a standard full scale print run in the Fall.

Phil Rossi – On the music side of the house, author and musician Phil Rossi is in the midst of pre-selling an EP called Radio Silence. I’ve pre-ordered it and I think you should too.

Brand Gamblin – A vidcaster, podcaster, and author, Brand has done just about everything with his young adult, science fiction novel Tumbler that I can think of. He’s used CreateSpace to put it in print. He podcast it. He’s got it in a variety of e-book formats. You can get it now on Amazon, but if you love him you’ll get it here. Or if you’re gonna be at Balticon in two weeks (W00T!!!!!!!) you can buy a signed copy there.

And just in case you missed it, there are two authors whose work I respect and admire that have used social media/podcasting to get their books published and they will be available in the near future.

Honorary Admiral (in my mind and that of many others) Nathan Lowell is getting published by Ridan Publishing. Apparently they, unlike many publishers, work very well and very closely with their authors to find the most mutually beneficial path and according to Nathan cooperating with them has been beautiful.

P.G. Holyfield, whom I consider to be a good friend, will be launching Murder at Avedon Hill THIS WEEKEND!!! It’s being published by podcaster friendly Dragon Moon Press and all I can say is it’s about time!!

So these are just a FEW people who have used, are using, and I hope will continue to use the interesting times afoot to really break the boundaries of traditional publishing and are redefining what it means to “make it”. Sure, self publishing is nothing new, but all things considered I believe that it is gaining a certain amount of ground and losing the stigma long attached to it by many. I hope this is a launch pad to great things for them all and I hope that I’ve dropped some new names on your plate and that you will check them all out.

writing

If at First You Don't Succeed

4 Comments

Well, in case you haven’t heard (and if you’re reading this you probably have) I have my first publication credit! I have a short story called “Power in the Blood” for which I’ve been paid (in pounds sterling!) and you can find it it at Hub Fiction.

I wrote this story years ago and actually podcast it as an interstitial podcast episode between Valley of the Shadow and Legion. I submitted it to PseudoPod before I did that and it got rejected. The editor was very kind and gave me some feedback. When I recently decided to get serious about getting published, this was one of the first ones I picked to send around. As you can see, persistence sometimes pays off.

So that’s what I want to tell you. If you’re gonna write and try and get that writing published, don’t let the first few rejections throw you off your game. Keep plugging away at it.

And if you read the story (fair warning, it’s graphic) and feel like dropping a comment, here’s the place to do it.

writing

E-Book Chat

1 Comment

James Melzer, Drew Beatty, and I have a nice chat on ebooks, podcasting and publishing.

Mentioned:

Drew Beatty
http://www.drewbeatty.com/
http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/drewbeatty
http://twitter.com/drewbeatty

James Melzer
http://jamesmelzer.net/
http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/jjmelzer
http://twitter.com/Melzer

Scott Roche
http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ScottRoche

Paul E. Cooley
http://shadowpublications.com/?q=node/167

Zach Ricks
http://www.madpoetfiles.com/

Jennifer Hudock
http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/jennybeans
http://jennybeans.net/2010/04/10/the-dark-side-anthology-project/

Critters.org E-book Pricing Survey
http://critters.org/surv/

Jake Bible
http://jakebible.com/

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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Podcast Survey

Alan Middleton, podcast fan (and better yet Archangel fan) and associate professor at Ohio University wants us to fill out this podcast survey. It’s not over long as these things go and asks some good questions. It will be available for five weeks and he hopes to have the results available in a few months. He’ll be putting them in a paper and providing them to the community at large to help us learn a thing or two about our listeners’ habits. This is everything from how they listen to the kinds of ads they like/don’t like.

Help a brother (and our community) out by taking a few minutes and filling it out!

writing

Forging Ahead

31 Comments

So last night I tweeted the following, “Well so much for podcasting any of my short fiction…” Why did I do that?

Well, I was chatting last night with Zach Ricks, a man who I’m proud to be a writing partner with and with whom I hope to continue to build a friendship and the subject turned to, as it often has of late, selling our fiction projects. It seems that according to one very knowledgeable source, podcasting your fiction before selling it to more traditional venues may reduce your pool of choices. Publishers, some publishers anyway, want first publication rights and if you’ve already self published it or put it out there for free then they may not be as eager to snap it up. That came as a surprise (though I’m not sure why). My instant reaction was to pull back and go, “I don’t want to hurt my chances at selling it”, because I do, in fact, want to sell what I write. I don’t want this to be a hobby, something I just do for fun. I want to entertain, but at the same time I don’t want to do it all for free. In this, Mr. Hutchins and I are in agreement.

After an okay night’s sleep, a cup of coffee and a dose of thinking, things look a little different this morning. As I have often said here lately, you need to look at why you’re podcasting. Why do I do this? I don’t do it for the money, obviously. I do it in part to improve my writing and generate feedback. I do it in part because it is indeed a hobby. I do it as a way to get my name out there in the writing world, even if it is “only” in the small pond we inhabit as podcasters. If these are the reasons why I do it then what harm is there in selecting a few stories from the ones I’ve written and use those to do that, while selecting others to pursue more traditional venues with? None, I’d say.

I believe in the “power of free”, but this is not an either or pursuit. I firmly believe that I can offer you, my audience, some freebies in podcast form and give you the opportunity to purchase it in various forms should you so choose. If those stories are less marketable to traditional venues, well I guess that means you can expect me to be pimping those in Smashwords hardcore. Some of you have actually bought my stories sight only half seen and for you I am especially grateful. I also believe that I can pursue print publication with stories that I won’t be giving away any time soon and once those stories are available in the wild, at a price, that some of you will go out and buy those magazines or what have you. Not all of you will and that’s fine, I don’t have that expectation. Once those particular stories are sold and it comes down to selling reprint rights, I don’t see why I wouldn’t podcast those as well.

I guess I say all of this to say that I will be forging ahead. I will be podcasting some of my short fiction in the near future, starting with Bitter Release and Music Box. I’ve already self published those after all and so if any damage has been done (and maybe none has) then what’s done is done. I’m rather proud of both stories and I hope that you’ll listen and if you like them, I hope that you’ll consider buying them.

I will also continue to submit stories to Great Hites. I think what Jeff is doing over there is great and while it’s a strictly “for the love” publication, I don’t think that diminishes its value and that may indeed be the largest source for stories I elect to sell and podcast through this site and Smashwords.

Ultimately what it comes down to for me is this. I have a great luxury. I don’t have to make a living doing this. I have the freedom to give some things away completely, with no expectation of making any money. I have the freedom to elect to try and sell other things without giving them away in the near term, to see if I can indeed one day make a living with words. My friend Dave said, “You need to choose which road to publishing you are going to take.” and while I agree with what I think he meant, I don’t think there’s only one road or that we have to do anything only one way. We’re trying to make our own roads here, aren’t we? There are “rules”, but there’s enough of a maverick in me to want to try and find out which ones of those I can break, or at least fold, spindle, and mutilate.

Thanks to everyone for their continued support of all of my efforts, monetary or otherwise, and be sure to let me know what you think of all this madness in the comment section. Maybe what I’m trying to pull off here is the publishing equivalent of a mullet. I think we can agree that pulling off the “business up front and party in the back” with your hair takes a great deal of moxie only truly accomplished by greats like the Swayze and perhaps the same is true of doing some free and some not free.

writing

Sympathetic vs. Interesting Protagonist

In the latest feedback episode of the Cybrosis podcast novel an email I sent sparked a conversation about writing your protagonist as sympathetic vs. interesting and the challenges therein.

In my own writing I tend to try and make my main characters likable (or at least sympathetic/understandable). I’m not necessarily looking to make someone who you’d want to go out and have a drink with, but I want them to at least have something appealing about them. If you can’t like them then you should at least be able to say “I can see how they got there”. I want you to want to know them better or at least care about them and what they’re going through.

When they were talking about characters that are more interesting than likable/sympathetic, they seem to fall into talking about the ones that you love to hate/hate to love. I find Cyris, P.C.’s protagonist, to fall more into this category. While not the most interesting character in the story, she is interesting and that does save her and the story. It sounds like he’ll be transitioning her into a more sympathetic character as the novel progresses. That will be a nice trick if he can pull it off. I say that, not because I doubt P.C.’s skill, but because making that change without losing who you’ve built her to be in the course of one novel would seem to be quite the challenge.

So, sympathetic or not, your main character has to be interesting. As I said, I want my protagonists to be both interesting and sympathetic and I think that’s what most writers are really shooting for and what most audiences want to see. On the other hand, writing/watching anti-heroes or real shady characters can be a lot of fun. But if you go that route, the more unlikable they are the more interesting they have to be to strike a balance.

Some examples of unlikable, but interesting protags from my tweet stream are Grendel, Thomas Covenant (yes!), Sandman, Perry Dawsey (yes and yes!), Tony Soprano, Dexter, Francis Urqhart, Cal Mcaffrey. Looking at that list, the ones I’m familiar with, definitely show that to take the real chumps/rotten apples and maintain your audience’s interest in them you definitely need to make them interesting. I recently wrote a short story for Great Hites and I’m not sure which camp Bogdan falls into. (Maybe you can give it a read and tell me?) I don’t really like him or what he stands for, but I can at least see why he is what he is and feel sorry for him. My hope is that that tension makes him interesting even if you hate him.

So what’s your experience here? Can you think of some (un)sympathetic protags that weren’t interesting enough to save them? How could they have been improved?

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Podcast Pimpage

Wherein I show some love to podcasts I’ve been listening to lately.

Bird House Rules – I’m on Twitter A LOT and have been quite some time. It would be easy for me to consider myself some kind of “expert” on the social media app. Far from it though. Tee Morris literally wrote the book on the subject (among others). So if you’re a Twitter user and want to know how to do it up right, listen to this.

Cybrosis – I had the pleasure of meeting P.C. Haring at Balticon last year. You might meet a nicer chap, but not by much. This is P.C.’s first foray into podcast novelship and he has hit the ground running. While I think there are a few things that could stand to improve (and I’ve shared those things with him), as a whole it’s a great ride. If you’re into cyberpunk this is the place to go. The action is top notch as is the production. This is a full voice case and he’s got some serious talent along for the ride. Cybrosis is in progress, but so far his release schedule has been reliable.

Decoder Ring Theater – I love me some quirky humor and I have a serious thing for noir and radio dramas. This podcast puts all that into the blender and hits frappe stirring it up into a frothing tasty concoction of awesomeness. At the moment it consists of two main stories, The Red Panda Adventures and Black Jack Justice. The first is a pulp superhero tale and the latter a take on the hard boiled detective. Neither one takes itself seriously at all and the humor is decidedly Canadian. if that sounds lovely to you then go get you some! Each episode is self contained, but I think it helped me to go back a little ways and trust me, you’ll kick yourself if you don’t.

Down From Ten – J. Daniel Sawyer is one of those writers that gets me all in a froth of jealousy. (See also Nathan Lowell) He makes the whole thing look effortless. This particular podcast outing was written as a screenplay for TV is memory serves and unfortunately for everyone NOT listening to podcast fiction it didn’t make it. Thankfully we get it in all its unadulterated glory. It’s basically a country house mystery and Dan has this to say “The book is a mix of Agatha Christie, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, E.A. Poe, Salman Rushdie, and Robert A. Heinlein. It is a story solidly oriented towards adults, and will not be suitable for children in any fashion.” The latter half of that quote is very true. It may not even be suitable for some adults. There is some sexual content and violence that some won’t find suitable. The story is absolutely compelling though and while it’s hit some production snags recently, he says that it will be done within the next week or so.

Mad Poet Files – Zach Ricks is no stranger to podcasting. He has the Gut Check Cast, an effort to help us geeks to get fit, and the Geek Survival Guide, in which he gives us hints and tips on how to survive scenarios found in some of our favorite books and movies. Recently, in an effort to sharpen his writing skills, he decided to start releasing a short story every other week. The thing I really like about this, other than the stories, is that he talks about his writing process. The stories themselves aren’t always top notch (though so far I’ve enjoyed all of them), but the transparency is admirable. He’s also trying to make some coin from them by selling the stories themselves in polished form. He does a straight read of each story and I think that’s a great way to sharpen your narration skills. I like this idea so much I’ll be doing it soon!

Closet Treats – Paul E. Cooley is a writer I’ve become aware of only recently thanks to the magic of Twitter. This story is a relatively new podcast and I’d put it firmly in the psychological horror category. The main character, Trey Leger, is no stranger to seeing things, but something new has been added to the mix. A local ice cream trucks seems to be inhabited by an evil force or is it just that Trey is slipping deeper into madness? I love stories with a well written protagonist that may or may not be reliable. It’s a tough balance to strike and Paul is doing a fantastic job. Tackling characters with a mental illness is also a challenge and so far so good. Paul’s doing this as a straight read, which leads to him doing some female voices (a la Sigler, though better). I think he may be using some digital effects for some of the voices, but its not jarring (if he is). In any event it doesn’t take me out of the story. He qualifies this novel as a “slow burn” and promises big fireworks at the end. Closet Treats is a work in progress, but he feels confident that he’ll be finished with it by the time Balticon rolls around.

I hope you enjoy any of these that you might choose to listen to!

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Bitter Release – A Short Story

Well in an effort to see if my stuff is worth buying I have published a version of my short story “Bitter Release” through Smashwords. Smashwords is a website that allows authors to take their work and convert it into a wide variety of electronic formats and sell it. Smashwords gets a cut as does Paypal, but considering the service they provide I think it’s worth it.

So go have a look. It’s available in just about every format they have. You can read the first half for free and see if you think it’s worth the price. A few people have bought it at this point. You can also review it and rate it over there and that would be a big help to me. I’ll be putting up a short story a month at least over there so you can always bookmark my author page and check back periodically.

I should add that the cover art was done by Dan Absalonson and I thank him for that.

Finally, I’m curious to know from anyone reading this who might not buy the short story as to why? I need to know if price or payment is a barrier or if it’s the story itself or the fact that you don’t want to read it off a screen. Any and all feedback welcome.

fiction

A Liquid Diet pt 2

2 Comments

This is carried over from part one here.

Sam sipped at the steaming cup while she looked over the crime scene. She grimaced at the taste, but it was a necessary evil. The blood substitute enhanced her physically, nearly to the point that the real thing would. As a licensed detective she even had access to it, but she couldn’t stomach it any better.

The Jane Doe lay as she was found, the body composed into peaceful lines. Her throat wasn’t slashed so much as slit, just enough for the perpetrator to get what he wanted. It was a he, they knew that much. It wasn’t his first victim and she fit the profile;slim, jet black hair, dressed to the nines, mid-twenties. That Sam herself fit the profile wasn’t lost on her. Then there was how she was found and the wound itself. He was after the blood, but more than that he got his rocks off on the chase and the kill.

Sam’s body assimilated the synth-blood and now she could smell him. This case hit her desk a month ago and she’d had plenty of opportunities to get used to it. The man was good, the odor on his victims clothes the only trace he left other than the wound. He even managed to clean any saliva from their skin, so there was no DNA trace. They also had yet to find any skin or hair from a confrontation so when he took them, he did it cleanly, without a scuffle. That meant he was likely a real charmer.

“Detective Chambers.”

She turned her head at the intrusion on her thoughts. “Yes.”

The Crime Scene investigator, the badge reminded Sam that his name was Ted, gestured her over. “I think we may have a break.” He gestured her over to the body. “We have some trace evidence.” A plastic baggie with a single strand of dark brown hair dangled from Ted’s fingertips.

“Get that to the lab.” She winced at her words. “Sorry, you were going to do that anyway, weren’t you?”

Ted nodded sympathetically. “Yeah. It’s okay, you’re excited.” He stood. “This was on her sleeve. It might not be him, but there’s also some skin scrapings under her fingernails. I’ve done some initial processing on our mobile unit and I know it’s a male and there are markers for Shreck so it looks good.”

She was filled with excitement at the prospect of a break in the case. “Great. Thanks for telling me. Sounds like our boy is getting sloppy.”

“Maybe. There wasn’t a lot of evidence so he’s more careful than most. The rest of the scene is clean, so we’re not sure if the attack happened here or if she was brought here. There’s still so much we don’t know.”

“Well progress is progress. Hopefully his DNA is in the system.” A lot of people with what has come to be called Shreck’s, as though it were a disease, were indeed in the DNA database. It wasn’t a requirement, yet, but given the potential dangerous nature of people like them, it would be one day. Sam bristled a bit at the notion.

Most with the marker didn’t even know they had it and of those that did only a percentage chose to actively pursue the lifestyle. Most “vampires” were one hundred percent normal humans that got off on the culture. Those who actually benefited from it were law abiding citizens and made due with synth or getting the real stuff from willing donors. So required registration seemed like overkill, but there were rumblings. Maybe this time paranoia would play in her favor.

The rest of the evening passed in relative peace. Sam went back to the precinct house to file paperwork on her backlog and to wait for the results. There was a rush on this so hopefully it wouldn’t be more than a few hours. Her desk was in an isolated portion of the building. Many of her coworkers didn’t appreciate her. Rumors abounded that she got her job just based on her differences. That wasn’t entirely untrue. Departments around the country liked having a “token” Shreck on staff. Their abilities got used in a variety of ways depending on the individual’s skills and desires, but many times they were pulled in by multiple departments. There weren’t many willing to serve because there was still some amount of prejudice against them in the culture at large, though less in the last twenty years, and while they could be stronger, faster, and all the rest, they were still at the core, just as human. Working too many hours for too little pay wasn’t any more appealing just because of a few different genes.

A flag popped up on her computer, interrupting her little game of Solitaire. She gave a little cheer at the content of the email. She had a name and an address. It may or may not be current, but it was better than nothing. Probable cause gave her enough to at least go check it out. She pulled her service piece out of the drawer and snapped it to the waistband of her dark skirt and grabbed the thermos that contained her “lunch”. A little boost would probably be in order, just in case.

Continued here.

writing

Give It Away Now

37 Comments

So none of you good folks that are reading this are likely to be new to the idea that there’s a lot metric butt load of free content out there on the internet. Here I’m talking strictly about the legal, self published stuff. There are comic strips, novels, music, movies and more and all of this costs you absolutely nothing. It seems crazy and a lot of people really don’t understand it. I have been and will continue to be not only a cheerleader but an active participant in this community for years now and even I’m only beginning to “figure it out”.

For some people this seems to be mostly about finding a way to make inroads into the traditional publishing model. The thought being, if I can get a large enough fan base, then I can get the attention of the “gate keepers” at the big publishing houses and they’ll print my stuff and sell it. This has worked with varying degrees of success for authors like Scott Sigler, Pip Ballantine, and JC Hutchins, who all have struck deals with big labels. For others like PG Holyfield, Nathan Lowell, and Tee Morris their efforts have lead to deals with smaller publishers (and in Tee’s case publication of his non-fiction with big houses).

The traditional road is not one that others seem to be striving for. There’s a more “do it yourself” flair in authors like Cory Doctorow and Matt Selznick. While neither would eschew traditional publishing (and Cory has been published by Tor), it seems that they want to use all possible channels to get their stuff out there and cut out the middle man. That’s not to say that the aforementioned authors aren’t open to all ideas, I’m just talking about where their focus seems to be to me at the present time. Matt talks quite a bit about the neo-patronage idea. If I understand it correctly (and he may not have used these precise words), it’s about finding a smaller number of fans and dealing directly with them. I think that’s laudable.

So, why am I writing about this? Well two blog posts have come to my attention recently.

In the first, JC Hutchins let us know that the 7th Son sequels are not going to be picked up by his publishers thanks to the first novel not meeting their sales goals. He also says that he fears that the free model working as it has for some may be a fleeting moment and that he will no longer be contributing to it, at least not for a while. I felt saddened by his news, but I have to ask, is that me being selfish? If I truly want to be supportive of a fellow artist whose work I enjoy, shouldn’t I be more okay with his decision? I should, but I’m soooo used to that teat. Rather than being patient and waiting to purchase the works when/if they come out, the little voice in me wants to lament that I won’t get the fix I’ve come to expect. I mean I purchased Personal Effects: Dark Arts, but I didn’t purchase 7th Son. Intentions to buy it aside, that money still sits in my pocket and not his and I gave him only half of the financial support I could have.

The other blog post was from a source I’d never heard of. Astonishing Adventures Magazine is shutting it’s doors. John Carlucci says, “We deserve to get paid for what we create.” And you know what? That’s a valid way of thinking. The magazine wasn’t generating the revenue it needed to and so it closed. He also said, “I’m tired of killing myself and not making the smallest of footsteps ahead.” That’s worthy of consideration too.

So, is “free” dead, simply dying, or what? Well I think that it’s too early to tell. I, for one, certainly hope not and I intend to continue putting out free content, while hoping to figure out how to get paid in the meantime. But this whole thing raises a question for me. Do we “deserve to get paid”? Should we kill ourselves, spending all of our spare time and energy in shaking our butts and trying to “get ahead”?

I think the answer to that, at least for me, is no and no.

I don’t get to decide that I “deserve” to get paid. Now that’s not to say that I don’t think what I write is worth something. And yet here I be, writing words I have no expectation of earning a nickel for. I think that for me, it’s about writing something that’s worth your time. If you decide that that time is worth your money, well that’s your call. Would I like to get paid? Oh absolutely. Money is great. I’d love to quit the day job and spend hours and hours creating. Even then though, isn’t it the audience that decides whether or not we deserve to get paid? If I don’t buy JC’s book (provided I am capable financially) then isn’t that me deciding that he didn’t deserve it? If I don’t buy it then he didn’t earn my money, did he? (And for the record I do intend to buy it. He did earn every red cent that I will eventually give him.) keep in mind, I’m not certain of everything in this paragraph, this is me thinking.

One thing I think I am sure of though is that I’m not killing myself for anything. Maybe that means I don’t have what it takes. If I’m not willing to shed blood, sweat, and tears and shake my tail feathers as hard as some out there do, then maybe I won’t make it. I think I’m okay with that. I do want to write. I do want to write professionally. I will sweat for that. I will lose sleep over it. I will likely even cry over it at some point. But proverbially kill myself? Sacrifice my every waking moment or very nearly? No, I don’t think I’m in a place to do that, especially for zero/nominal return. Kudos to those of you who make the sacrifice and I hope it pays off.

So all of this said, why do I put out free content? I don’t expect that it will get me published. I don’t think it will get me a lot of kudos/feedback, though it has garnered me more than not podcasting has. This whole podcasting thing started out as and continues to be about me creating more and learning more. I’ve also made a lot of friends and met a metric butt load (can you tell I’ve got a new pet phrase?) of awesome people. I’ve written more as a result and am trying to hone my craft (that doesn’t sound too writerly at all, does it?). So that’s why I podcast and that’s what I expect. That’s why I give it away. If it has any side benefits, like Random House or Dragoon Moon Press offering me a contract or me getting an agent, then I’m not gonna cry. Ultimately though, even if it does, it’s up to the audience to decide what my writing is worth in terms of dollars and cents.

Am I right or am I waaaay off base here?

UPDATE

Matt Selznick clarified his neo-patronage concept. Here ’tis:

Hi Scott — great post; thanks for including me in it. I wanted to clarify a few things.

It’s nice to be included in the same sentence with Cory — yeah, we share some DIY sensibilities, it’s true — and we’re both (he on a larger scale than me, of course) published by third parties. You mentioned Tor with Cory — my first book, “Brave Men Run — A Novel of the Sovereign Era” is published by Swarm Press and hasn’t been available in it’s self-published paperback form since July of 2008.

You mentioned neo-patronage. Neo-patronage doesn’t have anything to do with dealing directly with a small number of fans. Neo-patronage is a compensation model that asks everyone who takes value from their experience of a piece of art to compensate the artist accordingly. The idea is that the audience is the arbiter of value… if you think the experience of reading “Brave Men Run” for free online is worth $5.00, or $20.00, or $50.00… great! If you think it’s not worth anything, fine.

Under neo-patronage, if you enjoy a book, that author did, in fact, earn the right to be compensated by you, since the author provided you with a service — an experience you would not have otherwise had and, presumably, you enjoyed. So I disagree with you there — even if you haven’t paid the author, they still earned the right to be paid.

When someone does work or performs a service, they deserve to be compensated — just like when you go to your day job and do your work, you deserve to be paid whether or not the boss actually pays you. You’d be put out if you didn’t get paid for work you did, right?

That’s the thinking behind neo-patronage. Pay what you think the work is worth, and never assume that something available “for free” has no value.