mckitterick | giving away your writing: what does the future hold?

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giving away your writing: what does the future hold?

There's lots of discussion of late among SFWAns about giving writing away for free online, with various arguments against it. One is that it hurts those trying to make a living at writing.

My own experience shows that posting parts of works online helps develop interest among readers and create potential new readers. For example, I've given away most of my previously published poetry, because, well, it's not as if I'm getting rich from poetry. Because I did this, a singer-songwriter decided to turn one of the poems into a song, thereby allowing the poem to earn more than it ever could have in print.

I worked for Microsoft as a writer years ago, before electronic publishing was a big deal. My team, the Server Resource Kit, wanted to give away our documentation for free to the Server customers because, well, they're big-dollar customers and supporting them is expensive. The main argument was that we should give them the info they need in advance to save Help-Desk calls later, plus it builds customer satisfaction (you might see this as "reader loyalty" from the fiction-writer's perspective). Microsoft Press, our paper publisher, fought tooth-and-nail against the idea because they made something like $50 million/year from the Resource Kit. Because Server made several $billions/year, Press lost that argument. A memorable exchange: [Server V.P.]: "Fifty million?" He reaches into his pocket and pulls out some coins. "We earn Xbillion a year. Fifty million is pocket change."

And you know what? We sold more printed books after giving them away than before.

Just a couple of anecdotes.

Sure, I fear the coming of electronic publication, because look what's happened to the music industry when music went digital and people started sharing songs with their friends (read: "ripping and giving away free copies"). But a lot of new musicians are now getting recognized because of people stealing and sharing music.

How will things turn out for individual artists when all information finds a way to be free? Will artists be able to make a living doing their work in the near future?

What are your thoughts?

Chris

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Jim Baen proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that giving away writing works like a free first dose of crack.

:)

When Mercedes Lackey put a freebie on the Baen Free Library, suddenly her entire backlist took a swoop upward, and books from every publisher she worked with had increased sales. Moreover, the free library has caused the Usenet pirates to finally meet with severe disapproval -- because Baen gives away books, the thought is that giving them money is a Good Thing because that will keep them giving books away.

Most people like to read someplace cozy and comfy, not sitting up at a terminal. Pocket readers have some deficiencies. People want to *hold a book*, so the free material just gives readers a place to check out writers. Then they go and *buy*.

Yeah, lots of people are paranoid. Posting without auctorial permission is not good, but an author giving out samples, even at novel length, seems to be something that works, and works well.

"Most people like to read someplace cozy and comfy, not sitting up at a terminal. Pocket readers have some deficiencies. People want to 8hold a book*, so the free material just gives readers a place to check out writers. Then they go and *buy*."

This, I believe, is accurate, and is what makes the music industry a poor analog to book publishing. Readers like the physicality of a book. Music has no such hold on most listeners.

I give away free short stories and ssmple chapters online often. I have not yet made a full length novel available, but I'm toying with the idea.

We've been having this discussion a lot in the Pyr Street Team. It's a big deal.

I think that the bell curve will become flatter but wider. It's already beginning to happen with music, which is the medium least dependent on physical objects. More and more artists are getting exposure over the internet and the charts are far less dominated by those chosen by the executives.

The stubborn resistance to change to a new business model is costing artists in the short term. A lot of the executives know their money is soon running out. They've made far more off the profits of music and media than many of the artists producing the product.

Now, with the internet allowing media to be promoted and distributed withou the vast companies and distribution lines, it's much cheaper and easier to produce a piece of work - meaning that essentially a band (like Lily Allen or other artists discovered from their home recordings on myspace) can produce their own product and sell it. I think as soon as one or two big bands produce their own mp3 selling site and move away from the record companies entirely, there will be a huge sea change that will change the music industry overnight. Because they don't need to pay 1000s of employees or produce any physical objects, the cost to the band of selling their music is limited to recording the song and the bandwidth to upload it to customers.

That means the artist can afford to charge less for the mp3s and therefore it's more likely that people will buy them (if they were 25c rather than 99c, i wouldn't be surprised to see more money being made, we're definitely not at the sweet spot at the moment) This will make it easier for bands to make a living selling their own work as they'll probably end up making more money per track than they do now with the measly percentage of royalties offered by the execs.

Books is harder to analyse as there's no winning digital version, and films are a few years off being in a similar situation. But I think eventually that's the way it'll go. We'll see more self-financing, self-promoting artists making a decent wage and less company-pushed superstars.

It's a nice ideal to aim for, anyway. I managed to include the effect happening to music in my fictious blog miawithoutoil for the collaborative world without oil fiction project and it seemed to go down well. (http://miawithoutoil.livejournal.com/3966.html)

Rather than giving it away, why not make it an ad-sponsored work? It feels like free, but there's still the chance of getting paid. This works better for short stories, but there is a bit of copyright patrolling you have to do with text works, since assholes will just swipe the stuff and post it on their Web site, instead of leaving it on yours and linking.

I think electronic publishing at least has the chance of using DRM, where hard books are becoming more and more efficiently distributed through used sales and trading sites.

What happened to the music industry was partially their own fault. People wanted music in digital format and people wanted individual songs. The music industry was stuck at selling entire albums and not providing any of it for download.

I'm not feeling quite the demand for text on computers. However, there is a growing demand for audio books. Those better come down in price sometime soon, or I have a feeling that piracy will erode those profits.

Perhaps ad-sponsored audio podcast books will start filling the gap.

Sorry geekmom, but it is DRM that makes e-publishing such a PITA and that is retarding the growth of e-publishing. Not all hand-helds can cope with it.

And this is why the Baen model that is DRM-free works so well. They do every one of their books in every imaginable e-format.

Worse, the parent company that owns Tor decided that skinning the reader was a Good Thing. They had an arrangement with Baen, and then decided to price their e-material at 19.95 a shot, when all of us know that their costs were not going to be anywhere *near* high enough to justify their highway robbery. They pulled out in terror at a DRM free universe. Teh stupid, it burns!!

Oh, I'm all sorts of irritated at DRM, especially since it has to keep shifting and being updated to really prevent piracy, and that makes it harder for legitimate users. I've run into that problem with legal DVDs played on my legal, standard DVD player.

So if there are DRM-free models that are working, that's terrific. If people can maintain a culture where distributing the books for free is viewed as wrong and ripping authors off, that's really the best answer in the end.

Overcharging for electronic files is something I think is killing more than one format. I'd rather have my movies on my hard drive, but I'm not going to spend the same price or more to download them and miss out on the special features. Charge me $5 a movie, and I'd probably buy several per month.

I'd rather listen to audio books than the radio on my drive to and from work, but I'm not willing to pay $40 for a book. Charge me the same price as a paperback, and I'll be buying them instead of checking out audio CDs from the library. I realize production costs are more for audio books, but still...

I've got a few e-books, but they're really just not the same. The screen is still too small and the display still to pixelated. I do like that the bookmarks never fall out and that I can non destructively annotate.

I think there is a problem in giving too much out for free, unless you're already famous. David Bowie was one of the first to do this on the internet. It didn't hurt him but then he already was a multimillionaire and his name known far and wide. (And I notice that if you go to his site you can join it for $60 or so. I'm a Bowie fan but I'm not that crazed.)

And I think there is a point of having some exposure and the possibility of finally making a small splash where before you weren't noticed. It's a fine balance and maybe in the long run, those who will never be bought by record companies, or who will never publish a book can at least get some exposure on the internet.

As to the future, I don't know. I'm not always making a living on writing but am sometimes. Still, I might post a poem or two that have already been published because the chances of it being published again are pretty slim.

You say you think there is a problem in giving too much out for free -- I'm curious -- what is the problem? Or do you just mean the issue of giving away 1st distribution rights?

I would imagine that giving away stuff for free to promote your existing work requires that you actually have existing work...

Novels have been available for free at the library for years and years, and that hasn't exactly brought the publishing industry to a grinding halt.

Obviously, everything to do with the online world is different, but I think that libraries are proof that free does not equal no profit.

There's so much potential to free writing on the internet. I imagine that in the future, more generations of people will grow up with less reliance on physical books so the arguments I might make about wanting to hold the book in my hand or to take it to the beach don't have universal validity. However, capitalism does, and people reward what they like with money. Those who fight against progress so completely as to deny the advantages of marketing through free online access are the ones who will suffer in the long run.

the Baen argument has already been brought up -- that's certainly proved that free distribution can help a lot. And libraries are traditionally considered to be worth an extra 5-6 sales for every library copy in circulation.

Michael Stackpole, in his "Secrets" podcast made a good point about Howard Hendrix's complaint. Hendrix's own sales aren't very good. And his novel career has been going downhill -- Publisher's Weekly really picked apart his last novel for its lack of decent characterization. It's not too surprising that he might find something that he's not comfortable with (marketing via the Web, using free material) to blame for his circumstance.

I've worked in book publishing, even before the internet was something most people had access to. I've worked in electronic publishing and digital rights. And now I work with downloadable media. Some of my professional opinion are that:

Giving away free books has been shown to improve book sales and can work in a number of different ways, all of which traslate to promotion and reader loyalty.

Making portions of a work available online is not any different than inserting chapters at the back of a book or making minibooks for distrubution, except that it reaches far more people and is likely to be more effective.

The problem with downloadable music is not so much that file sharing cuts into profits so much as that record companies have not moved quickly enough to work with consumer preferences; if a person can get something more easily for free than by actually paying money, they will.

The impact of long tail distribution models (which are enabled by the internet) have a greater impact than anything else, and mean that more things will sell in smaller numbers, "blockbusters" simply won't make as much money.

Of course artists (of all types) should be compensated for their works. So should programmers and nurses and marketing executives. The problem is that most boilerplate entertainment contracts predate ecommrce and electronic distribution and need to be rewritten.

End rant.

Virtually every popular author of every stripe has had their books scanned and bumped onto torrent sites and newsgroups for over a decade.

When I was running my last company, I did a demonstration -- it went like this: in scene 1, you saw a guy sweating over cracking some DRM and posting a book as far as he could. It took hours and hours.

In scene 2, a guy walks into a Kinko's, cuts the binding off a book, scans it in, and then posts it.

Scene 2 tooks about twenty minutes.

The fact is simple: books can be pirated now. Releasing books for free, or releasing them as ebooks, will have zero impact on piracy...because they can all be pirated today. Piracy of books has already reached its zenith.

The problem with ebooks are that they don't do more than paper books do, largely because of DRM. Paper books are not a broken technology; to gain traction, ebooks have to be cheaper, faster, and of higher quality. They have to do more.

Releasing ebooks for free makes a certain amount of sense, and it causes a certain amount of problems, because it devalues the electronic publishing market, while holding up the old, broken model of paper publishing. But it makes sense for new authors.

As for DRM -- DRM is like having a lock on your car. It doesn't mean someone won't steal it, it acts as a deterrent to the casual thief. The key to getting people to use ebooks and still buying paper books will rely on three things:

1) Exchangeable DRM. Meaning, you can buy the book in one format, and still get it in another, via some sort of electronic book exchange. This will enable the lending, trading and selling of used ebooks.

2) Paper Book Bonuses: I buy CDs because I want cover art and liners and other little doodads I can only get from buying the physical item. Books need to have something similar.

3) Good Pricing: The pricing for ebooks needs to come down.

In short: giving away your work is fine, if you recognize that you're hurting your future electronic sales. For most authors, this isn't a big deal...today.

DRM is what Cory Doctorow calls "crippleware", and for good reason.

Would *you* buy a used Sony CD? When it might damage your computer with its rootkit?

Buying e-media from anything but a recognized vendor (preferably one that is not in the habit of putting wrenches in your computer works) is a real chancy thing. You risk all the pitfalls that the medium is heir to, from spyware to worms. No thanks.

Cory Doctorow is promoting a very simplified vision of what DRM is for the purposes of not speaking above his audience.

DRM, at its worst, is crippleware. But saying all DRM is crippleware is the same as saying all popups on the web are intrinsically bad, because some popups show you porn sites. Some popups are actually useful.

DRM can be as simple as a program that locks a file to a given installation of an ebook reader. DRM becomes crippleware when it gets in the way of usability — before then? It's a useful tool to keep people honest, because...well, let's face it. If people can take things for free, they will. The music piracy scene is solid proof of that.

But no deterrent will stop a dedicated pirate from breaking a format, so the different between light DRM (that doesn't get in the user's way) and heavy DRM (e.g. "crippleware") is meaningless to the pirate. It only gets in the way of the user.

And that's what the music industry has failed to understand. Fortunately, ebook people and publishers have tended to be smarter.

Using popups as an example isn't exactly convincing.

IMO, a good popup is a nonexistent popup.

Microsoft crapped the first version of 'home' XP by not permitting the user more than about 6 hardware plugs and unplugs before freezing up. Gaaah!! What *were* they thinking? And we have more of their stupidity coming to a software package near you -- in the name of maintaining a stranglehold. I'm going to end up eventually installing Linux because of "rights".

Perhaps if music publishers didn't charge hardback book prices for cheapo CDs and then short the artists on royalties, people would be willing to pay for what they produce. But you have Sony and the RIAA assuming that everyone is a criminal out to steal from them.

Baen's model was that his customers were partners who would willingly support his writers.

Who would *you* want to deal with?

Baen, obviously. Because, like everyone, I like free stuff. But as a writer who wants to make money? Er. No.

And actually, using popups is a very convincing example, precisely because of your instant reaction. "Popups are BAD!" people shout, without actually thinking about how they may be useful. Take, for example, this site: http://www.xml.com/axml/testaxml.htm

See? Useful popups.

The problem is that you're conflating the issue -- music publishers use crippleware-level DRM, therefore, all DRM is crippleware. But it doesn't need to be. The key is to de-polarize the issue -- you have the "information wants to be free!" crowd on one end and the "we must lock everything down and send people to jail for even trying to steal IP" crowd on the other.

The facts are simple:

People will take things for free if they can get away with it. Writers need to eat. The popular publishing model isn't going away fast enough for people to avoid these realities. Therefore, a light DRM to act as a deterrent can be quite functional, as it satisfies both requirements without getting in the way of usability.

That's my two cents on the topic, anyhow.

Baen writers make enough that they keep signing more contracts and offering more work.

Baen's Universe pays more than treezines.

So you are not making sense here as a potential writer.

Hmm. Sorry, I guess I was being unclear.

The Baen's Universe model is problematic, to my mind. I let them sell my book, without DRM. Okay, fine. The book makes some medium sales and I make money. Yay, I'm happy. And sure, the book has gotten copied to fewer people than it otherwise would've, because the niche market that buys from Baen's Universe has an ethical stance based on being part of that niche.

Now let's suppose everyone takes Baen's stance. Okay. Still not so bad for small and medium-market sized authors. But what if I turn out to have a bestseller? How long do you think it'll be before the one copy some guy emailed his friend ends up everywhere, thus robbing me of my potential sales?

Baen's Universe is an experiment; a good and necessary one. And while I laud the ethics behind it, I can't help but think the long-term vision will fail, just as it's failed in the DRMless roleplaying game market, where companies are going out of business because cheap-ass gamers are giving each other pirated copies of the books.

We're talking across each other here.

Universe is a magazine that publishes every two months.

WebScriptions and the e-book publishing business are separate.

The first Universe anthology is just now coming out -- stories that had initial publication in the online magazine (which is by subscription).

Steven King did not do well with his chapter-at-a-time online experiment. Steve Miller and Sharon Lee, on the other hand, are doing *quite* well at $300/chapter. So to some degree you may be right -- King is used to buckets of money, and people did not shower him with cash. The others had a more modest expectation.

Of course, after the crap of putting out The Green Mile at 5 buck per quarter-inch-thick volume, King hardly deserved to be noticed for his efforts, which were not as clearly stated as Miller/Lee's project.

I have been reading Baen's free library for just over a year now when I am at work. I have read all but the last few books put on the website(and I am working on those now:) I have read books by authors that I would never have read if I were in a library or a bookstore. and as they have a tendency to put one or two books out of a series on there I invariably end up buying the third and more books in a book store and then buying the ones I read for free to have for my own and share with family and friends thus spreading the word.
I don’t believe that a writer can loose money this way. I and I am sure many others have bought more books since I started reading the free library than I had in the 10 years combined before that.

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giving away your writing: what does the future hold?

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