Pixelstained Technowretches

[womzilla]

As much for my own reference, I'm linking to John scalzi's "Scabs and Peasants" rant:

It's likely that being online was not the sole reason that particular book was nominated for a Hugo, but it didn't hurt the book. However, let's ask Peter Watts if releasing his book Blindsight didn't help that book into a Hugo nomination this year; you might also ask him if making it available online didn't help push the book -- which was floundering in sales -- to a second and then a third printing. Peter Watts got paid for the book by Tor before he put it online, and now he stands to get paid even more. Ask Peter Watts if he did not see a concrete financial benefit. Has the availability of Watt's book online hurt any writer? As far as I can see, probably only the guy who came in sixth in the Hugo Best Novel balloting; otherwise no, not really.

Also, papersky's holiday declaration:

Monday 23rd April is International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day

In honour of Dr Hendrix, I am declaring Monday 23rd April International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day. On this day, everyone who wants to should give away professional quality work online. It doesn't matter if it's a novel, a story or a poem, it doesn't matter if it's already been published or if it hasn't, the point is it should be disseminated online to celebrate our technopeasanthood.

Whatever you're posting should go on your own site.

This seems like a good opportunity to remind people about the existence of the Baen Free Library, the brainchild of Eric Flint:

And so I volunteered my first novel, Mother of Demons, to prove the case. And the next day Mother of Demons went up online, offered to the public for free.

Sure enough, within a day, I received at least half a dozen messages (some posted in public forums, others by private email) from people who told me that, based on hearing about the episode and checking out Mother of Demons, they either had or intended to buy the book. In one or two cases, this was a "gesture of solidarity. "But in most instances, it was because people preferred to read something they liked in a print version and weren't worried about the small cost — once they saw, through sampling it online, that it was a novel they enjoyed. (Mother of Demons is a $5.99 paperback, available in most bookstores. Yes, that a plug. )

Then, after thinking the whole issue through a bit more, I realized that by posting Mother of Demons I was just making a gesture. Gestures are fine, but policies are better.

(By the way, I know there are some P. C. Hodgell fans reading this. Meisha Merlin--partners in the Baen library--is releasing an e-book package of the four Kencyrath novels and the apparently hard-to-find Kencyrath short story collection.)

Comments

[sraun]

I'm downloading God Stalker Chronicles right now. I may actually get To Ride A Rathorn read finally. I've been on a Doc Smith binge recently - I'm about 2/3rd's of the way through Skylark of Valeron right now.

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

I already post all my material free for people to download.

I have no idea if it's "professional quality" or not, though.

I suppose I could aim for that day to release the next track.