What goes around poll

[rolanni]

There's been a sort of movable discussion wandering through a couple writer communities I'm part of, brought on in part by writers who are trying to figure out how best to grow their audience, make a living, and maybe even get a bigger piece of the action.

Not surprisingly, many of these conversations come 'round to web serialization for fun and profit, what works, what doesn't. Some folks are of the opinion that giving one's work away "for free" is always a bad deal for the writer, some folks think that giving work away "for free" is the wave of the future, whereupon we're all gonna starve, some folks think that asking readers to kick in a buck for downloading a novel direct from the author is tacky, some think it's OK, but that no one will pay.

In other words, it's a complicated subject and lots of bright people are struggling to make sense of it, and to figure out how to work current realities to their benefit while simultaneously trying to figure out where current realities are going to take us in one, three, six years.

Now, Steve and I did well with our web serializations. I honestly don't know if that's because of a Paradigm Shift, or because we have Incredibly Cool Fans(TM), or because we were writing a Liaden story -- or a combination of all those factors and a bunch that I haven't thought of.

In the spirit of trying to figure some stuff out myself, I offer the following poll, going from the general to the specific.


[Poll #1381306]

Comments

[e-moon60.livejournal.com]

I don't like to read fiction on the computer screen (having to do it all day every day for my own stuff, my eyes need a rest.) Nor would I read it as a serial (it would drive me crazy--not only interfering with my writing, but also tempting Demon Editor out of her hutch and thus requiring application of Moral Force to keep from writing the authors and saying "That sentence in chapter three, paragraph two, really belongs in chapter four paragraph eight...fix that in the next draft..." and similar maddening, unforgiveable intrusions. There is not enough Moral Force in my aging brain to manage this, and if I like the writers I want to stay friends with them.)

Thus I would contribute to such a project only if there were a paper (or printable) version and would want to make only one contribution.

Here it gets tricky. For a writer whose work I kindasorta like, but I really like the writer and want to support her/him, I might be OK with a PDF I could print, and my contribution would factor in the cost of the paper to print it. So that contribution would be less than if the book came already printed out. For a writer whose work I really like and want to keep around, it would have to promise the printed version...not a hardcover, but either a mass-market (for those I probably won't read more than a half dozen times) or trade PB (for those I know I'll read more than a half-dozen times.) Again, my contribution would be based on the estimated bookstore price of an equivalent...I know what prices are, and what the markup over expenses is, and would be prepared to gift the writer what bookstores usually yank, in addition to the royalty built in.

If I could stand to read a book off the screen, I'd want to pay less for just the download so I could read it whenever.

But that's just me, and I need to get back to work now.