Living in obscurity.

[ein_myria]

Does it mean you've hit the limelight if e-book pirates chose to share your work online? If so, congratulations!

Curiously, I was looking at Karin Kallmaker's list of Ye Olde Myths of Piracy and was unsatisfied with the supporting evidence. The "myth" about authors actually earning more money? Well, it's not a myth in the sense that it's not real. Mercedes Lackey and several other authors who were part of the Baen Free Library experiment had sales of their books increase after they released it for free in 2002. Even MIT press and other academic presses had several works lifted out of obscurity and sold more printed copies precisely because the works were available for free. Obviously, this does not translate unilaterally across the board, but it's good to know all the facts on hand before we make a judgment.

Comments

[leavethesky]

Thanks for doing this. I noticed she was throwing around a lot of 'facts' without any citations or actual numbers to back them up. Reminds me of the (very few) musicians who complain that piracy is killing them when in fact it's the publishing industry itself that has historically been guilty of robbing musicians blind. They use pirating sites to 'launch' songs and create buzz (this was essentially the argument that allowed Google to trounce Viacom when they sued Youtube - because most of the Viacom violations were being uploaded from Viacom ip addresses) then sue people for downloading.
I think someone should take a longer look at this 'industry' itself, which seems to prey on women desperate to get published who then see little to no return on their hard work. Gee, I wonder who's making money here? The On-Demand publishers perhaps? It's all too disgusting for words and the authors complaining that piracy is killing their sales are just too gullible for words. The publisher is the one robbing them, not the pirates.

[ein_myria]

You're welcome. :)

That Viacom case study is classic! Thanks for bringing that up.

*chuckles* The "industry" is a traditional niche market, much like Sci-Fi. Except that it has the notorious reputation for having pretty lousy fiction (I'm sorry but it's true--I've _bought_ enough bad fiction from small presses in this genre to last me a life time; lesbian movies are also generally pretty awful). That "weeding out" process by publishers is not as vigorous as it could be--perhaps due to the ethnocentric viewpoint of the publishers (think of the hooha that was the Lambda literary awards) and what they think of as the intended audience, who are desperate for any kind of visibility in the media that they have no choice but to swallow bad products. (Karin Kallmaker and others who were pirated are not among those, obviously.)

The Science Fiction Writers of America has a pretty neat article on the possible problems of print on demand. If you want facts, here's Jamie Hall's account, someone who actually did do research on POD before she went in. Again, there are perfectly successful authors who have emerged from POD but it's not an easier or sustainable model by any means.

whoops for the delete.

[ein_myria]

This was from anonymous person. Accidentally deleted.

------------
It's kind of a double-edged sword for a writer.

I'm one of those writers you'd probably consider "pretty awful" and who originally published on the web. Enough people liked my stuff that a "start up" lesbian pub wanted my book. I made a small amount of money and the company decamped to parts unknown, although my book is still apparently in print if you look on Amazon.com and other sites. There are even audio versions of it available on other websites which I never authorized.

Sometimes I get angry about that.

Then I think about this author event I did where someone told me that she took a cross-country trainride (she was afraid to fly) because she saw I was going to be there. And this other woman who had been in the service and taken that book everywhere she had been stationed. My book has been more places than I will ever see. And I will never forget walking into an academic conference and hearing the speaker ask if anyone had seen me (I was on a different panel later in the conference) because she had cited my book in hers.

That's kinda cool.

And no, I didn't get paid for any of it.

Maybe I'm just stupid. I keep writing anyway. No, I still don't get paid.

Re: whoops for the delete.

[ein_myria]

Hi, thanks for writing in. You're right, it's a double-edged sword. That adage of "don't quit your day job" is sounding more and more true. Not only does one have to be a great writer but also a savvy businessperson--to know what appeals to the market. I think though that the publishing industry should be seen as a service rather than an evil entity that has all the solutions. Actually, I championed a lot of the web to print authors in the past, but the fall of the POD has made me much more guarded. Even though people might adore it on the web, it doesn't automatically translate to a cash sale over the counter or an actual sale at an online bookstore. I think that it's great that you're continuing to write despite all of the hardship. It's also nice that your work is being recognized; the visibility should do well for future works, no? It gets you a leg in the door, if nothing else. :)

Nowadays I've heard that academic publishers (yet another niche market) are asking potential authors to fork out their own money (upwards to $10,000) for an initial print run, so that the editors who believe in their work can justify bringing it up to the marketing department even if it doesn't sell well. It's a strange world that we live in if academia is ruled by marketing people. *sigh*

[leavethesky]

Yeah, those are great links (there's even a link to one of my fav sites, Writer Beware Blogs!). But I don't think most wannabe writers are seeing the link between POD and these small niche presses. The case from your anon commenter pretty much says it all. S/he still has no control over her book and is seeing no profits even though it is still being distributed in different formats. Worse, the 'reputable' lgbt publishers are going out of business or are in serious trouble, which leaves us with nothing but the niche presses to publish 'our' work. I feel like there should be more discussion about this in the community because I see so many fic authors trying desperately to get published this way and I want to warn them that this is no the road to success. Only a traditional publisher can offer even a hope (and a remote one at that) of that kind of success. Unless, of course ,someone happens to be a marketing whiz. Even then, you can't make the market.

Nicola Griffith is also talking about POD (Ask Nicola: Why self-publishing looks more and more attractive) because she's looking at releasing some older works that way, but even she concedes that she has an established name and even then the risks are high.

[ein_myria]

You're right about traditional publishing. Aside from Nicola Griffith, the other names that I can point out at the drop of a hat--Jeanette Winterson (Penguin / Bloomsbury), Sarah Waters (Virago), Val McDermid (Harper Collins / Little, Brown), and so on--they've done well in more mainstream presses that aren't limited to publishing lesbian fiction.