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Share the ware but not the wealth? Nonpaying readers dash U.K. novelist Richard Herley’s shareware hopes
May 13, 2008 | 1:51 am
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By David Rothman
Who doesn’t like the idea of shareware books? Download ‘em for free. Pay up only if a writer gives you a good read.
A gifted U.K. novelist named Richard Herley—and, yes I’ve read The Penal Colony and can vouch for his talent—bravely tried such an experiment. You bet I cheered him on. I wanted my skepticism toward shareware books to be wrong, and I gave Richard ample exposure. Manybooks.net and Feedbooks did the same.
11K downloads but just 25 payers
So what are the results of the experiment after three months? Despite 11,000 downloads of The Penal Colony and other titles, Richard got paid by a mere 25 people for 89 books. I’m sure that some writers may thrive with shareware, but I wonder how many. Yes, as I keep noting, there often can be a relationship between the quality of literature and whether and how much people get paid. Rob Preece, by the way, the owner of BooksForABuck.com, also found that shareware just didn’t pay off.
Now pondering “the logic of writing fiction”
As for Richard, he tells me the sorry results have “made me ponder the logic of writing fiction at all. Writing is hard and lonely work, and is, by and large, poorly remunerated.”
Perhaps an author will write the first novel in a burst of inspiration, but sooner or later, as has been pointed out on the eBook Community list, the, er, content provider’s family will demand an accounting of his or her time. Furthermore, as I see it, shareware programs can be more easily converted into commercial products than can novels.
No shareware/POD nirvana
Also, let me note that print-on-demand novels are the longest of shots, and I just don’t see a shareware/POD mix as a viable business model in most cases for fiction. Marion Gropen, an expert on the business side of publishing, would almost surely agree. So do self-publish POD fiction for satisfaction, but not for money. Richard’s novels were not available POD, as far as I know, but I wonder if it really would have been worth the trouble, financially. Feel free to speak up to the contrary!
In Richard’s own words
Verbatim, here’s what Richard wrote me: “I’m sorry not to have been in touch for so long, but I have lost my enthusiasm for e-publishing and indeed publishing in general. You may be interested to hear the results of my experiment. My site opened in mid February, and since then, in conjunction with Feedbooks and Manybooks, at least 11,000 ebooks have been downloaded. An unknown quantity has also been distributed via newsgroups and bit torrents.
“I have received payment from 25 people in respect of 89 ebooks. Obviously I have no idea how many of those texts have been read, nor how many of those read have been enjoyed. It may be that the books are so bad that only a misguided minority have parted with their money.
“Should that not be the case, however, it seems that I was naive in my assumptions about the integrity of most readers.
“This exercise has made me ponder the logic of writing fiction at all. Writing is hard and lonely work, and is, by and large, poorly remunerated. The main point of it lies in the connection with readers: and if the overwhelming majority of readers are as the results of my experiment imply, they do not deserve to be written for. This is something for me to bear in mind when deciding how to spend my time in future.
“I am grateful to you for your kindness and assistance in trying to get this project off the ground, and of course to the honourable and tiny minority who supported it. Alas, it doesn’t seem to work!”
The damage from not paying
In a follow-up e-mail, Richard wrote: “Yes, by all means please reproduce my note if you think it will serve as a warning to other writers. I have not gven up the idea of writing fiction altogether; if I got offered a decent contract I would probably sign it. In fact I have a complete novel, a thriller which I was planning to publish online, sitting in my desk drawer. But my experiences with publishers since 1978 have not exactly been life-enhancing, and the market is very much tougher now, so I doubt if it will ever see the light of day.”
There you go. If readers had been more helpful, he could have released that novel in the drawer as shareware on the Web to circumvent the present mess in mainstream publishing. Instead it’ll stay offline.
“I don’t know what the future holds for fiction and its readers,” Richard continues. “In the UK, the situation is dire. I had hoped that the advent of e-book displays would help, but instead it seems they are making things worse, boosting piracy.
“Still, there are worse problems in the world, and at the moment the sun is shining in Hampshire!”
Question: Rather than leave the novel in the drawer, should Richard try self-e-publishing through conventional outlets such as Fictionwise or maybe the Kindle store, as opposed to using the shareware approach?
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Comments:
1 Q and 1 point:
Q: What was the author take-home for the paid copies compared to the cut he would have received from a traditional publisher for 11K copies sold?
And my point: I downloaded the things, but they haven’t risen to the top of my to-read list yet. Thus, I haven’t decided to tip or not yet. Should that count as a negative in the results analysis?
I am also someone who downloaded Richard’s books, but have not read them yet…so have not paid.
I have paid other authors who self-publish (e.g., Steve Jordan, April Hamilton).
I have also spent money on books from authors I was introduced to by Tor’s weekly giveaways.
I’m sorry to hear that Richard’s results were so disappointing to him and wish him well.
I was saddened but not surprised to hear these statistics. My own attempts at shareware had similar dismal results. Bottom line–I think many readers intend to pay, but actually paying requires a bit of work (finding the site, logging onto PayPal, etc.) and it’s easier to put it off.
As David points out, it’s a bit harder to offer the kind of hooks that shareware software uses (e.g., disabled versions (we call these excerpts in the book world), limited time versions, customer support for paying customers, etc.
I am interested to hear a data point in opposition to those who argue that writers will continue to write regardless of the financial rewards.
Rob Preece
Publisher, http://www.BooksForABuck.com
You mention the POD possibilities. I wanted to offer my take:
What makes sense to me is read for free, pay for print. The marginal cost of downloaded books is essentially zero. (forgetting the capital costs for now.) Readers know this. E books would probably make most sense as a subscription service.
The marginal effort for the author using POD is zero. One offs can be printed and delivered with no time investment.
Given these realities, books should have a very long tail. If the mission of an author is to be read, 11,000 people who have agreed to read is pretty neat.
If the issue is making money over the long run, the long tail could work, given enough time and luck and finding the audience. Does Rob have contact info for the folks who downloaded the book?
It could be interesting to offer them a POD version at a reasonable price.
If the issue is making money today or next week or getting an advance, then something else is needed.
I’m sorry to report that I am one of those who downloaded the book but hasn’t yet paid for it. There are two reasons: First, the book was offered in PDF, an unfriendly format for my Sony Reader, so it resides on my computer but has not made it to my Sony Reader. I simply refuse to sit at my desk or have my large laptop in my lap to read books. Second, the deal was pay if you like it. I haven’t read it yet so I don’t know if I like it. I am definitely willing to pay for it if I ever read it and like it.
I suspect that many of the downloaders are like me; i.e., they downloaded the book with every intention of fulfilling the bargain even though they were put off by the PDF format but once they got it downloaded, just never moved the book to the top of the to-read list because of the awkward format.
I would also offer this advice. First, it takes time for a concept to grab hold. Three months is insufficient time, especially with a book, because disappointment after three months assumes that readers had nothing else to do during that time but read your book. I still have books I bought 3 years ago sitting in my to-read pile in my library because I get distracted by other things.
Second, perhaps the payoff is elsewhere in the cycle. For example, I had never read David Weber’s scifi books, largely because I found the cover art offputting and depicting the type of scifi that I never cared for. However, Baen offered several of Weber’s books as free e-books. For free I would give them a try. I tried them and found that I really like his style of writing, so I have been buying p-book versions of his books at my local bookstore to add to my permanent library, something I would never have done without the opportunity to read Weber’s books free first. In fact, I am anxiously awaiting the June release of his next book. This similar phenomenon may be facing Herley.
As Herley knows, there are thousands of would-be authors writing books. But with limited funds, consumers are more cautious and tend to be reluctant to give money to unheard of authors (i.e., unknown to the consumer). I admit to never having heard of Herley before the announcement of the shareware concept for his books and so would never have considered his books for an e-purchase (I might have considered them if I had seen them on my local bookstore shelf where I could peruse the book) because I want to spend my money on books I will read, not books that I might buy and begin and then set aside forever never having completed.
Bottom line is that a three-month experiement is much too short a time to determine success or failure in an experiment such as this. I think it takes a year minimum and it takes repeated marketing to ledt people know of the opportunity. Plus it takes makeing the product available in appropriate formats.
For a slightly different take: I just do not believe in the tip bowl as a concept. If a book is published through regular channels and then the author puts it online for free, it is just not right morally to reward only the author, forgetting all the hard work done by all that made it go to print or even e-only. Better as C. Doctorow says, buy a copy for a library…
If the book is self-published then I think the author could better offer a generous part of it free, and then ask for a fee for the rest. Going to self-publishing means forgoing a lot of things done by the publishers or doing them yourself – see below the link to Scalzi – so you should treat it as your business if you expect to make money, or just do not expect to make money.
Check this: The Once and Future Self-Publisher
http://scalzi.com/whatever/?p=697
I too downloaded the book but have not read it yet. I tend to be a hoarder with e-stuff because I usually take the reader with me (as opposed to a laptop or something else) on days when I know I’ll have more time on my hands (and hence want the longer-than-laptop battery life). So I keep a lot of stuff on there since I like to have something for every mood.
I would be interested in hearing what sort of follow-up, if any, the author had with some of these people. Did he try to get any of them to voluntarily subscribe to an emal list (for example, offering one format as a freebie everywhere then asking to join a free email list if they want a pick of other formats?) I can think of a few things I bought after joining someone’s email list, not buying right away, then being reminded of them with periodic emails. Did he just release the book and hope for the best, or did he try to leverage/convert any of these readers in any way?
Richard writes,
“As Herley knows, there are thousands of would-be authors writing books. But with limited funds, consumers are more cautious and tend to be reluctant to give money to unheard of authors (i.e., unknown to the consumer). I admit to never having heard of Herley before the announcement of the shareware concept for his books and so would never have considered his books for an e-purchase (I might have considered them if I had seen them on my local bookstore shelf where I could peruse the book) because I want to spend my money on books I will read, not books that I might buy and begin and then set aside forever never having completed.”
I think this really nails it. Look at people who are successful using the “give it away” model…they are folks like Cory Doctorow or John Scalzi who already have a mini/mega community that they are already active participants in/have built up.
Or they are people who give the book away and use the downloads/Internet vibe to land a traditional book deal. David Wellington is a great example there…I actually bought a p-book version of Monster Island at a Borders on a whim when I was visiting my in-laws and ran out of reading material (and I have to say that was one of the best horror books I have ever read).
Cerebus — The average net income per copy (not counting subsidiary rights) on my paper-based novels has been small. As for payment, the sum requested is not a “tip”.
Richard Adin — the books are available in many formats at manybooks and Feedbooks, and in MS-Word and ASCII from my site.
ficbot — I didn’t follow up on emails, since the addresses were divulged to me only via PayPal and I feel it would be infra dig to pester people using those. I set up a blog and a blog-feed so that readers could keep in touch. That facility too has been a flop!
Brian Carnell — the major investment in my experiment was the release of The Tide Mill, previously unpublished and the fruit of about 3,000 hours’ work. The other novels are OP.
I flat forgot to pay. I just used PayPal to pay for Stone Arrow but when I checked my reader I realized it was Tide Mill that I had read and quite enjoyed. I was surprised because it is not the type of fiction I usually buy. I thought it worth more that 2 bucks but couldn’t figure out how to change the total. I certainly do not agree w/the “tip bowl” concept.
I hope Michael is correct about the “long tail” theory. I, like most everyone else, have a huge unread e-book library.
I am thinking maybe it’s better to pay when I download. I have paid more for more than a few books that I never bothered finishing.
Now to pay for Tide Mill. If I like Stone Arrow as much as I did Tide Mill I will download (and pay for!) The Penal Colony.
deanna
It will probably take most folks a while to get around to reading the books, if at all. The ebook people I know like to build up massive libraries with books they intend to read. Chances are they might not even get around to reading half the books they downloaded.
This behavoir sorta kills the kind of relatively instant feed back Mr. Herley was hoping for.
A different payment model would probably work.
You could say: Here is some of my older work you can read for free. Now, I have a new book written that I will also put out for free but first I would like to raise “$someamount” as payment for my year of work on the novel. Here are the first three chapters for you to read. If you like them and would like to see the full book released please join the first funding round to be held on “somedate” to “somedate” and “someweb address”.
Folks wanting the new book can go to the site make pledges, and can check the progress of funds raised. Since they probably want the rest of the book released as soon as possible they will probably pester their friends and such to pledge as well.
You’ld probably want to hold 2 or 3 weeklong funding rounds.
maybe even use the Rational Street Performer Protocol:
http://www.logarithmic.net/pfh/rspp
I don’t know, it’s worth a shot.
Don’t give up, just keep trying different stuff.
PS.
The books were awesome, Thx.
Lee
As someone who runs an online fiction project, I’ve thought about this matter a bit. Perhaps the novel genre itself is ill-suited to encouraging donations. Why? First, length of time to produce something forces the creator to seek some kind of return on the investment to justify the time expenditure. Second, reading a 200+ page novel requires a substantial investment of reader’s time in a world replete with entertainment options. The problem is that there’s no ongoing relationship between writers and fans normally during the reading (or the writing) of a novel. Perhaps a more persistent form of storytelling (akin to blogging) encourages more generosity. Novels are a one time thing; blogs are a constant fix. I check certain blogs on a daily or even weekly basis. I check sites of online authors rarely. Shorter forms mitigate this problem somewhat, but it’s still a matter of the writer tossing the novel over the fence and waiting for someone to decide to pick it up and read it.
Doctorow and Scalzi have benefited from the publicity arising from the novelty of CC/shareware publishing. That is unlikely to be a distinguishing factor in the literary marketplace if half the authors today are doing the same thing.
Some things to consider:
1)would a partial giveaway encourage readers to buy the whole thing? (see smashwords).
2)When is the right time for the public to view a work of fiction? When a chapter is done? When the whole novel is done? When everything has been edited? When other eyes have inspected it for errors/inconsistencies?
3)if a free release brings additional fans, won’t that create additional demand for that author’s other websites (whose traffic can be monetized)?
4)If CC fiction can be republished or transformed in other ways, won’t that bring a steady stream of traffic over time?
5) In the past, substantial time was lost while the author passed around manuscripts to publishers waiting for the acceptance letter. Now, DIY publishing eliminates that dead time. Now authors face another stretch of dead time immediately after publication (where there just isn’t the level of publicity to bring the project to the attention of people). Isn’t it folly to expect potential readers to be able to discover a new novel rapidly enough for the author to see immediate gain? By my estimate, it takes at least 10 years. If authors don’t have that kind of time, shouldn’t they be looking into literary forms which can be produced and promoted more rapidly?
Oh there’s also the normal Street Performer Protocol:
http://www.schneier.com/paper-street-performer.html
Lee: what you are talking about is sort of like a pre-order method that has been commonly used in my other niche market hobby, exercise videos, for a number of years. Back in the days of the first FIRM videos, that’s how they got funded. People liked the first one, so when they were ready to make a new one and had trouble getting the funding, they went to the fans (they had mailing lists of people who had mail-ordered the first one) and said they would make a new one if they raised x number of dollars and would you like to pre-order. The pre-order raised more than enough funds to cover the costs.
The trick is, there has to be an incentive to those who pre-order. Cathe Friedrich, for example, typically has escalating prices e.g. you pre-order in phase 1 and the price is $100 for the set UNTIL such and such date, at which point it goes up a few dollars etc. all the way up to release date at full, actual price. Early buyers can get a substantial discount by taking the leap of faith and buying sight unseen—and as she has many loyal fans now, a lot of people take her up on this.
Not sure a total newbie could apply this model to books, but once you’ve built up a following, it might work.
I don’t believe share-ware is a good business model at all. I haven’t downloaded the book, but I am as guilty as anyone of downloading other products (software), forgetting to pay, deciding I really will not use the software, or putting off paying to some future date that I never quite get around to doing.
Paying is a pain, that is one problem, and it is not parting with the money that makes it so. Payment systems take time and are sometimes mismatched to available means of payment. This is a minor but real impediment.
The real problem is the model itself. “Buyer beware” has a couple of aspects other than being aware of shoddy goods, it is also a means of forcing the buyer to think about what they are buying, and why, before they part with their money or use the product.
Picking things up for free, on impulse, is one thing. Buying something because it is needed or genuinely wanted is another. Cheap prices, easy means of paying and then receiving goods is a model that has stood the test of time. It does not require DRM crippled e-books, but it does mean a good micro-payment system.
I’d like to offer an out of the box view here.
Should artists create art only for the money? We used to have a word for such artists and it was not complimentary. We called them ‘hacks.’ The ‘true artist’ was once thought to create for the joy of creation, the internal urge to create, and the desire to share with his fellow men. Was this only an illusion, or have we all Fallen through living under the curse of Capitalism for these centuries?
Herley writes of his motivation for writing fiction: “The main point of it lies in the connection with readers: and if the overwhelming majority of readers are as the results of my experiment imply, they do not deserve to be written for.”
So, should we then call Herley a sloppy writer and ask that he replace the words ‘connection with’ with the words ‘payment by’? Then his lines make sense.
In this digital age, maybe it makes sense for Herley and others to follow the second paradigm suggested by the career of J K Rowling: handmake your books with many doodles, and sell each individual copy you make.
Honestly, this sort of attitude sickens me. But what is worse is the underlying assumptions, that art is nothing but another widget, produced to be sold at a profit. This approach makes perfect sense for publishers, but not for writers.
I wonder if Herley enjoyed any of that ‘hard and lonely’ time he spent writing these novels. Or was it like standing for long hours in the mills, breaking his back on the assembly line, a chore and a drudgery, hateful, redeemed only for the wages, and not worth it if the wages do not rise to a satisfactory level?
Does Herley think of his readers as though they were mill foremen, who only ‘deserve’ his time if the money is right?
Finally, if Herley is in it only for the money, I would suggest that Herley make an experiment with that completed MS. Self-publish it on the Kindle, set your price, and see if this approach pays enough to be worth it.
Pond, Richard is decidedly not a hack. That said, I like your Kindle idea. As much as I quarrel with the Kindle’s eBabel and DRM, Amazon did its best to design the device for nontechie booklovers. There’s no reason why Richard couldn’t simultaneously keep the shareware versions online and also go the Kindle route. As in the case of the shareware approach, I doubt he’ll see much money. But I’d love to be wrong! Thanks. David
I left a message yesterday that has mysteriously disappeared.
In it I laid out a method that would have him offering the first 2 or 3 chapters as free downloads but have those interested in reading the rest of the story pay for the book. Seemed to be the easiest and best way.
If after reading a few chapters, those interested would either decide to purchase the book and read on or “get around” to getting the rest “one day”. Then Richard would know how many potential readers there are (based on number of initial downloads) and how many really liked the book enough to pay for it.
I shared my personal usage habits of what happens when I hear about a free e-book. I quickly download and it sits until I “get around to reading it”.
But I also purchase e-books. Those DO NOT sit around since I paid my money for them. They get read quickly.
If I liked it enough to pay for it after reading, in many cases, just an excerpt, it is at the top of my reading list.
I can’t tell you how much free “e” material is floating around my computer because it was free that I still haven’t gotten to.
@Pond, can we please stop the fallacy that artist who care about eating, sleeping, feeding their families, etc. are only in it for the money.
Talent, just like time, has a value and those with talent should not be labeled “hacks” because they want to make a living with that talent.
Enough with the starving artist conceit.
Aaron J. Walker http://www.walkbroadpublishing.com
Aaron, I’ll be curious how others react. Perhaps one approach would be a mix of a free sample and a discount for immediate purchase. Meanwhile sorry about your Doberman trouble. Thanks for persisting! David
@David
Thanks for looking into it.
As an author and publisher, this is a topic I feel passionately about. Especially when people start talking about how “true” artist “struggle” for their art or should take a vow of poverty to prove they are really an “artist.”
Pure hogwash.
I didn’t download any of Richard’s books, and I don’t download any material which is looking for payment later. Mostly because I know me, IF I get around to reading it, who knows if I’ll have it to spare at that time. If it’s really free with no strings, I’ll take it. Otherwise, I leave it alone.
But I do think offering a few free chapters and then charging for the remainder of the book would have been the best way for him to have gone.
Aaron J. Walker http://www.walkbroadpublishing.com
Aaron writes:
While I think Pond’s use of the term “hack” was a bit over the top, I think he (she?) and I share an opinion with regard to some of Mr. Herley’s comments above.
Without applying any labels, there are writers for whom writing is a passion who write because they have to (and will do so regardless of the income it generates), and there are writers for whom writing is a chosen profession and, if they’re successful, a principle or at least significant source of income.
Based on some of his comments above, I’m not sure in which of these categories Mr. Herley belongs. When he says, “the main point of it lies in the connection with readers,” it sounds like he belongs in the first category. But when he says, “if the overwhelming majority of readers are as the results of my experiment imply, they do not deserve to be written for,” he makes me feel like a commodity to be bought in the marketplace, a customer who is not worthy of a vendor’s product. This definitely makes me want to put him in the second category.
The failure of Mr. Herley’s possibly ill-conceived experiment is certainly not cause to make broad generalizations about the ethical standards of the book-reading public. An author who cops an attitude about his ability (or inability) to generate a desired level of income from his writing certainly doesn’t attract me to reading his work, or purchasing his product, as the case may be.
Choosing to earn one’s living as a creative artist is risky business; to gain any kind of financial security, one must be very, very good at what he does. If the income generated by an artist’s work is “something for [him] to bear in mind when deciding how to spend [his] time in future,” I suggest his time would be better spent on other pursuits. I have little sympathy for him if he fails to earn his living in his chosen profession, and I will definitely take offense if he casts aspersions on his audience as a result of that failure.
I downloaded the book, I read it and I paid for it. But if its all about money, the author should have done some more research. The principal of shareware is that if you like it, find it useful then you keep it and pay for it. In the case of writing, you just can’t take back the reading of a thing if you don’t like it so, you don’t pay for it. He should have found another more financially secure method, some of which have been mentioned here, if making money is what it is all about to him.
As a capitalist, the author should know to blame the readers (in his world customers) for his marketing mistake. He chose the wrong platform for his purposes… to make money. Any good capitalist knows that you need to research your market prior to setting up shop. Shareware and open source are not for those looking to get rich off the end user. The money comes from elsewhere.
So let this be a lesson to other capitalists who chose writing as a career… do more research and find the proper method for dissemination of your electronic text. If more of you did this, the electronic publishing market would be far more commercially viable. But for the writers out there who are slaves to the muses, who value the purity of creation and value the freedom of e-publishing… keep up the good work!
By the way… I really did enjoy the book.