Another problem is the way the library system is forced to manage the ebook situation. They can only have a couple of copies of the book, much like a paper copy, so the reader often has to wait weeks or even months to get a chance to read a book they are interested in. Then when they do get the book, they are given a set time limit in which to read it (usually 2 weeks). There is no option to renew the book – if just goes on to the next person when the time limit is up, whether you have read it or not. And if you happen to finish reading it early, the book does not pass on to the next person unless you indicate that it is complete in the system. For libraries it is broken – borrowing paper books involves far less lag time, and the library can sell the books once they are no longer in vogue to make money to refresh their collection.

I’m not saying that pirating ebooks is right, but the system as it stands is designed to continually pump money from readers’ wallets, with no long-term return for the investment.

On Baen Books. I was on a panel on ebook publishing with the ebook guru of Baen Books in 2001 at Stellarcon. We had a very spirited discussion about the future of ebooks.

Baen built its free ebooks program because they believed that no one wanted to read ebooks and after the first few chapters the reader would give up in disgust and buy the paper copy. This proved fairly accurate for a short time because paper sales soared.

They also believed that ebooks would not mainstream until 2023 or later so they weren’t worried about losing ebook sales by giving away entire backlists of their authors.

To say they were off by lots of years is putting it mildly.

Their webscriptions service has worked well for them as well as their Baen’s Bar connection with their fans.

But they have had to retrench because they were so wrong about the changes in the digital market that they must now move into the ereader market. To do that, they can no longer cut their prices because contracts with Amazon, etc., won’t allow them to. And they must raise their prices to allow for Amazon and other vendors’ cut.

I have not kept up with their free books offered, but I doubt it is so generous as to offer an entire backlist of their writing stable because backlist is the lifeblood of most publishers.

So, Baen’s choices were smart at the beginning but very wrong in the long term.

All I ask is that I’m paid for what I do.

Writing professionally is a crap shoot. Some make a great deal of money. Others have perfectly good writing careers and make a decent living. The rest of us are lucky to pay the writing bills.

Some who aren’t making much believe enough in themselves they keep at it making a pittance in hopes of breaking out with a bestseller or movie deal. Some burn out and stop writing when the writing stops being fun and the business hell of writing becomes too much. Lucky others get a life.

I always tell young writers it’s time to stop writing when the writing stops being fun because the downside of the profession and the minimal profit aren’t worth it otherwise.

Yes, giving away content for free can be good marketing. However, with the surge in self-publishing, I think the effect is diminishing.

Paul, I saw the Antigua article. Honestly, I’ve got mixed feelings about it, and I intend to follow the story and see what happens. But I do like calling it “privateering.” Sort of puts a different spin on it. And your point on publishers’ and writers’ interests is well taken. Lots of authors are seeing that and are jumping ship to self-publishing.

Personally I don’t think this outcome is in the interests of anyone in particular, even the government of Antigua. But it goes to show how academic the whole debate is becoming. If this goes ahead, as the Antiguans point out, it won’t even be piracy per se, as the internationally responsible licensing body has sanctioned it. More like privateering perhaps … ?

https://torrentfreak.com/antigua-government-set-to-launch-pirate-website-to-punish-united-states-130124/

http://bookpage.com/behind-the-book/the-horror-the-horror-of-being-and-becoming-a-horror-writer

And in particular:

“Forget about deals and careers for a moment, or even for a few years. The writing is what counts. I have a very old-school approach to writing because it’s the only one I know: read the canon of the field you want to contribute to, acquire the craft of good writing through practice, develop a voice. If it takes 10 years or longer, so be it. ‘Apartment 16′ took four years to write and ‘The Ritual’ another two after that. There was no deadline, deal or publisher waiting for either book, or even any readers besides my dad. And during most of that time, little had changed in publishing: No one was publishing horror in the mainstream beyond some series fiction in the U.S. and the big names from the 1970s. So why did I write them? Because I was driven to.”

Marilynn, why are you getting defensive in a forum that is supposed to be about how to *stop* or minimize piracy, and ensure the optimum delivery of revenues from writing to the writers? I don’t see anyone defending piracy here. If writers, like publishers, can make compelling and competitively priced work for readers, it will get paid for. Amazon et. al. have made that terrifically easy. But clinging to the practices of the past, especially when these in fact work far more to the publisher’s benefit than the writer’s, is not going to help. Publishers’ and writers’ interests are not necessarily aligned.

And, I’ve written for thirty years, some of my friends even longer than that, and we do give up a lot to write.

Do you have any idea of the time and energy it takes to write a novel? In my faster days, I could write as fast as Stephen King, and it took me months, three to four hours every night, to finish a 100,000 word novel. Then there are the rewrites, etc. And where did all that time come from except by giving up other stuff?

To be a writer that has the craft of a pro takes years. It’s the same as being a pro athlete except we do it with our brains instead of our bodies as we perfect our craft. Because I started in the days before the Internet and all the classes available, it took me thirteen years and about as many novels before I sold my first one.

Sure, there’s pleasure in the creating, but there’s also the trade-off the lost time and relationships, the financial losses, and sheer crap I have to put up with jerks who haven’t a clue about what I do.

Some writers will make a living at it. Some will make a hobby. That’s just the way it is. If you sell your work and somebody wants it, they should totally pay the price you ask for. But if you can’t convince enough people to do that so that you can pay your bills, that’s life. I do pay for the books I read. But I don’t owe a living to everybody who wants to be a writer just because writers are ‘special.’

Narrative style is constantly changing. Not only has it changed in the last hundred years, it has changed in the last ten years. It’s becoming so lean I keep expecting it to start looking like stage directions for a play.

Most readers aren’t patient enough to deal with older styles, and I’ve met very few students who don’t have trouble with narrative older than fifty years.

If a writer wants to write with no hope of making money, God speed to him, but I can guarantee that it will get very old, very fast, as the first flush of knowing people are reading gets lost in the silence of the audience and the time sink that is sitting on your butt alone for hours at a time.

I always recommend that, if a writer only wants to be read and wants an enthusiastic audience, she should write fanfic in a fanfic community. Otherwise, it’s hard to connect with readers and the lack of interest will break her heart or take away the fun of writing.

Yes, most pro writers have day jobs. I support myself by teaching online most of the time. That still doesn’t mean that pro writers are willing to spend half their day, all their free time, and their health plugging away at a career that offers no cash back.

I’ve had so many friends stop writing because the writing income wasn’t adequate, the spouse and the kids were neglected, the back and other body parts were falling apart, and the stress of writing 3-4 books a year while maintaining all the promotion, etc., necessary for a professional career was destroying them.

And you expect most would do this for free?

And I am not arguing that living writers shouldn’t be paid, and shouldn’t be entitled to the rewards of their work. But publishing companies should not be entitled to the proceeds of writers’ estates after their deaths beyond a reasonable limit which the US system has long since exceeded. Even in ebook format, publishers have plenty of ways to add value to out-of-copyright works, as anyone who has tried reading ill-formatted poetry off Gutenberg can tell you. They don’t need this kind of legal featherbeddding. And there is no sign of the Australian or Canadian publishing industries crumbling because of their respective copyright statutes.

And as another professional writer who also knows hundreds of others (yes, me too), I can tell you that most have day jobs, and many write for the pure love of it. I don’t recall that Emily Dickinson struggled to earn from her pen. Or Kafka. Or Milton. If writers do want and need to be paid for their work, like for instance Chatterton or Baudelaire, of course they should be. But by your count, Dickinson, Kafka and Milton all count as amateurs. How much dreck are they responsible for?

And if this all sounds too dated, look at Thomas Ligotti – supporting himself for years at an office desk and later as a freelance editor while he perfected a body of work that is unlikely ever to have enough mass appeal to support him, no matter what copyright regulations apply. But he’s kept at his writing for important personal reasons that have nothing to do with making a living from it. So does that make him an amateur who purveys dreck at the expense of professional writers?

Repeat: I am not arguing about depriving living writers of their reward. I am not arguing about DRM. I am arguing about the geographical and temporal range of copyright restrictions on the work of dead writers – who of course aren’t around to enjoy the rewards anyway.

Readers are going to be surrounded by dreck with publishers’ help or without, but the professional versus amateur distinction has nothing to do with it – and is deeply insulting to many fine writers who stuck to their craft while knowing full well they could never earn a living from it. And for all writers, pro or amateur, Amazon’s 70% royalty deal is a far better one than the traditional publishing industry 10-15%.