Tad Williams To Release To Web 140
H.I. McDonnough writes "Tad Williams, author of the near future sci-fi series Otherland and the fantasy series Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn will be releasing a new fantasy series on the web. From the site:
"Shadowmarch is not going to be simply a novel to download. It will be a serial story -- episodic, presented in regular installments more like a television show, that can either be downloaded and perused at leisure (even printed out) or read right on the site. There will be art, maps, and background history of the world, all available as part of the package."
I don't know if any other major author has tried this. You can read the free prelude on the site at http://www.shadowmarch.com." The whole she-bang is supposed to launch June 1. But I will say that this looks more like what I think the online publishing will be like - less like King's "The Plant" idea, which was still dumb, IMHO.
Is he as adict^H^H^H^H good s Robert Jordan? (Score:1)
Open Source writing is the only ethical writing. (Score:1)
I am a convert.
I truly believe that Open Source is the only possible future for all forms of intellectual property and creation.
I think that the only moral form of creative writing is that which is free. The publishing houses are the software houses of the writing world, and Penguin and Bertlesman are it's IBM and Microsoft. If writing is to become a truly creative medium on a par with programming, it must cease to be the creation of a single man, and become a chaotic mess, a maelstrom of conflicting ideas united by aim.
Open Source writing already exists in a limited form on newsgroups, but it is breaking out of this ghetto and into the world of the mainstream. The publishing companies are running scared.
I shall become the Stallman of the publishing industry, resolute in support of Free Literature. I urge you all to do the moral thing, and refuse to buy books, which are just monopolies. Books are fascist, for they make writing property and bind it in covers of steel.
Fight for freedom, and we will see a free publishing industry based around the Internet, much like the software world.
The Plant wasn't dumb... (Score:5)
On a different note, I wish Williams would hurry up and finish the Otherland series so I can stop buying the damn things. I don't like them anymore, but I feel that I've already invested so much time and money in the first 3 books that I have to see it through to the end.
installments, reading on the web? (Score:1)
I like to spend time away from the computer doing leisure activities (reading, smoking pot, whatever
I think that it is great that people are expanding to the net to do these sorts of things, but w/the way he is talking about setting it up (installments) that would just make it difficult
I say, publish the damn book really cheap and then let us read it
Re:Is he as adict^H^H^H^H good s Robert Jordan? (Score:1)
Re:Is he as adict^H^H^H^H good s Robert Jordan? (Score:1)
Re:Is he as adict^H^H^H^H good s Robert Jordan? (Score:1)
Re:Is he as adict^H^H^H^H good s Robert Jordan? (Score:1)
Re:Is he as adict^H^H^H^H good s Robert Jordan? (Score:1)
Well. If you really like Jordan's cheezy style, you'll definitel/&%/&%762354 gjgdhfg jhsbc. jjjjb. Obscene scene of Shaidar Haran taking over this obese post93044553aaah. aaa. Yep. Enjoy :D
Episodic? Why?? (Score:3)
One of the strongest facets to the Gutenberg project, in my mind, was that you could read all of Ulysses by gophering to the site, in one sitting.
Unless there's real monitary reasons, I'd be much more willing to release whole stories instead of episodes.
Re:Open Source writing is the only ethical writing (Score:1)
Shurely a stoodint of Inglish wuld noe it's "its" and not "it's". </grammar_nazi>
Re:The Plant wasn't dumb... (Score:1)
You're in luck. The fourth and final volume is due out tomorrow.
Yes, I think so ... at least the Otherland series (Score:2)
I haven't read any of his earlier works and I still need to finish the series (4th of 4) just came out ... Some may disagree but I think Otherland is incredible - cyberpunk, mythology, fantasy, sci-fi all woven into the epic - most of the action takes place in a virtual reality world where visitors are hooked into physical life support systems while they explore online realms that vary as the limits of imagination, all vividly detailed ...
Re:Is he as adict^H^H^H^H good s Robert Jordan? (Score:1)
Re:Open Source writing is the only ethical writing (Score:1)
Jebus! Get a clue. I'll spank you in meta, you bad moderator you.
Otherland is finished (Score:2)
Re:Open Source writing is the only ethical writing (Score:1)
I can't believe I just blew my mod points before reading this off topic drivel. This venture has nothing to do with open source, it's a closed IP commercial project.
Good luck with the degree, I think you'll need it.
Re:Is he as adict^H^H^H^H good s Robert Jordan? (Score:1)
Yuck! (Score:3)
I think the concept of serialization is interesting though, get you hooked and then jack up the price (as it were). But, it has been done before in 19th century newspapers with Dickens or Conan-Doyle, and I predict that this may prove to be as popular today as it was then. (Whether or not these stories are of any quality will prove how enduring they are, though.)
But thats the internet in a nutshell isn't it? Try anything once...
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Re:Is he as adict^H^H^H^H good s Robert Jordan? (Score:1)
Actually, the first few books are quite good if you manage to get past the first few chapters. Shame on Jordan for stretching the whole mess far too wide... I mean, eight-nine books, but at least Rand managed to clean saidar. Fun for the whole family.
Re:Open Source writing is the only ethical writing (Score:1)
Re:Episodic? Why?? (Score:2)
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The problem with The Plant (Score:3)
Sure, I paid for the first installment, and enjoyed it. The projected final cost of the novel was between $15 and $25 though--far too much, in my opinion, when you don't recieve a nice hardcover volume. If you expected to print out the work, even at the modest cost of a nickel a page your total would be between $30 and $40.
Reading online is all good and well, but I think almost everyone can agree that it is easier and nicer to have hardcopy for literature. This means that the cost, at minimum, must be lowered to the point where people can realistically print it out for the same cost as the hardcover.
Second, The Plant didn't take into account the fact that people download files, then accidently delete them, or change computers and forget to transfer little things between them, or simply are lazy and want to download again for each location they access from. Should people who have paid for a copy and lost it (much easier to do than with a book) be forced to pay again? This fact was not taken in account when the pay-through percentage was calculated.
Hopefully Williams is addressing both these problems-no word yet on cost, but it appears that there will be a login system to access the online version, rather than a pay-for-play download of the serials. This, at least, is a major improvement in my mind.
Excellent Author (Score:2)
Re:Episodic? Why?? (Score:1)
Questions (revenue? format?) (Score:2)
Also, what sort of formats will he be dealing with? Will it be a nasty IE-only site loaded up with Quicktime and Flash5 movies? If he makes it downloadable will it be in a nice portable format that I could use in my Rocket eBook, for example? That's what I think of when I see "downloadable format". (FYI, I'm reading King's traditional new novel Dreamcatcher that way.)
Duane
Required reading (Score:1)
Well said (Score:1)
Your point, also, is excellent.
Could you imagine if everyone had to pay $150 dollars to read Shakespeare or Chaucer? What would happen if all art and literature were bound by the shackles of 'the artists right to make a living' as the pro-RIAA advocates always say. This right lasts for 70 years after the artist's death. Where's the sense in that?
The fact that art can be monopolized at all is detestible. Whether in source code, in music or in literature!
Re:Episodic? Why?? (Score:1)
Because the story isn't done yet when they start. That's the fun of a serial. It keeps on going, and it need never end.
Re:Open Source writing is the only ethical writing (Score:3)
WHAT??
How did what you post make any sense at all???
Writing needs to be open source??? Yeah, right! I think that kind of underminds the purpose of most authors - if you have a creative vision, then it is your creative vision - not anyone else's. If you so choose to share that vision with the world, so be it, I think that's great.
Perhaps you mean to "open" the publishing schemes, but there is no way in hell that writing should be "open" - that's not quite the way to write a coherent story.
On the other hand, nice troll. Look, you even got us to respond...
I prefer to read online (Score:1)
Sea of Silver Light is Finally Out! (Score:1)
Re:Open Source writing is the only ethical writing (Score:1)
And how are you going to feed your family or pay for that fancy degree from princeton with all that free writing your doing? Oh.. wait.. never mind you must have money already!
Jeremy
Re:Is he as adict^H^H^H^H good s Robert Jordan? (Score:1)
Enjoy
Question for you all (Score:1)
What's everyone's predictions on how this is going to turn out? Even with all the multimedia, pictures, etc. that Tad is going to include along with the story text, do you think people are actually going to pay for it?
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Re:Episodic? Why?? (Score:1)
Re:Open Source writing is the only ethical writing (Score:1)
Of course, it's an open question whether "moderators who skim" or "moderators who read carefully" are in the majority.
Re:installments, reading on the web? (Score:3)
FWIW, for the past 8 months I've done almost all my reading on my Handspring Visor and I have to say that for me, it beats the hell out of paper books. The screen simply hasn't been an issue and I love the convenience of:
1. Being able to finish one book at 3 a.m., go to Baen.com or Fictionwise, and immediatley get something new to read.
2. Not having to hold a book open and continuously turn pages.
3. Being able to read in the dark with a backlit display.
4. Not using up any more of my (already packed) shelf space.
Before I tried it I didn't really think it would work very well either, but, having tried it I don't think I'll ever go back.
Re:Is he as adict^H^H^H^H good s Robert Jordan? (Score:1)
Are you kidding me? Admittedly, the latest ones read like synopses of longer books, rather than books themselves, but it's not because Jordan stretched it. Instead, shame on Jordan for having a story that would take that long and not having the balls and grit to finish it off how it needs to be. After Path of Daggers, I'm extremely reluctant to buy any more in the series. I didn't pay $20 for Robert Jordan's book report on the book that it should have been but wasn't.
Point is, any half-way decent author can tell you that you don't need to (and, indeed, should not) worry about how long your story is -- it has a natural length. At some point, the story'll just be over. It never felt like the series was being stretched. It was that we were progressing through the story -- not at Jordan's pace, not at the reader's pace, but at the story's pace. Which was an immenently attractive feature of the books: here was a story that was being given its due, without the author intruding too much to force pacing or put up framing devices or other rhetoric. This was very good. Even if the series was long, the story was still good, and so I could curb my impatience for answers because the story was comforting. Jordan knows he can't just jump to the end -- there's too much inbetween that needs to be resolved, but he appears to have lost interest in giving the story any credit. That's a shame. Goodkind is doing much better with the Sword of Truth series, which has developed quite nicely and is still written with the interest of telling the story, rather than trying to rush headlong towards the end of it.
Tad Williams (Score:1)
Minor correction (Score:1)
The Belgariad was written by Eddings. Feist wrote the Riftware Saga. I loved both series, though IMHO everything Eddings wrote after the Belgariad was junk.
The Death Gate Cycle was amazing. I've been thinking about reading it again.
Re:Open Source writing is the only ethical writing (Score:1)
Not the first author.... (Score:2)
Bookface had a reading interface that was likened to 'streaming text'--it downloaded a piece of the book at a time, and as you reached the end of the segment, it pulled another. Sort of like the segments of an escalator.
The user interface surprised a lot of people--many skeptics were converted after they found that they had just read online for an hour without even realizing it. The width of text on the screen was designed to emulate the approximate size of a paperback book. You hit the spacebar to advance to the next page, like a visceral reminder of flipping the leaves of a book. You could search through the text of the work you were reading, or search against all of the books in the database. When you returned to a book after a prior reading session, it would return you to where you left off. You could leave annotations to yourself, anchored on certain text--think of it as highlighting a passage and adding a note reminding you WHY you highlighted it at the same time.
Unfortunately, the downturn of the internet sector clobbered Bookface. The company did have good momentum, partially because printing a trade novel to paper is a costly process (to address the assertion of another poster)--electronic publishing is a less expensive alternative, and it reduces time to market. Perhaps once the economic climate returns to "Sunny and Warm", the founders of Bookface will resurface.
E-Books... (Score:1)
Re:Open Source writing is the only ethical writing (Score:1)
While some intellectual property might be more beneficial if it were "open-sourced" (for example: software), I believe some should most definitely NOT be (fiction). Software could be contributed to by many sources to be improved upon, whether it is additional functionality, more efficiency, better user interface, etc.... Fictional works written by individuals should more-than-likely not be improved upon or rewritten by additional authors. (If this were the case, we'd probably have about 30 different versions of "Star Wars: ANH" trying to explain "the Force" and midichlorians.) Fiction should remain the property of the author and if they wish to charge a fee to have access to their works, then so be it.
If authors could not make money on their writings, do you honestly think that we would have any more (or at least as many) writers? (Of course, other than people who find that they have a free time after their current job and family time etc...) Sure, I have no doubt the Steven King would have no problem writing more, because he's made money already and can probably live off of that for the rest of his life (although I have no idea what type of lifestyle he leads), but any writer would never consider getting into this business if you can't make a living off of it. (Unless, of course, you have a sugar-daddy on the side. But how many of us are lucky enough to have THAT?)
Re:installments, reading on the web? (Score:3)
bryguy
Re:Is he as adict^H^H^H^H good s Robert Jordan? (Score:1)
Hrm. Different strokes for different folks, I guess, but I chalk up this series as some of the best fantasy I have ever read. Of particular interest is that Goodkind avoids going for cheap thrills or messy implementations of a formula. So while Jordan turned into a, "Bad guy of the week," tale long ago, Goodkind appears able to keep focus and not resort to just having a war or Richard kill the baddy to resolve every single issue. Each of the books has something different in it and a very solid, real premise. For instance, the first was definitely about the evils of Nationalism and Intense Ethnic Pride (Darken Rahl is easily seen as Hitler); the last was definitely about Communism and the downfall of a society whose people stop doing for themselves. It's a little bit of real world politics, which might be disconcerting to people solely interested in getting away. But the fantasy elements are very strong, the love story is intriguing, the characters so lovable, etc., that it's easy just to ignore the aspects of literature that Goodkind incorporates and focus on the rest of it. If you like literature, you can easily ignore the fantasy elements and focus on the message. And if you're like me and like both, then you're in orgasmic bliss because, here, we have everything.
Re:Episodic? Why?? (Score:1)
Obviously so they can have the readers come back again and again to the site looking for the next chapter, constantly making more money for displaying banner ads on the screen for each visit.
Re:Episodic? Why?? (Score:1)
why do these online "experiments" produce episodic stories at all? Why not release the whole story in one shot
Too risky. If you publish 100,000 words electronically, clever conclusion and all, then you've pretty much blown your chance of getting a conventional publisher to pick it up.
And if two fans pay for it then, ahem, share it with their friends, and they share it on, and on, then BANG, it's gone, and you've blown a year's work and a year's reward. The downside to electronic format is that the perceived copyright gets diluted rapidly once you're not getting it from the original distribution source, so it starts as copyrighted, then it's seen as fair-use-ware, then just another share down the line you're into the Napster zone where the content is pretty much viewed as public domain freeware.
On the other hand, episodic is a bad move considering micropayments are still on the To Do list. Did you notice that The Plant would have cost you $20 to read (of which 1/3 went straight to the credit card companies), plus the cost to print it out if you wanted a hard copy? The saps - bad pun intended - who purchased the early episodes must have had rather poor arithmetic skills. However, there's no indication that Tad has a better idea. At the moment, it sounds like he's just blueskying.
Paper,PDAs,and Preference (Score:2)
I have no problems reading electronic text. I've read quite a few novels via my old Palm Pilot Pro. The only hassles I deal with is occasionally having to reformat the text so its comfortable on the Pilot and dealing with the Pilot Pro's limited memory (which means creating multiple doc files and shuffling out the old for new to keep up with where I am in the story).
I have been suprised to find that I have no problems with the interface. I find myself just as immersed in the text as when I read a traditional paperback book. It is easier to carry the novel around and read it at oportune times. And, as a bonus, I get a book light for reading when it gets dark.
Others report having a hard time reading with this format. Usually the complaints center on the readability of the text rather than the reading tools themselves. After all, the Pilot wasn't designed as an electronic book - so its no suprise that some find the experience unsuitable.
Does that mean the end of paper books? I hope not.
I still like traditional books. There is still something about the experience of a book that can't be replaced by a glossy electronic device. And I like to have my book shelves populated by my favorite works - quite often hard cover copies of series that I particularly liked. Again, its not the same as a directory of file names... even if you do something Nautilus-like with a nice cover art icon.
I would love to buy a book and be able to slip out the included CDROM to load up my Pilot before placing the book in my library. But I suspect publishers would have little incentive to do this. Instead, I suspect the model would be something along the lines of buying hard cover books for my library and (hopefully) a reduced fee to download the electronic text.
This wouldn't be the end of the paper book. But paperbacks may become the casualty in this arangement.
Re:The Plant wasn't dumb... (Score:2)
Re:Episodic? Why?? (Score:2)
Re:Is he as adict^H^H^H^H good s Robert Jordan? (Score:1)
Ranessin
Need To Change Slashdot's Header (Score:1)
Need to change "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters" to "Editorials for Nerds. Stuff that matters". It suits this place a little better.
Bryan R.
Re:Is he as adict^H^H^H^H good s Robert Jordan? (Score:1)
Yeah, vivid imagery I really love the way Tad Williams tells a story. I get wrapped up in the stuff so much. As to the imagery, his style fits to the setting so well. In Memory, Sorrow, & Thorn, the only Williams I have read, in all-out battle, the writing is extremely fast-paced. And during the cave-crawling scenes, the style was very slow and excruciating, but it was like being in a cave with no light.
Re:Open Source writing . . . (Score:1)
I honestly don't get it. Writers don't want a daily grind -- they want to write. If they give a good deal of people some joy, they want a reasonable return so that they can support their family, live in relative comfort, and write more. In the world of software, programmers aren't respected as artists. They don't receive a royalty for the sale of their creations. They're salary workers expected to come in to the workplace like a typical gopher, sit in a cubical, and perform some magical rites over a computer.
It seems to be pretty clearly an entirely different situation... But maybe I'm missing out on something?
Re:Not the first author.... (Score:1)
I don't know if I'd consider Tad Williams to be a major author. I DO know that I definitely wouldn't consider they guy that created Babylon 5 to be one.
Josh Sisk
Re:Open Source writing is the only ethical writing (Score:1)
dumb? (Score:1)
http://www.stephenking.com/PlantNumbers_010101.ht
Re:Questions (revenue? format?) (Score:1)
We all have to make choices, and dependent upon what Tad Williams is familiar, we shouldn't judge him if he uses formats not viewable for everyone. In all life, there must be sacrifices.
Re:installments, reading on the web? (Score:1)
I actually like reading books and the fact that the battery won't run out on the train journey home from work :) I don't mind when I've rested too long on one wrist and I'm walking round the house like an egyptian for a few minutes. I suppose that I'm lucky in that if I run out of book shelf space I've enough room to build more :)
I do keep an index of my books, a precis and who I've lent 'em to on one of my boxes at home but I don't read the things there. As I say, I think books will increasingly become electronic, you'll increasingly probably not have to pay for specific books as publishing co-operatives are set-up by other lit. geeks and your content provider buys a bulk license so you get it with your service :)
None of this is bad, particularly. Some of it very good (especially the co-op publishers, I like that idea; anybody know of one?). In fact the only bad thing is that I seem to be currently unable to finish a sentence without using duff punctuation }:^)
KT
Well, this is great news for Williams fans (Score:2)
Ever since I read "The Science of Hitting" as a child, I've been eager to read more of his work.
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Re:Open Source writing is the only ethical writing (Score:1)
The "correct" English usage of "its" is wrong. That it is accepted practice does not make it correct. It's a stupid rule, and I'm happy every time I see someone using the incorrect, yet more logical "it's". Each time brings us a step closer to removing "its" from the language altogether.
</RANT>
Good idea, but not exactly new (Score:1)
The problem with digital distribution... (Score:1)
Re:installments, reading on the web? (Score:1)
Heh, I just got it yeserday because MobiPocket was mangling palmdoc stuff from fictionwise. I agree it's pretty sweet.
Is this supposed to be serious? (Score:4)
Or, perhaps, you mean that all writing should be "free" (as in beer). Because if the literary work is the "compiled product," the real "source" of one's writing, insofar as I can tell, is the collection of experiences of an author. I've already seen some responses here saying, "yeah, imagine if we had to pay for Shakespeare" or whatnot-- First point-- shakespeare was PAID for what he wrote, just not by you. Secondly, Shakespeare's plays and poems were not written in a write-something-and-pass-it-on fashion (unless you're one of those people that believe he didn't actually write anything). The "collaborative" elements that inspired his work came from other plays and writings that had come before him, world mythology and the history of civilization, and from his own personal experiences and trials and experimentations.
They did not come from a committee submitting literary "patches" for his sonnets.
If writing is to become a truly creative medium on a par with programming
Is this a joke? Are you also advocating open-source painting? If so, maybe you can help me get a paintbrush into MOMA-- I'd like to make a few improvements to some of the Picassos.
In short, if you really believe all writing should be definition be collaborative, please forward your Slashdot password so i can submit better informed opinions.
I kinda feel like this is a troll or I'm just missing the sarcasm.
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Art by anarchist committee? HA! (Score:1)
- Penn Jillette
Other works... (Score:1)
Re:Question for you all (Score:1)
Easy... (Score:1)
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Better, way better. (Score:2)
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That could be problematic (Score:1)
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Williams (Score:2)
I haven't read anything of his since picking up Caliban's Hour at the Dollar Store. I thought, 'hey, Memory, Sorrow and Thorn kicked ass! This novel is only a buck, must be my lucky day!'
Was that his only flop? I never read any of the Otherland stuff. (I'll likely download this serial thingie, though, it sounds cool...)
"Smear'd with gumms of glutenous heat, I touch..." - Comus, John Milton
Prelude (Score:1)
-SatanicPezDispenser
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Writhe your naked ass to the mindless groove.
Re:Is this supposed to be serious? (Score:1)
If i had to pay money to read Shakespeare, I wouldn't. If i had to pay money to look at a painting by Picasso, I wouldn't.
I consider myself fairly enlightened. I enjoy such things as Shakespeare and Picasso. But if someone were to demand outrageous prices for the priveledge of viewing them, i wouldn't put up with it. If this were the case, nobody would.
I by no means advocate an 'open writing' process where patches come and go and it's a collaborative process. That's ridiculous!
Brief review of Memory, Sorrow and Thorn (Score:3)
The gist of MSoT is, what happens after "they lived happily ever after"? The novel starts with the death via old age of Prester John, the land's beloved king who, in legend, slayed a dragon and built his throne from its bones. The king's sons start a struggle for the throne, but the real story follows a scullery boy named Simon as he flees the castle and "dark forces" (oooh) that are pulling the strings.
It's all pretty basic Joseph Campbell stuff, except that there is no blind "here's the archetypal hero, here's the archetypal bad guy" stuff. The characters of MSoT (and there are a LOT of them) are all very deep and complex; Tad Williams is clearly aware that from each character's perspective, the story being told is their own.
In fact, this storytelling tendency even gets Williams into a little trouble. The first volume of the "trilogy" is enormous. The second (and fastest-paced of the set) isn't quite as large; the third is twice the size of the first. In paperback, the third is simply sold as two gigantic paperbacks. There's an amazing amount of story stuffed into this simple premise.
There have been rumors of Tad Williams doing another set of novels in the MSoT "universe," and I know of one additional short story set as a prelude to MSoT. Shadowmarch might be this additional set of novels -- "Qul-na-Qar" sounds like a city right out of MSoT, and the Twilight People are probably the Sithi. Maybe.
A couple other things: I haven't been able to get into the sci-fi epic he's spent most of the 90's working on. Sorry. VR fiction just doesn't do much for me after Snow Crash. But I really want to give it another chance.
also: Serial fiction rules. For six months I was absolutely GLUED to Barnes & Noble waiting for the chapters of Green Mile to come out. It is so great to have something to look forward to so much every month. Remember when X-Files was at its height and you couldn't wait to see each new episode? It's like that, but literary. This is gonna be FUN.
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hearsay (Score:2)
So you say. I argue: a) online distribution is not a bellweather for print success, nor do the audiences overlap to any great extent; b) the market for e-books of any format remains largely nascent.
The fact is that this is an established author, not King, granted, but he could get this book between covers if he wanted to. I'd be more interested in the experience of a new author using this model more. I think this is a legit road to print for a new author, building a demonstrated market for her work which only enhances its value to potential publishers.
Re:Not the first author.... (Score:1)
Fair enough; however, JMS has published short stories and other works in addition to creating Babylon 5. His following encompasses a significant portion of the online community. Being a member of that community, I can't account for his popularity with "offline" folks.
It takes advantage... (Score:2)
oops... (Score:1)
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Re:Minor correction (Score:1)
Serialization (Score:2)
Ulysses in one sitting? was Re:Episodic? Why?? (Score:1)
Man, your butt must have been really numb by the end.
Re:Is he as adict^H^H^H^H good s Robert Jordan? (Score:1)
It's just something about the little nut's mystical jibber jabber that sets me off. And it wouldn't be so bad if people didn't take it so damn seriously. I mean, come on.. you're trapped in the most advanced computer system the world has ever seen, and you're basing your decisions off african tribal mythology? Renie's started annoying me toward the end of book 3 as well, she's getting a bit pushy and domineering. I'd almost be tempted not to even read book 4, but i just have to find out what happened to Orlando, and what happens with him and Fredericks. *sigh* Addiction is a harsh mistress.
Right (Score:2)
Re:Is he as adict^H^H^H^H good s Robert Jordan? (Score:2)
Re:Is he as adict^H^H^H^H good s Robert Jordan? (Score:2)
But what about Paul Jonas (Score:2)
Re:The Plant WAS dumb (Score:3)
SK made nearly half a million on that "dumb idea" (Score:3)
No it certainly wan't a dumb idea (the story wasn't so hot, but what else could he use for an experiment outside of his publishing contracts?).
If you go to his web site [stephenking.com] you can see the expense report [stephenking.com] for The Plant. He made a fairly nice profit (half a million) considering 1) it was a first-time experiment, 2) it was overpriced, 3) he botched up the mailing list that was supposed to announce new installments, so nobody knew to get the next installment, and 4) the story was a leftover.
He even wrote letters (used to be on his website someplace) to major publications that called it a "failure" saying that it actually wasn't a failure, he made half a million on a book that never even existed on paper! But of course the publishers declined to publish those letters. Wonder why?
I would definitely call it a successful first attempt. Imagine if he works out the wrinkles, gets some better marketing, and tries it with a better book (or in parallel with a regular paper book).
Re:The Plant wasn't dumb... (Score:2)
Could have been worse. You could have started reading wheel of time when the first book came out. What was that...? 1990? 1991?
--locust
Re:The Plant wasn't dumb... (Score:2)
Second, The Plant was a stupid idea - for the consumers. Pay 2-3 times the price for a paper book, have insane restrictions on redownloading multiple copies (SK's head is *so* far up his ass on issues like multiple copies of an e-book being equated to a physical book.) and a lack of guarantee of a finished product.
Sure, SK made a shitload of money. So do many other conmen every day. He sold a product he clearly didn't intend to actually provide and guilt-tripped the innocent into covering the supposed 'theft' of others. (He counted multiple downloads as a theft, without even considering that downloads fail every now and then, let alone that downloading a second copy for the Palm isn't an offense anyone with a clue would care about, and furthermore, that 'theft' is not a word that applies to making *copies* of something.)
He obviously went into it for a quick buck, intending to quit whenever it wasn't profitable, regardless of all the users he screwed by leaving them with a partial story.
Re:SK made nearly half a million on that "dumb ide (Score:2)
And I don't think it was 'dumb', I think SK intended to stop at some point. He knew he had a flop of a story, but if he flogged it chapter by chapter he could eventually blame the lack of sales on 'pirates', instead of the fact the story sucked.
If he was doing this, for real, he wouldn't have guilt-tripped the paying users into paying more to cover the supposed 'theft' by the nasty 'pirates'. He'd have had a reasonably robust system implemented to make sure that people actually got the section they intended to download, and that replacements could be provided for a reasonable price (free, or $.05 for the bandwidth, etc) for people who lost the original copy.
Instead he set up a system with insane rules, knowing that when it screwed up, he'd be a good bit richer and wouldn't have to actually provide the product.
What a complete ass.
fantasy serialisation (Score:2)
I think I'd actually prefer a novel that was serialised more in the manner of Dickens, because it will avoid the long wait between volumes, which can be as much as two years with a high quality work like George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire.
Anyway, I enjoyed Memory, Sorrow, Thorn, so I'll definitely give this a look. (I might even change my mind about not reviewing e-books [dannyreviews.com]...
Danny.
Re:SK made nearly half a million on that "dumb ide (Score:2)
One other mistake he made was using percentage of downloads paid as the benchmark. He should've used his profit margin as the benchmark (i.e., I want to make fifty cents of profit for every dollar spent on web hosting and bandwidth, or something), or absolute profit (I want to make one million on this ebook or I won't do another one). If he reaches his goal, who cares how many people have copies of the story? And he should've put something in the PDF itself reminding people to pay if their friend gave them a copy, just on the first page or something. If 1 out of 1000 pays like this, that's pretty good considering copies between friends doesn't cost him a penny.
But I still hope other authors follow his lead and continue the experiment.
Not the first (Score:2)
Rich
Re:Open Source writing is the only ethical writing (Score:2)
Bzzzzt. Sorry, thanks for playing though. Its is a possesive pronoun; pronouns aren't modified by the genetive ending ('s). If we apply your 'logic' than it should be he's instead of his and I's instead of mine, and so forth.
Chris
Re:Open Source writing is the only ethical writing (Score:2)
Bzzzzt. Sorry, thanks for playing though. Its is a possesive pronoun; pronouns aren't modified by the genetive ending ('s). If we apply your 'logic' than it should be he's instead of his and I's instead of mine, and so forth.
The 'logic' you mentioned would apply more in (here I'll use some technical terms, since you seem to value that) agglutinating [let.uu.nl] languages (such as many Finno-Ugric languages), or in polysynthetic [let.uu.nl] languages (such as most Eskimo languages), but it generally doesn't apply in inflectional languages (such as most Western European languages), and can't apply in isolating languages (such as Chinese).
"It's" is more technically correct
If you'd like to learn some accurate technical things about languages, I suggest you check out what the Linguists say: http://www.linguistlist.org [linguistlist.org]. Afterall, they spend a bit more time thinking about this kind of stuff, and they use a little more empirical data than their own opinions.
Chris
playing for keeps (reply to both) (Score:2)
The argument I am making, I'd like to see made, is that the new distribution model dramatically alters the value proposition the big publishing houses make for authors, but this has thus far had no impact on the status of authors in negotiation for their IP. The production, inventory and distribution costs have essentially vanished and with no impact on rights valuations; the situation is precisely comparable to that in the music industry. The only value-add publishers provide is editing and quality assurance, effectively noise filtration. Against this the terms of the typically first-time novelist's contract are profoundly insufficient.
Big publishing has only recently allowed its accounting procedures to be audited by a professional association of American writers and they found gross negligence and outright fraud, with costs being inflated in order to ensure that little or no royalties would be due. It is quite common for new authors to be required to reimburse the publisher a portion of their advance. Perfectly criminal, IMHO.
I shamelessly invite you to have a glance at scripsi.com in a week or two.