On Sat, Apr 11, 2009 at 7:56 AM, Alicia Henn <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Kudos to all of you that have jumped in to wrestle with the sticky
> issues here.
> There was a fine question in one of these replies. I apologize that I
> don't remember which one I read it in.
>
> If we could design a system in a new universe, with no contract law or
> copyright law or previous decisions to muck things up, what would it
> be? Are the current music models relevant or could we do better?
Well, we can always do better ;-). (And who's version of 'better', anyway?)
Seriously, Jason and Craig are so much more passionate on the music models
that I'd defer to them, but the one point that I'd want to make is that we
have different needs and desires w.r.t. the model. The resulting model is
likely to be market-dictated -- but what that means is not going to be as
simple as 'what consumers want.' That would be the idealized version of how
markets work, but they don't, really, and we know that.
Anyway, yes, I think it's a fantastic question, and I absolutely think
that's what this whole business of speculative fiction is almost all about:
Asking questions about how we want the world to work.
>
>
> We'd want to disseminate our works broadly with unambiguous authorship.
> We'd want to be paid well.
I'm going to say something that's liable to annoy some people here: If you
need to be paid well, don't write fiction. If you want to be paid well,
write subject matter material for pay (marketing copy, technical prose,
etc.). You can set out to do that and have a reasonable assurance that, if
you're good enough at communicating through words, you will at least be able
to make a living and possibly be able to make a quite good one. (I know a
freelance marketing writer who routinely pulls in $80K while working a
ten-month year.)
But don't write fiction. Historically, the median professional writer of
fiction (where "professional" means "gets paid to do it") has more or less
never made a living at it. Hell, I would venture to guess that the vast *
majority* never have. Writing as a profession really doesn't exist except as
a remarkable exception before the 19th century and the advent of mass
printing technology. That's what made George Sand or Charles Dickens
possible.
There are three ways that a lot of writers could start making significant
money, as I see it:
1. The vast sums paid to the JK Rowlings and Stephen Kings could get
spread around. I don't see that happening because we can see from the way
markets behaved in the past that in an open system with competition, there
will tend to be large contracts awarded to people who can deliver large
sales.
2. People can start paying a lot more money for what they read, by unit
of volume. Counterintuitively, perhaps, micropay could help with that, and I
think that's what you're driving at. Could be mistaken. I don't see that
happening just because people aren't likely to
3. People could start spending a lot more on what they read. Not quite
the same as [2], because it could imply just plain reading more.
>
>
> Could technology help? If every time someone opened up my novel on an
> eReader, a signal sent a dollar from their bank account directly to
> mine, could I pay my mortgage? An incentive for the reader to read a
> book all in one sitting.
> What if that page didn't download until I had a penny of theirs? More
> incentive for the author to leave cliffhangers.
Personally, I think this way lies madness.
This is basically the 'micropayment' vision. It's cliche that micropay
hasn't taken off and there are any number of people who'll offer any number
of different reasons why. (I personally think the main reason was that the
user interactions were too esoteric for the technology infrastructure of
1999-2002 or so, when it was the hottest hot hot idea.) The concept is that
you pay small amounts for each individual use, on an ongoing basis. You pay
a penny for each time you listen to more than a few seconds of a song. You
pay a penny for each page view of someone's blog. Five cents to read a full
article from the NYT.
To paraphrase Sam Rayburn (a lot): A penny here, five cents there, pretty
soon you're talking about real money.
I can tell you this: If that's how the world worked, I'd opt out so fast it
would make my head spin.
Or that's how I feel about it. In all likelihood, micropayment will creep up
on us by inches and we won't realize we've got it. Early indicators are the
use of wireless payment for gas and tolls, and RFID-equpped credit cards
that you just need to wave at a reader. (Everyone has them in Europe. The
clerks sometimes get flustered dealing with Americans for that reason --
they have to take special steps they don't have to with Europeans. They must
think of us as technological bumpkins.) Fast food drive-throughs will be
next. It will start on the Thruway and use EasyPass. (On Tuesday, October
30*, 2009. And the dipole transmitters will be painted mauve.)
There have been plenty of micropay-like visions in SF. I seem to recall (may
be injecting) that there was something about that in "Riders of the Purple
Wage." And it reminds me of the protag of PKD's *Ubik*, who has to argue
with the door to his apartment because he can't pay it the entrance fee.
--
*Gag works better if 10/30/09 is not a Tuesday, but I don't feel like
looking it up.
>
>
> I don't think I'd design a system in which there was a higher price
> all at once, a one-time fee of twenty seven dollars. That's too much
> risk for a reader to invest in something unknown.
>
Are you making fun of our beloved publishing industry, Alicia ;-)?
>
> I think I'd stage a video lead-in with actors playing out the first
> chapter to have that visual grab that movies have.
> I think I'd make a great interactive universe like Dana's for readers
> to roam through like their own character.
> And then I'd charge by the minute.
So the faster you read, the less you pay? No dwelling over passages --
discourage re-reading. Discourage exploration (takes time). Honestly, I
wouldn't go near it. I tend to avoid anything for which I have to pay by the
minute (or hour or day). International phone calls and toll roads are
necessary evils, but I don't like either for just that reason. Maybe that's
just me.
Mind you, I think all the other ideas are great, and even sound like fun.
"Book trailers" are similar to what you're describing with the visual
presentation.
What happens, though, if you let go of the idea of getting paid -- or at
least, of getting paid very much? I know, we're Americans and we all have
this dream of making it big someday, but what about the joy of creation?
Several people posting on this list will often talk about getting paid for
their work, and then almost in the same message make it clear through how
they talk about their work that they'll do it, and share it, regardless of
whether they get paid. (I'm looking at you, Mr. Paxson ;-).) People post all
kinds of crazy, wild stuff on YouTube that they never get paid for.
I also agree with Janice (we were talking about this today) that it could be
useful ("wise"? "healthy"?) to let go of the idea of creating for the ages.
Those darn 'kids on Youtube' are a model again. They make stuff that's no
longer topical in a matter of days, sometimes, and then they just go out and
do it again.
(SF'nally, this reminds me of the "singers" in Delaney's "Time Considered as
a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones". They exist to make songs about things that
happen. After a while that song doesn't matter anymore. They don't care
because they're busy making songs about other things that happen.)
--
eric scoles ([email protected])
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