Dragaera

Artificial release dates and online publishing

Tue Dec 10 15:26:29 PST 2002

On Tue, Dec 10, 2002 at 01:20:36PM -0500, Scott Ingram <singram at videotron.ca> wrote:
> From: "Matthew Hunter" <matthew at infodancer.org>
> > On Tue, Dec 10, 2002 at 04:34:31AM -0800, Caliann the Elf
> <calianng_graves at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > The first problem with this has already been addressed:  Most
> > > established authors already have contracts which they must
> > > fulfill.
> > But not necessarily the new ones; that's the promise of any such
> > system.  Without the stamp of the old, it must depend on the new.
> Have you READ amateur fantasy? As far as I'm concerned, when I buy a book,
> I'm not paying just for the paper and binding and author's royalties, I'm
> paying for the editing and the whole darned filtering process.  There's
> whole lot of bad (yes, some of it reaches the shelves) fiction out there,
> and I really don't want to spend my time filtering it.  I think that's why I
> prefer established authors and their series'.

Yes, I have read amatuer fantasy.  Nevertheless, writers must 
start from somewhere to become established.  New writers ARE 
created.

So, yes, the slushpile problem is real, but in my opinion 
surmountable.  Still, there are ways to measure quality of a 
given web-based author much more easily than doing so for 
dead-tree authors.  There would by necessity be ways of 
filtering.

> An insignificant one, I'd hope... also, I think most of us joined this list
> to establish some sort of 'limited' contact with Mr. Brust himself... so I
> doubt any of us would want to steal from him.... except while playing cards,
> of course.  My point is, any answer to the above question generated by this
> mailing list membership would not be 'representative' of the unspoken
> readership.

Of course not, but it's still a data point.

> > The fact is, even very simple technical protections function
> > sufficiently well to make people aware that the material is
> > copyrighted and that it should not be redistributed.  And that is
> > the key point -- where people perceive purchasing the material to
> > be the right thing to do, and the material is reasonably priced,
> > that's what they will do.
> Define 'reasonable'. This amount varies from person to person, country to
> country.

No, the buyer defines "reasonable".

-- 
Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org)
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