[cc-community] Promoting a CC book, Thicker Than Blood

M.A.Newhall ttb at thickerthanbloodthebook.com
Sun Jun 11 15:30:55 EDT 2006


On Sat, 10 Jun 2006, drew Roberts wrote:

>> My goal is get as many people as possible to read the book and tell me
>> what they think.
>
> What is it about the particular license you have chosen that makes you think
> it will entice people to do this?

Here is a question for you.  When do you think it is appropriate to use 
this CC license?  How about that new Perl Jam video?  Do you think they 
were out of line picking the same license as I did?

There is a fundamental lie to the media industry.  Even fifteen years ago 
you needed to purchase the medium to get the content.  It was a 
practical restraint.  So they tied all of their financial tracking and legal
protections to the finite medium model.  That is all over.

Even since about 1990-1995 (.mp3, cd-rw, Internet) clever fans have 
figured out ways to separate the content from the medium.  This screws up
the ability to make sales projections and subsequently all contracts.  Many
of the top decision makers are really just statisticians with jet planes, and
now they are facing obsolescence.  So, deciding it was better to protect 
themselves than maximize sales, they attack the clever fans.  To give into 
a one time purchase with any medium used after, screws with their 
stats.  It also reveals another twisted injustice.  The profits for 
the statisticians are obscene, because the medium is actually cheap.

Fortunately with the exception of a few e-book incidents, the book 
industry was the least unfair and overpriced of all the copyright 
entertainment industries.  Margins are small and so are profits.  So here 
I am deciding that this is the medium to communicate with people, but 
refusing to live the lie.  People will buy my book because (well first 
because they are interested) they find it more economically feasible and
more convenient to buy it than to print their own.

Just like all other copyright in the Internet age, it becomes a service 
instead of good.  A company can leverage my copyright to become the only 
bulk printer at a cheaper price than an individual can.  If there is a profit 
maybe I'll even make a few bucks.

I guess at my core I don't want to see entertainment copyright abolished 
or all forced into copyleft.  Operating system kernels will always have 
interest because of tangential motives, (like `I wrote the program your 
million dollar operation is using, hire me or your competitor will') but
so many able artists have no tangential value until they already very famous.

>
>> The plan was to release it under the CC first knowing it
>> couldn't be taken back.  Then I would shop it to publishers.  I was hoping
>> I could just skip the "shopping it" step this time around and shop it
>> along with it's sequel (I'm planning four) with a really strong fan base.
>> But I was having bad luck getting people to read, review (bad reviews are
>> good too I have a day job to fall back on), or list the book.
>>
>> I was hoping the book industry was different than the music or movie
>> industries in that they didn't have a land lock on the distribution and
>> promotion channels.
>
> Here is a link about the publishing industry that I have bookmarked:
>
> http://members.ozemail.com.au/~irvinei/publishing.html
>

Thank you.  This is a very good link, lots of straightforward details. 
The brutal beating and lack of money in writing for new writers is about
what I expected.  This is coherent with what I already believed. 
Fortunately it does not clash with my goal; get the maximum amount of 
people to read this story.  Compared to the cost of living in NY, it seems 
most advances would be a rounding error.  I was already prepared to write 
this series and be done with it, never leaving my career while I do that.

>
> You might want to check these links about writin and publishing as well:
>
> http://nanonuts.blogspot.com/2005/10/copyright-essentials-for-writers.html

Old news I learned most of this stuff year two of being an open source 
advocate.

> http://nanonuts.blogspot.com/2005/10/previously-published.html
> http://www.nanowrimo.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=2622&viewmode=flat&order=ASC&start=0

This is mainly why I was prepared not do any kind of deal with this book. 
To date I have not sent a manuscript to a single publisher.  Honestly 
though I think this is worth it because I have received a boatload of 
edits that have been invaluable in tuning my grammatical skills.

The plan was shop it to a few with full disclosure about the site but not 
get discouraged.  If the reviews aren't both sane and terrible write the
second book in the series and throw the first in for free when I shop it. 
So far I have received only one so-so review, the rest have been warm to 
glowing.

> http://www.nanowrimo.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=2622&forum=150&post_id=266915#forumpost266915

Here it is, the bottom line.  Publishers that believe that having a 
non-commercial non-modify copy of a book out there will hurt them are 
acting more like the panicky statisticians of Hollywood than they would 
like to admit.  If I give this my all and I can't shop the second book then
I know there is no traditional channel for literary criticism of the 
copyright and patent industries.  Eventually entertainment will compete on a
level playing field elevating talent over insider connections and luck, 
while maximizing the profits to the artists.  Since I do not need the 
royalties to survive I am pressing that advantage and approaching sci-fi
publishing from where it will be in the future, not where it is now.

Matt

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Matthew Newhall
President of LILUG
Long Island Linux Users Group
president at lilug.org
http://lilug.org

Despite improved efficiency, copyrights, patents, and fractional reserve banking
share the same problem.  The press does not show numerically complete scaled
annotated axises on published graphs, and people do not know to ask for them.
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