publishing – Deborah Makarios

Now some of you may be wondering, what’s Aunt Eller got to do with it?

Well let me tell you, if you want to be self-published – in fact, if you want to do anything in this world different from the way the world’s used to doing it – you gotta be hardy. Allow me to illustrate…

Plan A for Restoration Day ebook distribution was to go with the same people who are distributing the paperback. The author’s share wasn’t great, considering the low overheads associated with ebooks, but for width of distribution it would be hard to beat. And then I read the terms and conditions, and discovered… DRM – Digital Rights Management, also known as Digital Restrictions Management; or as Chuck Wendig calls it, the Devil’s Restrictive Manacles. If you’re looking for a less colourful explanation of why it’s bad, check out Let’s Get Digital by David Gaughran.

Moving on! Plan B looked very promising. Indeed, Plan B went from pretty good to almost perfect overnight, when they added one of the biggest marketplaces in the world to their distribution network. I was all ready to go… until I found that they don’t accept Creative Commons works.

Why? Because the retailers allegedly won’t take them, apparently because some people have complained after finding that they paid money for something they could have downloaded for free. I tried to reason with them, but to no avail. Plan B was dead in the water, so I laid out my options with their pros and cons and dealbreakers.

Plan C… Ah, Plan C. Sell on our own website, with a couple of natty plugins. It could have been the best yet, but tragically it turned into a sort of pass-the-Tardis-parcel of paperwork, where as you remove a layer, you discover an even larger layer inside. The straw that broke the camel’s back was not the requirement of setting up a new bank account, or even setting up a formal partnership between myself and my husband, with all the paperwork that entailed.

It wasn’t their insistence that we publish our home address and phone number online; nor even that they have access to our workplace (i.e. home) at any time during working hours. No, the final straw was the terms and conditions you have to read and accept before you are allowed to read the standard of website compliance to which you will be held.

Now, let’s be clear: I’m not against web safety, not at all. I’m all for people not having their financial information stolen and used to benefit a bunch of crooks (because who else steals financial information?). I just don’t see why you need dozens of policies and procedures to protect the credit card information which isn’t being processed on your site.

That’s right: all that to protect the information which we wouldn’t even have. Enough is enough – and who is to say that that was the last layer? Apparently the first rule of the financial world is Don’t Talk About the Next Layer – in fact, don’t even suggest there are layers. It’s super simple! You’re nearly there…

You gotta be hardy. You just gotta be.

Ladies and gentlemen, friends and supporters of all shapes and sizes, I am both happy and relieved to announce that the Restoration Day ebook is finally available to the world.

Yes, if you visit this Givealittle page you can make a donation towards my ongoing existence as a writer and Person Who Eats, and receive in return a download link for the ebook. Yay!

And while you’re there, check out some of the other pages – there are many deserving causes up for support on Givealittle. Because some people have got it much worse than Plan D.

I have decided to put a license on my blog.

To be precise, a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 New Zealand licence.

This means that you can copy, reuse or even alter my works, providing that you give attribution and share yourself. (Sharing is good. Unless you have a cold.) You can even make money from them.

There are several reasons why I am doing this.

The first (at least chronologically) is that I have actually heard of CC licensing, thanks to the Caped Gooseberry.

Many people haven’t, particularly writers. Most advice for writers on the subject of licences is how to protect yourself from having your ideas ripped off.

Except the advice I received as a student in writing for theatre: don’t bother trying to protect your writing: theatre does not make enough money to be worth pirating.

Clearly, times have changed since actors made a handy side-income in reciting the latest Shakespeare to a printer. (Fascinatingly, you can actually tell which role they were playing – those lines are perfect, the other lines in their scenes are pretty accurate, and the scenes where they are offstage are complete rubbish.)

The biggest reason is that a lot of what writers do these days is publicity – book signings, library visits, blog tours and what have you. And these are the writers with publishing houses behind them.

Frankly, that isn’t my cup of tea, as much as I love the sound of my own voice. I’d rather be holed up in a rather cozy garret somewhere, writing.

A CC license allows me to allow others to spread my works far and wide (should they find it worth their while) while I stay curled up in afore-mentioned garret.

Ah, I hear you say, but what about the money?
There isn’t any.

Well, that’s not entirely true.
There are those who do quite well out of their writing – everyone knows about the fabulous wealth of J K Rowling, and as for no money in theatre, well, Yasmina Reza doesn’t do too badly.

But – and this is the point I would stress – there is not a lot of money in it either way. Unless you are JKR, you would, as one writer on writing I read said, be making a better living as a professional knitter.

Even if you can get a publishing contract – and they’re harder than ever to come by – there’s still a lot to be done for relatively little reward, considering the hours put in.

I remember meeting a bloke in a pub once who told of his best friend admitting how guilty he felt at not buying a copy of the bloke’s recently published book.
“That’s ok,” he said, “give me a dollar twenty and we’re even.”

Somewhat counter-intuitively, you can still make money by giving your work away. Exhibit A: Nina Paley.

But even if there isn’t any money in it, there’s still the joy of telling stories. And knowing that they won’t be restricted to those who can fork out forty bucks for a copy. Stories for everybody.

The world has changed. Reciting Shakespeare to a printer is no longer good money. Books don’t sell like they used to (although I would be the last to announce the death of the book).
As Curly says in Oklahoma, “Country a-changin’, got to change with it!”

Myself, I long for the old old days, when rich people would display their wealth and taste by having a writer on the payroll. Bed, board, mansion garret and possibly access to the library, in return for writing all day? Where do I apply?

So, if you see something you like, take it. Use it. Pass it on. Feel free.

The world is changing, and “the first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers”.

Tag: publishing

Plan D Success!

Licentiousness