Re: SFWA DMCA takedown.

On Fri, 31 Aug 2007 20:06:17 -0000, ErictheTolle@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

On Aug 31, 11:38 am, Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
On Fri, 31 Aug 2007 18:23:32 -0000, pv+use...@xxxxxxxxx (PV) wrote:

- Bloggers and other online writers write what they want, when they
want, monetizing it (or not) as they want, giving away only the rights
that they wish to.

Traditional writers give away only the rights they want. If you want
to make money off it, you need to give up some of them, though.

Purely out of curiosity, what rights did you give up for the Ethshar
books that you web-published on the installment plan?

Um... when?

Initially, none at all. Later, I gave Son & Foe exclusive web rights
for a period of six months, and leased book rights and non-exclusive
e-book rights to Wildside, in exchange for four-figure payments.

Son & Foe still has non-exclusive web archive rights, and the Wildside
lease is very active -- the rack-sized paperback of _The Spriggan
Mirror_ has just shipped.

As for _The Vondish Ambassador_, at the moment I still have all
rights.

Now, if you're saying this disproves "If you want to make money off
it, you need to give up some of them," you're taking that out of
context -- that was specifically for traditional writers, i.e., not on
the web. The serials were not me being a traditional writer.

My point was that a lot of people are misled by the terminology in
normal publishing. Authors do not actually sell novels to publishers
at all, unless someone signs a truly stupid contract. We lease book
rights to publishers. This usually includes letting the publisher
decide how to market the book because publishers can usualy do a much
better job of it than authors can.

Del Rey published more than a dozen of my novels over a span of
seventeen years. You know what rights Del Rey controls on those books
now?

None. Zero. Because I never sold or gave Del Rey any rights; it was
always a lease, and the leases ran out. This is normal. This is how
it works.

Publishing is normally a partnership between author and publisher;
neither one employs the other. The idea that Evil Nasty Corporate
Publishers are exploiting the poor innocent authors is bull***.
Authors aren't peasants or serfs, regardless of medium.



--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com
The fifth issue of Helix is at http://www.helixsf.com
The tenth Ethshar novel has been serialized at http://www.ethshar.com/thevondishambassador1.html
.

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