Aaron Swartz has posted his tips for book authors. Aaron is an awesomely intelligent teenager but sometimes he gets out ahead of himself. I sent the following to him as an email after reading his tips. Remember, I’m a real published author, have worked for a publisher as well, and know the darkness that is this industry. Still, Aaron is pretty far off the mark. His original material here is emphasized.
Once you’ve recouped the cost of creating the book (and potentially the cost of writing your next one) please donate it to the public domain (i.e. give up your copyright).
I don’t quite get your point here. For starters, we live in a capitalist society and so just recouping cost is not the way things work here. What about profit? Is an author or composer entitled to that? I do hope you do at least include living expenses in your concept of cost so that authors don’t have to wander aimlessly from friendly blogger loft to loft each night seeking a place to sleep and jack in to upload their latest creation. Looking at creative work from a different angle, I doubt your friends Lessig and Doctorow live hand to mouth and turn down money from their publishers (though I’m sure they are both generous and give of their time as well, not knocking them).
The copyright system was created only to increase the size of the public domain; please don’t cheat the public by taking more of it than you need.
Really? I thought the system was created to ensure creators would make their works available to other people and structured so that there is compensation rather than just what the RIAA would call piracy. Not that I’m a fan of the RIAA but authors (and painters and musicians, etc.) do need a mechanism to reward and encourage their efforts. I don’t think Lessig and Doctorow believe they are cheating the public.
And don’t tips 3 and 4 sort of conflict with each other? Steven King tried the read and donate model recently but couldn’t make it work and stopped releasing chapters of that book; if one of the bestselling authors is unable to be successful what makes you think anyone can? Similarly, how many bloggers who’ve posted donate/Amazon Honor System on their websites have actually received a single dollar?
Okay, let’s just mark this down to the enthusiasm of youth. Overall, the tips do reflect idealism rather than an understanding of the way the (technical) publishing market really works.
BillSaysThis 