Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Jordan
We had "free" growing up. We had TV and radio. We had libraries. We had free concerts in the park, by major professional artists. (Either you're much younger than I, or your memory is failing faster than mine.)
And all transitory as hell, with the exception of public domain novels. Not losing sleep over that.
And it's always been that way... for kids. When they grow up, however, they discover that a horde of friends on the other side of the world won't help you pay the rent... and that you want that cute girl in Kansas City to be more than just your "Facebook friend."
The grownup world still costs. The grownups are still in control of what costs, and the kids aren't making any plans to become the rich CEOs that bribe the congresspeople to keep costs in place. They're too busy bragging about the number of Facebook friends they have.
In any case, there's no use being worried about "those kids," since <tongue_planted_firmly_in_cheek> they don't read anything but specialty magazines devoted to whatever movies, cars, girls and surf hangouts they're really interested in. They're not reading our stuff... they don't even know it exists, beyond the pop stuff advertised in the specialty magazines. </tongue_planted_firmly_in_cheek>
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You may be right, completely, but I'm having a hard time imagining how anybody can build sustainable business models in the face of generations who don't want to, and don't feel the need to equate any object with a money value. I do believe there are opportunities surrounding the fiction itself, in community driven projects and grants, but it's really all just curiosity and hunches from us all, no matter which way we approach this. And I'll admit, I have absolutely nothing to lose in this as I don't plan on trying to make money with my fiction (if I did, I would not be writing what I write and I would be focused exclusively on genre works and releasing them exclusively to Amazon just as a matter of common sense).
As it is I'll take the hundred or so people who've downloaded my latest story from places I've never visited and might never visit. Somewhere, in some corner of India, Denmark, Italy, the Korean Republic... in a bedroom or a living room in Holland, Malaysia and Turkey... maybe on some phone in the US or a Netbook in the UK....in all these places there's someone I don't know who might be reading what only a few days ago was an idea in my head. Some of them might enjoy that story. For some it might be just the right amount of escape to make their morning a little better, or maybe just enough to send them off to sleep. In my wildest dreams it's some young teenager who, having enjoyed what I wrote, writes something themselves and puts that out for others to read.
Writing is payment.
