Quote:
Originally Posted by frahse
So I will change my challenge to "Tell me of 10 significant authors that eschew DRM." [I](((... and I will spare the whole place ... Genesis 18)))
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As mentioned, you haven't defined "significant." Sold a million books? Made a million dollars? Won international awards? Is paid guest speaker at conventions? Is known and respected by everyone within a genre? Without criteria, I'm rather fishing here.
Where do you draw the line between "midlist author" and "
significant author?"
1. J.K. Rowling, author of the book with the highest initial print run in history. (Deathly Hallows had a first run of over 12 million hardcovers.) Books recently released at Pottermore; watermarked epubs without DRM.
2) Harlan Ellison, with 11 Hugo awards, 3 Nebulas, and at least 5 "lifetime achievement" awards in various fields: Several books available as non-DRM'd multiformat at Fictionwise.
3) Lois McMaster Bujold, 4 Hugos, 2 Nebulas; 3 novels on the NYTimes Bestseller list; Vorkosigan series is available without DRM through Baen.
4) Diane Duane, author of the very popular YA "So You Want to Be a Wizard" series, several Star Trek novels, more than a dozen other books. Sells ebooks without DRM at her own site.
5) Cory Doctorow, whose
Little Brother won four different awards, as mentioned, gives away ebooks for free to promote print sales; is willing to sell them at other sites but has been having problems finding commercial sites willing to accept Creative Commons releases that override their TOS.
6) Larry Niven, 5 Hugos and a Nebula, author of Ringworld, creator of the Kzinti and the
Known Space 'verse which were added to Star Trek's animated universe, author of the short story "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex;" has many books available at Baen.
7) Joe Konrath, over 15 novels, a few dozen short stories; poster-boy for self-published ebookery. Probably not "significant" by most people's measures, except for the "made $140,000 in 30 days" details. Konrath proves (and says, over and over) that an author's success isn't measured by access to the NYTimes Bestseller list or prestigious literary awards.
8) Mark Waid. (Never heard of him, you say? He writes in fields where the author's name is in tiny text underneath the larger company logo and even larger series name.) He wrote "The Flash" comics for DC for 8 years; worked on many others; has a 25 year history in comic books. Publishes comics titles with Top Cow at DriveThruComics.com; starting his own digital comics site next week.
9) Maya Banks, award-winning romance author, sells through both Agency publishers and Samhain Publishing, which doesn't have DRM.
10) Victor J. Banis, who's been called the "godfather of modern popular gay fiction," publishes through MLR press and other LGBT-friendly companies without DRM.